Cookies From Bachelors Young and Old

About author / Josh Gunn

Bachelor chef; southern cooking; mixologist; university professor. Josh's recipes will delight (and sometimes terrify) you.

Last week I visited with my graduate school mentors in Minneapolis. On my birthday (all hail to the July of my Years! 36!) I dined with my advisor--whom I call "Doc" but who insists on my calling him "Bob"--and his daughter Janet. It was a lovely evening.

For some reason we started talking about the bachelor life. My advisor recently lost his wife, Betty, to cancer, and he reminded me he was a "bachelor again" in good humor. We all miss Betty very much, who was a marvelous cook (and just as marvelous a conversationalist and clarinetist). I urged him to check this website for some cooking tips, since I had a number of recipes I thought he would like.

"Oh, dad's got some good ones," Janet said. "Have you tried his cookies?"

"No," I remarked in feigned horror. "I need to stay alive! I don't need another trip to the hospital!"

"Bob" tried not to smile. Janet went on about my mentor's cookies and how good they were (There's a joke in that statement somewhere, but I'm in a noisy airport typing this and am having trouble being clever for the noise, so you loyal readers fill in the blanks). When I asked what the secret was, my mentor simply said, "it's my mother's recipe." Anna Marie Jensen's recipe, to be more precise. She saw my advisor and his siblings through the Great Depression, and he is, unquestionably, a product of that generation (as was my grandmother).

When I asked Doc to share the recipe with me, he produced an old, tattered index card. "Crisco?" I inquired. "I mean, isn't that hydrogenated oil and thus naughty for us?" My advisor went on about how, growing up, Crisco was seen as a healthy alternative to lard and other animal fats, and you didn't have to refrigerate the stuff.

I researched the origins of this all vegetable "shortening," which apparently was derived from "crystallized cotton seed oil" (hence the name "Crisco") and used to make candles. It was introduced in 1911. However, as electricity became more and more ubiquitous Proctor and Gamble started marketing the stuff as food.

Nutritionists do warn that hydrogenated oils are not very good for your "good cholesterol," so perhaps you don't want to make Jensen's delicious cookies every week. But every once in a while, Doc says, they're a delicious treat. I'll say the same thing about my homemade biscuits (about which more at a later date, if y'all wanna know my secret recipe for 'em).

Serves/Makes: 48

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 teaspoon water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups oatmeal
• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 cup chocolate chips or raisins