Reader Renee Wall wrote to ask for a crispy oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. She sounded a little anxious so I dropped what I was doing and went to work, tweaking an old favorite oatmeal coconut cookie for this purpose. (OK, I admit it, I was having a chocolate craving and the cookies sounded good.)

Yum. Great idea. I didn't add nuts but you can, if you like. Online, I saw recipes that used both pecans and walnuts. Wonder what would happen if you tweaked this yet again and left the coconut in? You'd need to add some liquid. I'm not generally much of a "kitchen sink" cook, preferring simpler flavors. But with cookies, I think you can get away with loading up. Might try that.

OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

• 1/4 cup butter, softened, or shortening (butter-flavor shortening will make it crisper, I think)

• 1/4 cup white sugar

• 1/4 cup brown sugar

• 1 egg

• 1 1/4 cups flour

• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 3/4 teaspoon salt

• 1 cup rolled oats

• 1 package (12 ounces) chocolate chips

• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a standing mixer or medium bowl with hand-held mixer, cream butter or shortening. Add sugar and cream well. Add egg and beat. In another bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Beat flour mixture into butter-egg mixture. Stir in oats, chips, vanilla. Drop by tablespoonful or mini ice cream scoop onto lined or nonstick baking pan; briefly press cookie down with spatula or hand. (Don't mash it, just flatten a bit.) Bake 12-14 minutes until golden and not soft to touch.

May add 1 cup chopped nuts — pecans or walnuts.

This should make about 2 1/4 dozen cookies.

• Per cookie: 180 calories, 10 g fat, 6 g saturated fat, 25 mg cholesterol, 100 mg sodium, 22 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 13 g sugar, 2 g protein