0 A Decent, Honest Cookie

Even though I consider myself more of an optimist than a pessimist, I am also a realist. And the reality is there are some people out there who do some bad things. So when you lose your wallet you would expect that it's lost for good and that your identity might be compromised (i.e. stolen). Just when you think that the world can be a pretty messed up place someone does something to remind you that people are good. Like when you get a postcard in the mail saying that the sender found your wallet and had no way to contact you except by using the address on your driver's license. And if you are indeed the rightful owner of said wallet please call them to describe the wallet and its contents and then come to their house to claim the wallet. It's comforting to know that there are still truly decent, honest people in the world!

What is more decent and honest than a chocolate chip cookie? Not to say that other cookies are any less decent. In fact, I would say that all cookies are decent. Maybe I should call chocolate chip cookies comforting.

A few weeks ago someone asked me if I had a chocolate chip cookie recipe on my blog and it was at that moment that I realized I have never posted one. When I first started making chocolate chip cookies, like many American home bakers, I used the Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe found on the back of the bag. In high school and college, any homemade chocolate chip cookie was delicious so Toll House cookies sufficed. And I continued to use the Toll House recipe for many years after that, but it always bothered me that I would get inconsistent results with that recipe. I'm sure the Toll House recipe is a good one, but it was just incompatible with me. Even to this day I have no idea what I was doing wrong in the kitchen. So after many more unhappy batches, I finally abandoned the Toll House recipe and searched for a new one.

It was around that time when former Chez Panisse pastry cook David Lebovitz's "Room for Dessert" came out. I was a big fan of SF Bay Area pastry chefs at the time (and still am a big fan) and I bought every cookbook written by my local "pastry heroes". From the very first time I tried David Lebovitz's recipe many years ago to this very day, I always get great consistent results.

Chocolate cookie recipes are a matter of personal taste. There are a million recipes out there for chocolate cookies and everybody has their favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Some might even claim that their recipe is the best. I would never call this recipe perfect or the best, but it's the one that really works for me, so it's the best one for me.
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