unsweetened chocolate. (You can put them in a stainless steel bowl and stick it in the oven while it's preheating.)

When the bowl is cool, add the sugar, beat in the eggs, mix in the flour, the salt, and the baking soda. Add the vanilla. Spread into a greased jellyroll pan (that is, 11x17). It won't be trivial; you'll have to use a knife or something to spread it smoothly into all four corners.

Sprinkle with the chocolate chips, and bake at 350 F for 8 minutes or so. ("Bake until done." When they're done, they pull away from the pan just a little bit and have a dull glossy look to them.)

Glaze: Mix up the ingredients. It should be like a glaze that will pour, thickly. Add a couple of drops of food coloring if desired.

When the cookies come out of the oven, spread the glaze. Cool slightly, and cut while still warm. (If you wait too long, the glaze will crack when you try to cut the cookies.)

not want peppermint cookies, or you might want to use those miniature baking M&M's.) If you don't glaze them but still want peppermint chocolate cookies, use the peppermint instead of the vanilla. (Or in addition to it, for a slightly different flavor but still good.)

This is Mom's recipe. It was quick and easy enough that she could make up a batch of cookies while getting breakfast on the table, when one of us four kids piped up and said "By the way, it's my turn to bring cookies today."

She also has an anecdote about one of our schoolkids being allergic to oranges, so she made a batch with orange food coloring so he could have something orange anyway. You could try the same trick for Halloween cookies...

If you don't want them to be thin bar cookies, then use a smaller pan (9x13 or 9x9) and bake them longer.

Okay, here's the "horror story" part. I got the recipe from my mom the other day, and decided to make them up (sans mint & glaze) that night. I'd been reorganizing the kitchen lately, and had a bunch of plastic canisters for all of my staples, but hadn't labeled everything yet. I thought I had the flour. Well, it certainly wasn't sugar, and I knew it wasn't the Krusteaz Deluxe Basic Cookie Mix, so it had to be the flour, so I used it. There was something a little odd about it - but I've got unbleached flour, whole wheat flour, graham flour, and cake flour, so I figured it had to be one of the odd ones.

It wasn't. There was something grainy and a bit of an odd flavor to the cookies. Can you say "Masa Harina"? I'd used corn instead of wheat flour!

My next door neighbor Selene, and my So's daughter Maria, and her little friend Devin like them, but nobody else will eat them.

I tried the recipe again tonight. I made the plain batch, no mint or mint glaze, and used mini-M&M's instead of the chocolate chips. I've tried them ~ they're perfect in every way - and if I just imagine them with peppermint, they're exactly as I remember them.

A final footnote: I am quite serious about working to spread them all the way to the corners. It'll be a thick batter, so just keep at it; it'll make a thin layer. That's a good thing, because it means they cook fast, so don't give up.

[P.S. At least that's how they turn out (thick and hard to spread into the corners) when I make them, using the mixer. Your mileage may vary, especially if you're using margarine.