Recipe: Big, Soft, and Chewy Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Raisin Cookies (and How To Hug a Sheep) (2024)

Chocolate Chip Sheep and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Soft and chewy with a crisp, buttery edge, the whole wheat flour adds extra flavor.

My first experience with lambing, back in 1996, was quite an adventure, especially since I had never before witnessed anything being born.

A big, black-faced Suffolk named Sophie was the first of my ewes to give birth. And she had quadruplets. Which is extremely rare in sheep circles. Two of the lambs didn't survive, but this is not uncommon.

The two that did had black heads, black legs, and white bodies covered with darling little black spots. Curled up together, they looked like two scoops of chocolate chip ice cream, and I immediately started calling them Chip and Chip, or The Chippers. This was nine years ago, and Chip and Chip are doing just fine.

The Chippers are boys, and unless one is in need of a ram, all male lambs on a farm are routinely castrated when they are very young. They are then called wethers. Wethers are fattened up and eventually relocated into somebody's freezer. Except the lucky few like Chip and Chip.

They were cute and sweet and cuddly and the first lambs born on the farm! I refused to rename them Chop and Chop. Their chocolate chip spots faded, and they became big, wooly pets. One is bigger and woolier than the other, so they are referred to as Big Chip and Skinny Chip, though both of them are huge.

Since the days of raising large flocks of wethers solely for their wool have long since passed, The Chippers are, according to pretty much everyone except me, completely useless. They are also probably two of the oldest wethers on the planet.

During her last visit to the farm, my mother pointed at Chip and Chip and said, "Tell me again why you don't eat those two." I reminded her that for one thing, they were much too old and wouldn't taste very good. And secondly, it would be like eating the dog. "Oh."

Big Chip, January 2006

Since sheep are always standing on all four of their feet, they cannot give each other hugs like people can. A mother ewe is unable to hold her lamb; the lamb snuggles up next to her or will sometimes sit right on top of her (which is adorable). To show affection in general, sheep have their own unique version of a hug, which I learned from Big Chip.

What you do is this: Stand right next to the sheep, knees slightly bent to brace yourself. Then you lean your hip and leg into the sheep, pressing with all of your might. At the same time, the sheep presses back. If you stop hugging before the sheep is done, you will end up on the ground. Other than that, it's a very pleasant experience. Every time I get near Big Chip he walks right up to me and demands a hug.

Skinny Chip checks out a new arrival, March 2006

Besides being fun to have around, the Chippers actually do serve a purpose, which I am constantly called upon to explain to people when I am rationalizing their existence. If you want a flock of sheep to do something or go somewhere, you only need to get one sheep to do it. Then the rest will generally follow along (hence all those sheep jokes). A Chipper is often The One.

Because they're so friendly and trusting, it's much easier to get them to do what you want than, say, a psychopathic ewe who always looks as though she wants to kill you (and has, on more than one occasion, tried to). If we're trimming hooves or shearing, I can usually walk right up and put my arms around one of The Chippers and we're good to go.

If this priceless attribute is not a reasonable enough explanation, I then point out that I do not have any children, so my animals are my kids, and a wether is even easier and cheaper to keep than a dog (let alone a small child).