Fix it with cookies

This is our youngest cat, Calpurnia.

She looks sweet, right? Most of the time she's too shy to cause mischief. She lies on the window seat, watches the neighborhood, or haunts the kitchen near her bowl, squeaking plaintively for food. Calpurnia is skiddish, sweet, and sleeps a lot.

But sometimes, when the sun shines just so through the shades, Calpurnia leaps from lounger to LIONESS!

She's what the nice lady at the Humane Society calls "a wooler," and she loves to attack strings, shoelaces, pull-chains, necklaces, and my knitting projects. Last week, she unraveled a hat I was knitting, stringing the yarn across the rug, around my guitar stand, and off the circular needles. Way off. Many stitches off. Calpurnia hid from me under the dining room table.

All I could do was rip the hat out, start again, and make some chocolate chip cookies.

I have a theory that chocolate chip cookies can fix anything. Anything. I know they could fix the world if applied strategically. Calpurnia's yarn spree motivated me to bake some cookies for myself. I baked a batch for my dad on Father's Day, then another one for the mechanic at Midas who spent all day tracking down an electrical problem in my car. My dad loved the cookies, and the mechanic didn't charge me for a thing. These cookies fix things.



Just fix-it chocolate chip walnut cookies
adapted from the CHC Cookbook

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (like Hudson Cream)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup healthy shortening, like coconut or palm oil
• 3/4 cups cane sugar
• 3/4 cups muscovado sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks
• 3/4 cup chopped walnut pieces

Preheat an oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a mixer, cream together the butter, oil, vanilla, and both sugars until they're fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. In a small bowl, mix together the salt, flour, and baking soda. Next, slowly incorporate the flour mixture with the butter/sugar. Stir in the walnut pieces and half of the chocolate chips.

Drop cookie batter by the tablespoon-full on a cookie sheet, keeping three inches of space between cookies. Use the rest of the chocolate chips to decorate the outside of each cookie. (They have to look good enough to eat, right?) Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, let them cool, and then enjoy.

Here's hoping they fix your wagons.