Tuesdays with Dorie: Honey Wheat (Germ) Cookies

 

As Laurie, who hosts TWD, guessed, the snowy weather and simple nature of February's recipes combined to make it a near certainty that all the recipes would be done weeks before posting. In my eagerness, I made nearly all of them before January was even over. These honey-wheat germ cookies, though, although the ones I was most eager to make, had to wait until I could buy bulk wheat germ ($0.19 for a quarter pound!) at Fairway. Luckily, the show I am working on will be performed on a small and wonderful barge about 100 yards from the Red Hook Fairway, and on a recent windy night the production team made a site visit. Following our cozy and delightful conference, full of wood, woodstoves, carpets, and marvelous things, a few of us detoured to grocery shop, and I got my germ.

I have been convulsed with laughter by the general assertion going around some of the TWD blogroll that these cookies  are 'healthy' (with a stick of butter and white sugar and white flour). I know the general connotation of wheat germ, but people, please. It's almost as funny as when people insist that brown sugar is healthier. Just for the record, unless what you have is some fancy cane juice product, brown sugar is white sugar that has had molasses or color re-added. It's delicious, and has more flavor, but healthy? Well, exactly as healthy as white sugar. 

However, I don't have any requirement that my cookies be 'healthy'.  I don't mind if they are, but I don't really care. After all, they're cookies. I guess if healthy is for you the curse word that some of my fellow bakers find it to be...I know, they don't have a problem with 'healthy,' it's the perceived 'crunchy' that's bothering people. While I'm not denying that there are some segments of the brown-rice-lentil-burger world that taste terrible, there are also some segments of the velveeta-hamburger-steak world that suck. Getting all aerated about 'healthy' food can sometimes be as lame as having a fit about food that's meatless, as if it needed to be hysterically highlighted...'this is a vegetarian lasagne...but I had to put some bacon in so my husband didn't whine...' As someone who didn't know that lasagne without meat needed special fanfare until I reached the age of 25 or so, I'm underwhelmed by such statements. 

Healthy or no, these cookies were wonderful, lemony and honeyed and crunchy and soft, and irresistible. Too bad I only made half the recipe. If anyone would like to make a whole batch, and I strongly recommend it, the recipe can be found here.