While plenty ring in the new year with fresh gym memberships and resolutions of weight loss, Pamela Lund went in another direction: In 2016, Lund hopes to fill up Clark County with cookies.
On Jan. 1, she released her first cookbook. It’s subtly titled “Cookies, Cookies and More Cookies,” and it is filled with 100-plus cookie recipes.
“Every time you go somewhere, there are always cookies,” said Lund, 65, of Vancouver. “People are always making cookies for potluck events or church events. All your holidays, there are cookies. I thought, ‘Oh, I should collect all my cookie recipes and put them in a book.’
“There are all these cookbooks with all types of desserts in them, but if someone wants to make some cookies, now they can reach for the cookie book, and they don’t have to sort through everything else.”
Lund, who works as an interior decorator, said cookies have been a part of her life for as long as she can remember.
“My mother always made the standard chocolate chip cookies, and sugar cookies and peanut butter cookies” said Lund, who grew up in Kansas. “I always helped her make the cookies. Those were our three staple cookies back then.”
Lund started with more than 100 recipes: some from her childhood, others she used for her own family, some from friends and others she found in cookbooks herself. The recipes in her book, however, have all been tinkered with to her liking. For the book, she picked ones she thinks are tastiest, as well as easy to make. There are more standard cookies such as chocolate chip and snickerdoodles, holiday-themed ones such as shortbread cookies, and plenty of other recipes such as ones for lemon squares and Lund’s own version of an Oreo.
She has gone over all of the recipes multiple times and loves each one, she said. Just don’t ask her to pick a favorite.
“All of them are my favorites,” she said. “There’s not one in there I put in that I didn’t like. But it seems like you always make chocolate chip cookies. That seems to be the No. 1, at least in my family.”
While her daughter and son were growing up, Lund said she often baked for them, especially chocolate chip cookies. She would often try to add in other ingredients to surprise her kids, things such as peanut butter chips, walnuts, raisins, mint chips and tiny M&M’s. Sometimes she would put in all of those things.
“I use to make up batches of cookies for my son and his friends,” she said. “They were always so happy when I brought them cookies. They were my guinea pigs. I gave them all different kinds of cookies. They liked them until they had to say, ‘Mom, we’re getting fat. No more cookies.’ So then I had to cut back a little.”
It was after Lund wrote her first book that she thought she should collect her cookie recipes in print for others to have. She started writing a self-help book after returning from a few missions to Hawaii. The book, “Jesus, I Have Questions,” puts a humorous twist on some questions new believers might ask themselves when establishing their relationship with God. She wrote that book in 2011 but shelved it for three years before having it published at Tate Publishing.
After she released that book, she decided to give her cookie recipe book a shot with Tate, as well.
Part of what Lund says she loves most about cookies is their versatility.
“You can get real creative with cookies,” she said, noting that a lot of recipes in the book contain variations where other ingredients that can be substituted in or added to that cookie.
However, one thing readers shouldn’t expect too much from in Lund’s book is healthy recipes.
“They all have sugar and butter and shortening,” she said. “Some of them are like trail-mix type of cookies, like they have a lot of different kinds of nuts. You can take them on a hike, and they’d be good for that. There are some that are probably healthier than others. Still, at the end of the day, they’re all cookies.”
“Cookies, Cookies and More Cookies” can be purchased at www.tatepublishing.com. Paperbacks are $35.99, and digital copies are $15.99.
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