Peanut Butter Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I have come to an important fashion verdict in my late twenties. It is only a good idea to wear trendy high heeled shoes if, and only if, you have every last scrap of yourself together. If you think flashy shoes are going to serve as a distractor from the sloppy squalor of the duck herd you call your life, you are sorely mistaken. Impractical shoes, for the stricken woman, will seem rather more a totem to her topplability (I invented this word) than a marker of her height. No one will say, but those shoes. They will use the other conjunction—And, those shoes, to indicate how the shoes are yet one more flaw on a sad and shameful litany of misfires, social but mostly neural.

On the contrary, if you really have your shiz together, flashy shoes cease to be counted as evidence against your practicality and are instead a pinnacle of achievement, of flair. AND, those shoes! One more impossible mountain you have stood upon, sexily.

Last time I made oatmeal raisin cookies it was to make my favorite surgeon happy. This time around, the cookies are to celebrate my favorite nurse, Janelle, who last night won the privilege of hosting this year’s Art on the Ave block party at her finely landscaped house—on our block! Janelle—these cookies are in honor of you. I’ll make these for you all the time, since they are your favorite. Can’t wait for the big day in May. We’ll put your gorgeous face on all the T-shirts, and sell them paired with brioche.  

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

1 c.  creamy peanut butter

3/4 c.  packed brown sugar

½ c white sugar

2  large eggs

1 tsp  baking soda

1 tsp  vanilla extract

1/4 tsp  salt

2/3 c. rolled oats

2/3 c. raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat together peanut butter, brown sugar, eggs, baking soda, vanilla and salt until thoroughly mixed. Stir in oats and chocolate pieces. Drop by rounded tablespoons, 2 inches apart on parchment-lined or ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until edges are golden. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet; remove and cool on wire rack.

Izzy approves: today will be a high-heeled day, as opposed to my typical Dansko days of late. All is in balance. I can only take a step up from here—onto platform soles. Or, perhaps it’s what I read into the three fortune cookies I have already eaten before 6am. Medical school makes psychological rationalization so easy.