All Day Cookies

When I first graduated from college almost twenty-five years ago, I thought I wanted to be a librarian. I was accepted into San Jose State's graduate program in "Information Science" shortly before Russ and I got married. We arrived in San Jose with no jobs and no idea where we were going to live. After having spent four years within the shelter of a small, liberal arts college in a town of around 15,000 people, the entire big university/big city experience was daunting. Russ soon found a job drywalling, but we still had no money to speak of. We had no furniture in our studio apartment and slept on a mattress from the inside of a discarded sleeper sofa we found near a trash can outside of our apartment. I hated it there, despite its close proximity to many beautiful areas. I lasted one semester and that was only because Russ kept encouraging me to at least finish up the semester, so it wouldn't be a total waste.

I do have some pleasant memories of our San Jose experience though. Most of them are memories of time spent with our friends, Bob and Colene. They were old friends of my parents from when we had lived in Fresno years before, but they quickly became our friends. We loved them. They pretty much adopted us for the six months we lived there, not that they had that much choice because we probably made nuisances of ourselves coming over so often. I remember sitting in their living room having pleasant conversations with Bob about anything under the sun, I remember sitting with Colene in their kitchen that smelled just like my grandma's, and I remember eating tons of Colene's "All Day Cookes." Colene gave me the recipe for them ages ago, but a year or so ago, I misplaced it. I emailed Colene to ask if she could send me the recipe, and true to form, she did more than that. About a week later, a box came in the mail...with a couple dozen All Day Cookies in it, along with the recipe. I asked special permission to share this recipe because I felt that it was practically sacred. Colene agreed that these cookies are close to being sacred in her family, but sharing is allowed. I feel special being trusted with it:)

All Day Cookies

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tps. vanilla
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/3 cups oatmeal
2 tsp. soda
12 oz. chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups raisins
1 1/2 cups peanuts

Mix and drop by teaspoons full of cookie sheet.
Bake at 300 degrees until done. Has to bake at
fairly low temperature or will burn. I baked at
325 degrees for about 12 minutes.

I also have to share what Colene wrote at the bottom of the recipe card, showing that even though we haven't seen each other in years that she still knows Russ: "Makes a ton--or one evenings worth for Russ!"