Kitchen Fiddler Turns Two

Kitchen Fiddler is two years old today! 

Whether you are a relatively new reader or if you’ve been here with me since the beginning, I want to say a special THANK YOU to all of you for your enthusiasm and support in joining this online extension of my kitchen. I’ve taken great delight in sharing these favorite recipes and photos with you over the past two years, which is the next best thing to having an extended dinner party together. While we don’t always get to enjoy a meal together face to face, I am glad for a way to connect with you in your own kitchens. It gives me great joy to know that some of these favorite recipes of mine have now become your favorites too, the kind of dish that puts a smile on your face each time you recreate it for yourself and your friends.

I wanted to invite you all to a party today, and I had grand plans to make celebratory cupcakes worthy of a food blog’s birthday. But then I began thinking about one of the very first recipes I posted on this blog. Remember the Oatmeal Raisin Cookies inspired by the extraordinary ones from the late Columbus Bakery? Suffice it to say, any thought of cupcakes lingering in my mind were totally eclipsed by those oatmeal creations. They were crazy-good: perfectly crispy around the edges while moist and chewy in the centers, studded with dried apples and raisins as well as toasted walnuts and coconut for depth. In short, these were cookies with LAYERS. We’re talking layers of textures and flavors, layers of intensity. They even made me an oatmeal cookie believer and actually compelled me to abandon my chocolate chip ways.

I know that many of you have joined me in this Kitchen Fiddler adventure in more recent months, so unless you’ve been combing the KF Index of Recipes, it’s probably unlikely that you would have come across this particular oatmeal cookie post from September 2008. But I thought it was definitely worth mentioning again because you'll really want to have these cookies in your repertoire.  Trust me.  And if you’re inspired to make these yourself, I’ll be very excited to find out what you think.  (I love reading your comments!) I suppose I could have baked a giant version of this cookie and stuck two candles in it for today’s post, but instead I’ll leave you with links to both the background story surrounding these outstanding oatmeal treats and the recipe itself. (Click here and there.) I think that’s festive enough for a blog’s birthday!