Tahini and Cranberry Whole Wheat Skillet Cookie

Do you know why I originally made this unique and holiday-appropriate skillet cookie last year? Because I had half a bag of fresh cranberries left over from something and I didn’t want to waste them. That’s it, that’s the whole reason. Fascinating! 

And that, my dear friends, is why I rarely write about food on my food blog. I love cooking and baking. I love compiling, curating, perfecting, and sharing recipes. But my what-should-I-cook-today decision-making process is either 1) I had something perishable to use up and didn’t want to waste it; or 2) oh, that sounds good! I cannot vomit up five paragraphs from that. Not that you’d read it even if I could.

I just don’t have profound reasons for cooking the way I do. I’m cheap, and I like what I like. That’s it. I have no dietary restrictions. I didn’t have an exotic or interesting childhood. I am not an immigrant or expat experiencing culture shock. I suppose I am a US transplant, but unlike other (lovely!) transplant food bloggers I have never been all that homesick. I haven’t traveled any more than anyone else. I don’t take romantic walks through crunchy autumn leaves with my soul mate. No one in my house is a picky eater, and my grandmother actually wasn’t a good cook. I got a nasty stomach virus on my one collegiate overseas trip and didn’t eat much for those ten days, and that’s why I cannot reminisce about Venetian pizza or Austrian pastries. No catastrophic life event made me realize I love roast chicken, and banana bread didn’t save my marriage. 

So I stick to the well-trodden rule: write what you know. Thanks to my education in policy and law, my Senate staff and political campaign work experience, and my lived experience growing up in the Religious Right, I know about politics and culture. (And occasionally I just have strong but arbitrary opinions about random things.) Whether we admit it or not, most couples and families are talking politics around the dinner table anyways, so I figure it has a place on one little food blog. If it offends anyone’s delicate sensibilities that much, I kindly offer a “Jump to Recipe” button. 

This cookie though. Like I said, I searched my recipe database for some baked good to use up my half bag of fresh cranberries, and this is where I landed with little more than a shrug. I hoped it would be tasty, but when Mr. Wallace and I got *thisclose* to just eating the entire cookie and nothing else for dinner that night, I got the message of how superlative it really is. The burst of juicy cranberries against rich dark chocolate, underscored by that heartiness of earthy whole wheat flour and a background note of sesame is quite the surprising – but delicious – mashup. It’s a stellar recipe that deserves a space here.