August 07th, 2019

 This, my friends, is a molasses cookie.  And if you have never had one, you are really  missing out.

It is a well established fact that I adore cookies. Nearly all cookies.  I was going to say, "all cookies" and then I remembered oatmeal raisin. Not a fan of raisins.  And those funny licorice ones.  They are so pretty but I cannot even stand the way that they smell.  But other than those two (I think) I love cookies in general.  It's a serious problem.

  I used to say that I did not have a favourite anything.  Favourite people yes, favourite stuff no.  For instance sometimes people ask you what is your favourite colour?  I do not have one.  Honest!  It's true that I tend to wear a lot of blue, but blue it not my favourite colour.  It's just a colour that looks good on me.  I genuinely love all colours equally.

Favourite song?  Not really.  There are a ton of songs that I really love (and quite a few that I do not).  And some days just feel more like one song than another (which is why that song will play on an endless loop in my  head that day!)  But there is no One Favourite Song. And in fact,  Tim and I do not even have an "our song'.  Is that weird?

I have several cities that I call my favourites, but there isn't one that I hold above all of the others as the best of the best. No favourite flower. No favourite movie. Not even one single top of the top of the list favourite book.  And so forth and so on.

But I do have a favourite cookie.  The humble molasses cookie.

I know, I know.  It's kind of an odd favourite cookie to have.  It's a rather old fashioned cookie.  In fact, I am quite certain that there is an enormous swath of the population who have never eaten one.  What a shame.  

If it's a proper molasses cookie, it's thick and chewy.  It's sweet, but not in the way that most things are sweet.  There is an almost tangy flavour underneath the sweet. And it's substantial. If I eat a molasses cookie (or two) I feel as if I've eaten an entire meal.  And furthermore because of the molasses, there is iron, calcium, magnesium, vitamin B6, and selenium in this cookie.   And lest you think that I am exaggerating, as it so happens, blackstrap molasses is touted as a superfood!  So you see, for a change, I'm not making this up.

I grew up eating molasses cookies (among others of course).  My Nana, was an astounding baker. She baked something every single day as long as she was able.   I can remember my sister and I stuffing our pockets with molasses cookies and then heading down to the shore for a day of seaside adventures.  Of course that was when children were allowed to just run amuck.  She didn't worry about us. But then how could anyone possibly go wrong with a long stretch of Maine beach right outside your backdoor and a pocket full of molasses cookies?

So I suppose this particular cookie is part of my happy childhood memories.  Memories are like that.  Foods are often inextricably connected to moments in our past.  Perhaps that's why foods become favourite foods, the childhood associations. Hmmmmm

My kids grew up eating molasses cookies too. Along with a lot of other sorts of course.  Like my Nana, I became a baker.  And when the kids were small I baked every  nearly every day.  I made all of our breads back then and of course 3 active growing boys needed snacks and desserts each day too.  Cookies, being portable, were great snacks and excellent lunch bag foods too.  The boys and their friends didn't turn down any type of cookie I presented them with:  chocolate chip, oatmeal, peanut butter, sugar and they certainly never snubbed a molasses cookie.

Gradually the molasses cookies became one that I only made at Christmas time because it is the recipe I use as a "gingerbread" cookie.  I'm not quite sure how that happened.  How did this awesome cookie become demoted to just a once a year treat?   Honestly, I do not recall the why of that.  But it's kind of sad.

Our favourite local farm market, Detweillers has an in house Amish bakery there that is so dang good.  Well, in the spirit of absolute honesty, most of it is good. I actually do not like their cakes.  But the pies, the breads and the cookies are fheavnly.  Oh yeah, we've tried them all.  Of course we have! Don't be silly.  All of their cookies are amazing and I was so tickled to find that they make molasses cookies.

The first time we spotted the molasses cookies was  during our maiden farm market voyage.  I was so excited.  Look!  Molasses cookies!  The question was, are they any good?  Some so-called molasses cookies are as hard as rocks. Some are thin and tasteless.  Others are just ruined by that awful metallic processed nasty aftertaste yucky something ....blech.  But not these.  These are easily as good as Nana's were.  Cookie Nirvana.

Somehow a box of those molasses cookies came home with us this past weekend.  There were 9 cookies in the box when we bought them on Saturday.  Today there are zero cookies in the box.  From Saturday to Wednesday. That's it.  That's as long as those cookies lasted.  I try to not buy them very often for that very reason.

I ate at least one as a breakfast meal.  Several became an after salad lunch treat.  One was gobbled down while I wrote out my lesson plan for this week (it was" thinking food" you see) and the last one was savoured to the last crumb last night.  

If you have never tried a molasses cookie, you are missing out.  If you haven't had one in a long time, you are over due.  If you don't like them, well, that's fine. You are allowed to not like them.  But I will never understand it.