oatmeal cookie update

Today has been a lovely day.  My writing went relatively smoothly.  Which is always cause to celebrate.  Then I met up with Gayle Friesen.  We went for a gargantuan walk, even though it was raining, sometimes a little bit harder than others, but we didn’t care.  We just walked and talked and walked and walked.  And it was really fun. 

And remember the blog I wrote about how I’d met her at the BC Book Prizes Soiree and said I liked her.  Well, I never would have guessed that a short two months later we would have found each other’s contact info sort of accidentally through a mutual friend and that we would have actually gotten together.  And yes, I know it might seem like I am name dropping, by saying her whole name because she is an award winning author and all, but really that’s not the reason I do it. 

The reason I write both the first and last name whenever one of my stories or references has to do with an author friend, is because quite a lot of people come to visit my site, and I figure, who knows.  Maybe the next time one of my blog readers are in a bookstore, they might pick up one of my friend’s titles, and that is not a bad thing.  Because most of the children and young adult writers out there are earning a pittance compared to any other job.  If you count the hours we spend at our computers, the months and years it takes to write a book.  And then if you look at what kind of advances most Canadian childrens authors get paid, you’d laugh.  Because seriously, broken down to an hourly salary, an average author would earn far less than the average Joe flipping hamburgers at a fast food joint.

So, that is why, whenever an author friend is a happy part of my day, I mention their full name.  Not because I am bragging and saying “Oh, look at my fancy literary friends,” but because that is what I feel is important for us as authors to try to do. 

Speaking of which… for those of you who are old-time-officialmegtilly.com readers, remember when I did that guest blogging thing on The Debutantes Ball, with author deb. Danielle Younge-Ullman.  Well this week end she attended her first Book Expo Canada.  And her publisher, Penguin, printed out 100 advanced reading copies of her first novel, Falling Under, and they ran out!  People grabbed those babies up like hotcakes.  Whoohooo, go Danielle!

Wow.  I just read back over what I’ve written and I went way off topic.

I wanted to tell you about the new futzing I did with the Oatmeal cookie recipe. 

-I cut the white sugar down from 3/4 a cup to 1/2.  The cookies were starting to taste a little too sweet for me.
- And then I minced up 3/4 a cup of pecans.  I chopped it up quite small.  You could also just zap them in a blender for around 10 seconds and it would do the trick, I just like using the old-fashioned chopping board and large knife because it’s the way I do things and besides, there is less clean-up. 
-then I swapped out the raisins for 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Everything else I did the same.

It tastes really good.  Like a not-so-sweet chocolate chip cookie with a really satisfying texture and taste.  You’re kids won’t like them as much as Toll House chocolate chip cookies though, because they aren’t as sweet.  This is more of a modification for my adult cookie eaters.

I’m off to eat another cookie.  Bye!

Posted by Meg Tilly on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 in Recipes

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