This icebox cookie recipe has a story. (Really, doesn’t every recipe have a story??) 

This is the first thing Dahlia bakes in her new home in the Saltcliff Inn, an action she undertakes to comfort her niece, Danny, who she has no idea how to handle (yet). 

I chose this recipe to offer comfort and love to Danny because it represents those things to me. It’s also ridiculously simple. 

This is actually a family recipe of mine. (My family doesn’t have a lot of ‘family recipes’ - my mom really didn’t cook, and neither did hers, so whatever traditions we might have had were forsaken in my grandmother’s pursuit of her work — she was President of the National Education Association at one point — and my mother’s general lack of interest.) 

This cookie recipe is my great-grandmother’s, as far as I know. She had a cabin in Kings Canyon-Sequoia National Park in California, where my mother was raised in the summers, and where my family spends our summers too. My great-grandmother taught Mom to make these cookies, and I had the chance to make them with her several times too (my family enjoys longevity!) 

My mom sent these to us when we went away to college, and I’ve always made them for my kids, and I know my brother makes them too. So now, Dahlia shares that comfort with Danny, and I’m sharing it with you! 

CHOCOLATE CHIP OATMEAL ICEBOX COOKIES

Ingredients: 

• 1 cup shortening (Crisco)

• 1 cup packed brown sugar

• 1 cup sugar

• 2 eggs

• 1 tsp. vanilla

• 1.5 cups flour

• 1 tsp. salt

• 1 tsp. soda

• 3 cups old fashioned oats

• 1 12 oz. package of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions: 

1. Cream shortening and sugars until smooth and blended; add eggs and vanilla and beat in. 

2. Stir together flour, salt & soda; add to creamed mix. 

3. Stir in oatmeal, one cup at a time. 

4. Add chocolate chips and stir in. 

   Batter will be very stiff. 

5. Roll into three logs, wrap each in waxed paper and chill. 

Bake: 

• Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

• Slice chilled dough into 1/4” rounds and place on ungreased cookie sheet.

• Bake 8-10 minutes

* If freezing, wrap logs in foil in addition to the wax paper. Can be baked from frozen - no need to defrost.