There’s nothing quite as personal as a baked good. That’s why we give our culinary creations such high status among life events: we cut cake at wedding and birthday celebrations; we send bread (of all varieties: wheat, sourdough, banana, pumpkin, zucchini) to friends and family to let them know we’re thinking about them.
Even something as simple as a chocolate chip cookie is imbued with the essence of its creator. Everyone does it just a little bit differently. A pinch more salt here; a dash of vanilla there. Oats? Sure! All brown sugar? Why not! Some make them thick and gooey; others prefer thin and crispy.
And this human touch is the singular source of chocolate chip cookie joy for me. Give five people the exact same recipe and you’ll still end up with five different tasting specimens. That’s because five different pairs of hands have shaped each batch of dough; five different ovens have baked them; five different cooling racks on five different countertops.
I love how a homemade chocolate chip cookie has a faint taste of the house it was made in! (In a good way, of course…) What an amazing microcosm of life.
This is why mass-produced cookies just don’t work. Chips Ahoy make me want to walk the plank. Mrs. Fields put me out to pasture. Otis Spunkmeyer? Umm…spunky: need I say more?
