Stick it to 'em!

From my inbox:

A little background: Neiman-Marcus, if you don't know already, is a very expensive store; i.e., they sell your typical $8.00 T-shirt for $50.00.

Let's let them have it! THIS IS A TRUE STORY!

My daughter and I had just finished a salad at a Neiman-Marcus Cafe in Dallas, and we decided to have a small dessert. Because both of us are such cookie lovers, we decided to try the "Neiman-Marcus cookie." It was so excellent that I asked if they would give me the recipe, and the waitress said with a small frown, "I'm afraid not, but you can buy the recipe. "Well," I asked how much, and she responded, "Only two fifty. It's a great deal!" I agreed to that, and told her to just add it to my tab.

Thirty days later, I received my VISA statement and the Neiman-Marcus charge was $285.00! I looked again, and I remembered I had only spent $9.95 for two salads and about $20.00 for a scarf. As I glanced at the bottom of the statement, it said, "Cookie Recipe-$250.00". That was outrageous! I called Neiman's Accounting Department and told them the waitress said it was "two fifty", which clearly does not mean "two hundred and fifty dollars" by any reasonable interpretation of the phrase. Neiman-Marcus refused to budge. They would not refund my money because, according to them, "What the waitress told you is not our problem. You have already seen the recipe. We absolutely will not refund your money at this point." I explained to the Accounting Department lady the criminal statutes which govern fraud in the state of Texas . I threatened to report them to the Better Business Bureau and the Texas Attorney General's office for engaging in fraud. I was basically told, "Do what you want. Don't bother thinking of how you can get even, and don't bother trying to get any of your money back."

I just said, "Okay, you folks got my $250, and now I'm going to have $250 worth of fun." I told her that I was going to see to it that every cookie lover in the United States with an e-mail account has a $250 cookie recipe from Neiman-Marcus..for free. She replied, "I wish you wouldn't do this." I said, "Well, perhaps you should have thought of that before you ripped me off!" and slammed down the phone.

So here it is!

Please, please, please pass it on to everyone you can possibly think of. I paid $250 for this, and I don't want Neiman-Marcus to EVER make another penny off of this recipe!

NEIMAN-MARCUS COOKIES

2 cups butter
24 oz. chocolate chips
4 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
2 cups sugar
1 8 oz. Hershey Bar (grated)
5 cups blended oatmeal
4 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups chopped nuts (your choice)

Measure oatmeal, and blend in a blender to a fine powder. Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda. Add chocolate chips, Hershey Bar, and nuts. Roll into balls, and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees.

Makes 12 dozen.

I get this email every so often and finally decided to try it. It didn't look like a mind-altering recipe to me, just a basic chocolate chipper, but the story was intriguing. And I have to admit, I love the idea of sticking it to 'the man'. Then I checked Snopes.com and found out it isn't true. (Interesting read, if you have another minute!) But it made a nice cookie anyway. I actually had a bad head cold when I made these (don't worry, I washed my hands obsessively) and couldn't taste a thing, but my taste tester said they were great. I tried one the next day when I got my sense of taste back and they were pretty good. It was kind of a pain when I was baking, I don't normally set timers. I just wait until I can smell it. Except, with my cold I couldn't smell anything, I had to camp out by my stove and keep checking them!

By the way, I've cut the recipe in half here. And a good thing too, it tried to climb up and out of my Kitchen Aid by the time I added the chips and nuts. I would have had a mess on my hands had I tried it with the original amounts! And I made them using a standard cookie method. The way the original was written sounds a lot like the way I used to make cookies as a kid. i.e. dump it all in the mixer and hope for the best. My cookies always turned out like little sugar flavored rocks. Luckily, I've learned a few things since then!

Nieman Marcus Cookies

2 1/2 cups blended oatmeal
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
4 oz. Hershey Bar (grated)
12 oz. chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups chopped nuts
(I used 1 cup of walnuts and 1/2 cup pecans, that's what I had on hand.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Buzz the oatmeal in a blender or food processor.
Add to a large bowl along with flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk well.
In a small cup beat the eggs and vanilla.
In a large bowl mix together the chocolate and nuts.
(I left the nuts whole and let the mixer break them up later, I like big chunks of nuts in my cookies.)
In your mixer bowl cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
Beat in the egg and vanilla mixture.
Slowly add the flour and mix until incorporated.
Mix in the chocolate and nuts.
Drop 2" apart onto cookie sheet. (I used my small scoop.)
Bake about 15 minutes or until golden brown and delicious.