I spent a week trying to come up with something that was a twist on a good ol' farmhouse cookie in the middle of a particularly aggressive personal training workout plan, with gym trips five to six days a week. Then, a funny thing happened last week: I lost my taste for wheat flour. As in, it tastes like dirt. This has happened before in periods of relative health, but it has never been sustained long enough to cause a departure for me and my previous flour-and-butter-and-wine-and-coffee-filled diet. The result: we, (my body and I) have developed a new, special relationship, filled with a series of demands, permissions and denials. A typical conversation between my mind and body might be:
Body: So, uh, no more than a glass of wine a day now?
Mind: Yep.
Body: Okay that's cool. But don't you miss it?
Mind: Yep.
Body: Huh. Okay, the willpower domain is all you, Mind. Good luck with that.
Another example:
Body: Mind, if you try cutting off the caffeine supply again to me I will turn into Satan on wheels. I will wake you up in your sleep. I will make you feel like you have been stabbed in your nerve center. Do not test me on this again.
Mind: Holy #%$*, Body! Make the stabbing stop! Make it stop! I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!
Every once in a while, the stomach chimes in like a nine year-old left unattended in a grocery store.
Stomach: I'd like an ice cream cone with cookie dough ice cream, and a Snickers bar and some beef jerky and some purple Gatorade for dinner please.
Mind and Body: (in a rare moment of agreement) Uh, no. We'll be having brown rice, steamed vegetables and organic baked tofu for dinner instead. If you're good, you can have a cookie for dessert.
Enter the raw cashew and apricot cookie.
Back in my New York days, I went on a raw food detox and spent three weeks eating 100% raw. I cannot say enough about how amazing it made me feel. I also can't say enough of why people should not shock their body with a vastly different diet than the one they were previously on. However, I had the energy of me, one decade earlier. My skin cleared up. By the time my weight normalized, about a week into it, my cravings for cotton candy-wrapped ice-cream shakes with mint chocolate fudge on top disappeared, replaced by honest cravings for fruits or sprouted beans or nuts. I found a raw cookie something like this one at a health food store and bought them like they were gold or batteries, and stuffed them in every bag, using them as shields against the coffee shop pastries that I was assaulted with on every street corner.
Somehow, being offered a cookie always solves a problem. Eating one is a treat, no matter how healthy, and it represents a little break in the day. This one is a little springy, and its flavor is tart and nutty-sweet, and that combination hits the spot for me every time.
Raw Cashew and Apricot Cookie
Makes 8-10 cookies
