AK Cookies

 
My wife and kids left town for the weekend a few weeks ago, leaving me free to pursue whatever wild fantasies my mind could conger up (like sleep in until 8 and go to Costco to buy Christmas presents).  I ended up driving to Orlando one day to procure some righteous soul food (more on that in a future posting) and also had ample time to read through the entire new issue of Lucky Peach (Winter 2014), which focuses solely on holiday recipes and food-related holiday stories.  Feeling inspired, I undertook a cooking frenzy on Sunday afternoon, whipping together lobster rolls, beet salad, custom cheeseburgers, and decadent cookies, all courtesy of the recipes found in said issue.  I had every intention of writing about each one of these dishes; unfortunately, a bout of stomach flu two days later completely took the wind out of my sails (I discovered there's no worse thought when you're grappling with abdominal cramps than updating your food blog).  I've since managed to recover enough to at least document the cookie recipe here (redirected from Alexandra's Kitchen, a far superior food blog to this suboptimal operation) which I feel is probably the gem of the bunch.  Lucky Peach editor Peter Meehan named this cookie Alaska, or "AK", after the Anchorage residence of his friend's mother, where the recipe originated.  Sort of a Toll House-on-steroids cookie, the standard chocolate chips (high quality is recommended, however, I used just your garden-variety chips) are augmented by shredded coconut, oats (quick-cooking or old fashioned - either works), nuts (if desired), and dark brown sugar, yielding a dense, chewy cookie.  The instructions say to use a stand mixer, but my ancient hand mixer did the trick just fine, and I needed closer to 15 minutes in the oven to finish them off (versus the 11-12 cited in the recipe).  Regardless, I knew I had a winner when both Hackknife Jr. and Hackknifette enjoyed the finished product (as did the missus and the mother-in-law).