C is for cookies

If I had to pick one food I can't live without eating (or making), it would be chocolate chip cookies. I made these a few nights ago for dessert (I also ate three for breakfast today). Growing up, we had a competition in our house, led by my dad, for who could make the best cookies. It went like this: After one of us made a batch, we would taste them and pronounce them "Perfect 10s!" Then the rest of the family would taste them and (even if they were 10s) give low-ball scores - 7 or 8 maybe. This would be followed by an outburst of feigned incredulity by the baker.

Another thing I learned from my dad was that if you used the entire bag of chocolate chips, that was just a few too many - for perfect cookies, each family member had to eat 5-7 chips straight from the bag, leaving the exact right amount for the batch of cookies. We always used the Toll House Cookie recipe but substituted Crisco for half the butter to make them less puddle-y. Lately I've been just going with all butter (Hope Creamery Butter), but making sure the dough is a little cold to compensate.

I've recently tried the standard cookie recipe in Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything," but I think I still prefer Toll House. It's hard to beat a legend. Oh, and I always use a light colored cookie sheet - currently an airbake style. The darker pans always burn my cookies! If you want to have freshly baked cookies all week, just make one pan and freeze the rest of the dough.

By the way, this particular batch of cookies (pictured above) was a perfect 10.

Recipe: Toll House Cookies

(I'm not listing it out, because who doesn't know this recipe?!)