ode (not literally) to the chocolate chip cookie

It's been at least three months since my last post, I think. Life has been lived in the meantime. A LARGE LOT of life: good, busy, rewarding, memorable, happy.

Today I have a confession to make: I was introduced to chocolate chip cookies about ten years ago, and have enjoyed their morsels of sheer delight ever since, but they always came to me either from a store-purchased package (thank you, thank you, Chips Ahoy!) or from somebody else's kitchen. Perhaps a time or two I baked some with major help from a celebrated doughboy. By the way, check his website for a stellar recipe collection, including a chorus girl cookie!

http://www.pillsbury.com/Recipes/ShowRecipe.aspx?rid=41587

I avoided using peanuts and tree nuts in the kitchen once Malachi was confirmed as allergic to these ingredients / snacks. Recently the doctor also recommended that I also have him avoid food packaged with the warning "made on shared equipment" or "may contain traces of...". This has brought me to buying a considerably long list of items in order to make some chocolate-chip cookies, that Malachi really likes. Actually he would eat and/or drink almost anything that involves chocolate. Finally, on a reasonable Saturday late afternoon, several celestial bodies aligned the right way for the made-from-scratch cookies to happen in our own home. Any recipe that begins with 1/2 cup shortening and 1/2 cup butter is bound to be scrumptious. The adventure of mixing and tasting, and licked bowls and spatulas began. Both boys got on board.



By the time the first batch of cookies came sweetly out of the oven, we were almost too full of dough to try any. But there is something irresistible about the fresh, hot, tantalizing aroma of a load of chocolate chips held together by tiny amounts of dough.





Then and there, under my very eyes, for a brief fleeting moment, smiling boyhood shook hands with milk and cookies. Happiness visited us among loud laughter (she does so frequently) and I thanked HIM for the look on their faces and the yummy smears of chocolate around their mouths.