Years ago there was an Internet legend story passed around about a woman who went to the famous department store Neiman-Marcus and had lunch in the restaurant there.  The story said that the woman asked for the recipe for the restaurant’s oatmeal cookie recipe and got the recipe plus a bill for hundreds of dollars for the recipe.  She then sent out emails with the recipe on it to all her friends because she was so mad at the store for charging so much for that recipe. This is a famous Internet hoax that comes in other versions, like the Mrs. Fields cookie and the Famous Amos versions.  The story may be a hoax but the recipe is real and here it is….even though it is very similar to the recipe you may find on thousands of oatmeal boxes.  But even if the story is a hoax I just had to try it, and I did and now my kids love these “computer cookies!” Ingredients for a single recipe – I used to double this but that produces too much dough and this dough is a little bit stiff and a double batch overpowers my mixer! Wet(ish) ingredients to cream together: 1 cup butter at room temperature (2 sticks) ½ cup white sugar 1 ½ cups brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 large eggs, beaten (2020 update: One large egg + 2 yolks for a crispy cookie with good spread and a bit of a chewy center!) Or (2018) try one jumbo whole egg and plus three yolks for a more chewy cookie. Dry ingredients to whisk together: 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons baking powder (revised 2018, increased to 2) 2 ½ cups oatmeal, blended after measuring (see instructions) 6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips (this is half the usual because  I don’t like lots of chips – feel free to add more!) ½ teaspoon salt 1 Hershey chocolate bar, 4 ounces, grated coarsely (this allows you to cut back on the chips) 1 ½ cups chopped nuts (I use pecans.  Toast them first at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes if you have time) To make a good oatmeal cookie, I think the secret is to chop up the oatmeal in a blender or food processor to get a good consistency.  I don’t like blending it to a very fine powder, but almost.  I like a little of the gravelly oatmeal texture in the cookie to show through.  Set aside. Cream together the butter and the both sugars.  It’s easy if you let the butter come to room temperature first.  Add the rest of the wet ingredients, the vanilla and eggs, and combine. In a separate large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.  You might add the blended oatmeal and flour last for easy combining. Combine the wet with the dry ingredients.  This gets hard to mix, so I hope you have an electric mixer!  Either that, or try cutting this recipe in half. Take a large spoonful of this dough and roll it into a ball and place on an ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart from other spoonfuls.  This recipe will fill several cookie sheets.  Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 12 minutes.  After those 12 minutes, let the cookies cool on their sheet on a cooling rack for 5 minutes.  That way they will separate more easily from the sheet and not crumble when you lift them off the sheet with a spatula. Like any cookie recipe, these baking times are estimates.  Your oven may be cooler or hotter than mine.  Watch for the cookie to spread out to a cookie shape and brown a bit, without burning the bottom of the cookie.  You will have to experiment to get the right baking time for your oven.  When testing cookies for doneness, remember that they will get a little more crispy as they cool.