Cookies make the world go round *Edited, can you guess where?*

The other day, my mom and cousin and I went over to our friend's house to have tea with her and her daughter.

Our friend, J, is 102 1/2 years old. One of her grand-daughter's has just had J's second great-grandson.

J grew up in the same small hometown as my grandmother in Northern Ontario. J was my Aunty E's best friend, and J's younger sister was my grandmother's best friend. J and Aunty E went to teacher's college together.

When I was growing up, J always timed her visits up to my Aunty E's house on the lake in Muskoka for when we were staying at the cottage across the bay, so we saw her every summer.

Although she can't see or hear very well anymore, she still remembered what program I am currently in (something most of my family don't remember), and when my brother would be graduating from university, and the things that we are interested in.

When we sat down to tea, J asked for some of the oatmeal cookies that her daughter had made to be put on a plate for her. She started talking about how good the cookies were, and how she had eaten these cookies since she was a little girl.

Mom and I took one look at them and knew that they were the same cookies that we have always made as well. We call them Grandpa Lakes' cookies, (my great-grandfather) because they were his favorite cookies. Mom had just made a batch the morning before. Mom and J's daughter compared recipes, and found that it was exactly the same.

Obviously there was a bit of recipe exchanging going on in that small northern town, funny how the one that we still use today is for the world's simplest and tastiest oatmeal cookies. What a good way to connect two families.

The recipe is likely Depression era, since it requires no eggs, and the recipe makes a lot of cookies. It also may just be Scottish, or even from BC, since that is where J was born, and it looks like the recipe came from her family.

So now, I am going to pass the recipe on to you.

Oatmeal Cookies:

- cream together

1 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla

-in a separate bowl, combine

2 cups flour

2 cups oats

-put 1/4 tsp baking soda in a 1/4 cup measure.

-=Magic Time!= pour boiling water over the baking soda in the measuring cup, and immediately pour the mixture over the creamed butter and sugar.

-immediately stir in the dry ingredients.

-roll dough into 1 inch balls, place on cookie sheet and flatten as much as you can with a fork (wet the fork before each cookie to prevent sticking)

-Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes, or until bottoms are golden brown.

-let cool on a wire cooling rack

-eat.