Grasshopper New Media Presents...

Growing up, we always had fresh cookies in the house. I don’t know how she did it, with three kids and a workaholic husband, but somehow my mom always managed to have a batch of her homemade chocolate chip cookies in a plastic bag on the counter.

I don’t ever remember seeing her bake them until I was well into college. She must have made them at midnight, after we were all tucked in our beds. She tells me, when I bemoan the untidy state of my own home, that she also did the lion’s share of her housework in the wee hours.

I’m a housewife now, but I’m not a fanatic about it, as the saying goes. I tidy daily, and clean about once a week, but I’d rather spend my precious time with The Poo as she grows. I want her to have memories of me on the floor with her, not cleaning the floor around her.

Often we’ll bake together. Sugar cookies at the holidays, banana bread when there is ripe fruit hanging around, and an awful lot of brownie-in-a-bag mixes. The Poo, she loves her “baroneies.”

But I rarely, if ever, make chocolate chip cookies from scratch.

I can’t bear it, you see. No matter what I do, the damn things never, ever come out of the oven tasting the way my mom’s do. They never have that perfect buttery taste, the legendary texture - somewhere between cake and cookie - that she is able to effortlessly achieve.

Everyone has a cookie like this in their lives. For my mother-in-law, it is the pinwheel. The dreaded chocolate pinwheel, made in the hundreds each Christmas by my husband’s grandmother. Well into her eighties, she hoards butter and flour for weeks before turning her deft hands to the task of rolling and cutting these perfect confections.

I confess - I don’t like the pinwheels. They are more of a cracker than a cookie. I can, however, envy and appreciate the perfect swirl of chocolate and vanilla. My mother-in-law made them once.

“They looked like tiny abortions,” she told me, sadly. “Never again.”

For me, it is the chocolate chip cookie of my youth, nestled against a Thermos of tomato soup and a note on my napkin: “Have a good day! Love, Mom.”

Whenever I go back East, I beg for these cookies. Sometimes, if I am lucky, there will be a batch waiting for us when we arrive in from the airport. More than a cookie, they are the talisman of my youth, of a time when we were five. Of a time when we were young. And when we were untouched.

I don’t know what cookie will mark these times for The Poo. That remains to be seen. In the meantime, I’m sharing my mom’s famous chocolate chip cookie recipe with you. If you figure out how to make them just right, please, for the love of God, tell me how.

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Mom’s Chocolate Chip Cookies*

2/3 C shortening (half butter, half Crisco)
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 C flour
1/2 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp salt
6 oz. chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375-degrees. Mix shortening, egg, sugars and vanilla. Measure flour by dipping method or sifting (for a softer, rounder cookie, add 1/4 C more flour). Stir dry ingredients together; blend in. Mix in chips. Drop by rounded teaspoons of dough about 2-inches apart on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Cookies should still be soft. Cool slightly before removing from sheet.

*Reprinted from Betty Crocker’s Cookie Book, 1963

[tags]mother, cookies, love, advice[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by monkeycat!, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved