The oven is your friend. When used properly, your oven can help
you make a batch of cookies more cheaply than you can buy them at
Diddy Riese, and it tosses in some perks, too: You get a warm,
nice-smelling apartment and culinary bragging rights.
Today: oatmeal cookies.
Preheat your oven to …
Phone your mother and ask her how high to preheat your oven.
Absorb grief about how you don’t call home enough. While
your mother starts in on a story about her day at work, jam the
telephone between your shoulder and ear.
Throw a stick of softened butter, half a cup of brown sugar and
a quarter cup of white sugar into a bowl. Utter strategically
placed “uh-huhs” as you mash the ingredients together
until smooth.
For lighter cookies, replace half of the butter with a quarter
cup of applesauce. You can substitute half of the oil in heavy
cakes and brownies with applesauce, too, and never taste the apple
flavor.
When she hits a lull in her story, ask your mother what
temperature you should set the …
“No, Mom, I’m not baking cookies instead of writing
my essay.”
Reassure your mother that your academic focus is not compromised
by your culinary pursuits. Wax poetic about your highly productive
(and possibly fictional) visit to office hours and mix an egg into
the butter-sugar blend.
When your mother launches into a lecture about the importance of
high grades and diligent class attendance, gently place the phone
on the counter. Massage your shoulder and crack your neck. Make
sure you’re back on the line in time to catch the end of the
monologue and try again.
“You are so right. How are you supposed to understand the
lectures if you haven’t looked over the readings? Hey, Mom,
by the way, when preheating the oven for oatmeal cookies, how high
…”
Too late.
She no doubt will be off again, asking how exactly you plan to
convert an English major into a real job. Make noncommittal sounds
as you scoop three quarters of a cup of flour, two teaspoons of
cinnamon and a teaspoon of baking soda into the bowl.
Swallow hard. The nausea you feel while contemplating your
uncertain future will clear up soon. Focus on what the here-and-now
has in store: two dozen cookies. Well, two dozen cookies and a
motherly spiel about the value of internships.
Stir a cup and a half of rolled oats into the mixture. Add
raisins, nuts and chocolate chips to taste ““ about a cup of
them combined.
The time for baking is closing in. Preheating needs to happen,
and it needs to happen now.
“What temperature should the … yes, we already paid
registration fees this quarter … oven be? The oven, Mom, the
oven.”
“Three hundred and fifty degrees!”
Let the oven heat up as you drop walnut-sized dough dollops onto
ungreased cookie sheets. Keep the blobs two inches apart from each
other.
As you slide the cookies into the oven, start extricating
yourself from the conversation. Twelve minutes later, when the
cookies are done and their bottoms are brown, you will probably
still be explaining to your mother that you don’t remember
when you’ll be done with your finals this March, as you still
don’t remember when your midterms are.
Grab a hot, gooey oatmeal raisin cookie from the baking
sheet.
Toss the cookie from hand to hand, scalding all your fingers
while dropping the phone.
Your mother, still on the line, will hear yelps of pain and a
fearsome clatter. She will hang up with you and call 911.
Offer the paramedics some cookies when they arrive. It’s
only polite, and Mom would be proud.
Parents just don’t understand. E-mail Raab at
lraab@media.ucla.edu.