#tbtrecipe mrsfields meth cookies mothersday corsage constructionpaper wisconsin sand cookecrisp thebadseed

[recipereruns]

#TBT Recipe - 'Mrs. Fields’ Cookies - Just Like the Mall (and My Mom) Made'

I have the prettiest mother, I have the nicest mother and my mother cooks the best meth - everybody says so. Her baking also gives Mrs. Debbi with an 'i' Fields a run for her franchise, plus she dresses and accessorizes like she's stepped right out of the pages of a Spiegel catalog.

Mother's Day 1977, my mother taught me two of my most valuable life lessons about both cookies and accessorizing. That year dad managed to go without scotch for seven whole hours as we road tripped to visit our friends and former neighbors, The Hawley's, in Racine, WI - a town once called 'backwater' by dick architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Hawley's had two kids, Johnny (super hot eight year old,) and Caroline - a fun, four year- girl, game for anything, like sampling sand out of each of our sand boxes to see which tasted better. FUN! I recall her mother asking us "Why?" as she handed us Dixie cups full of water to rinse the dirt out of our mouths. I don't know, Ginny, what made you get that perm? And why aren't we ever allowed in your basement?

Kids Van Auken loved staying the night at other people’s houses where they had things like cable, Cosmopolitan magazine and sugar cereal that they didn’t have to eat with utensils burnt by hot meth! Mother’s Day morning we woke to Trix, Cocoa Puffs and my Holy Grail, Cookie Crisp! I had begged mom for these and each time I was shot down with “You might as well have cookies for breakfast!” Well? Sure, then. I was finally going to try them!

What. A. Let. Down. Firstly, the chocolate chips were more like specks and second the texture was like biting into a sweet dog treat. It was like the Snackwell’s cookies they made in the 90’s when people were afraid of fat. Add the milk and you have a nice bowl of sweet cement. It was awful. This from a child  who recently sampled SAND. Turns out meth mom was right, you might as well have a cookie for breakfast because they were delicious and not a dry approximation of the real thing.

This bummer of a breakfast was followed by Caroline and I making ‘corsages’ for our moms to wear out to church.  Real corsages are an affront to any bosom and construction paper ones crafted by four year olds and held together by gold ‘brads’ are barely worthy of pinning to the refrigerator’s bosom. I was very little, but I knew my mother in her newly sewn Butterick’s best and butterfly Avon jewelry, would not wear this.

Sure enough, when we presented our corsages to our moms  Ginny Hawley put hers right on her beige, double-knit turtleneck sweater and it looked ridiculous. Meth mom looked down and said, “Oh, how lovely” in a way that said, “How am I getting out of wearing this?”

Everyone was piling out the door to go to church and mom and I followed behind with her still holding her ‘corsage’.  “Do I have to wear this?” she asked. “Can I have chocolate chip cookies for breakfast?”

This is a Mrs. Field’s knock off that my mom made regularly for our lunches. And sometimes breakfast. I have carried this recipe with me my whole life along with the lesson that you are NEVER obligated to wear paper accessories crafted by a child.

Happy Mother’s Day!

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 3/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Cream together melted butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla.

Stir in salt and baking soda.

Stir in flour, a little at a time.

Drop golfball sized balls onto greased cookie sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.