Cookies!

As was mentioned in one of the comments on a previous post, I seem to have left cookies out of my list of things I've cooked this summer. It's not so much that I am any good at baking cookies, but more that it's a specialty of the house where I've been living. Bill, who is generously letting Mark and me house-sit, is a often known as "The Cookie Guy"--and with good reason. We learned very early on in our supervisory group that he will never go anywhere without little ziploc baggies of freshly baked cookies. They are the most delicious and memorable calling card ever. He brought them for everyone in our supervisory not just at weekly meetings, but whenever he would come out to Mission to observe, and pretty much whenever he would stop by Stanford (it was not unusual to find a bag in my mailbox). Other recipients include the guy who runs classes at the Mac store, the mail carrier, and a waitress at one of their favorite restaurants.

It should be noted that these aren't just something off the back of some Tollhouse chocolate chips (not that those aren't delicious). No, this recipe took six years to prefect and makes about 90 cookies per batch. Of course the specifics are too special to post here, but let's just say that the base calls for semi-sweet chocolate, white chocolate, and toffee chips. Additional ingredient combinations are numerous and continue to be experimented with.



So when I got the keys to the house, I also got a copy of the recipe and the metaphoric keys to the KitchenAid mixer and the "cookie cabinet," an entire section of the kitchen literally overflowing with every kind of cookie filling your mind can fathom. The recipe wasn't so much permission to bake these cookies, but a mandate to keep the kitchen smelling delicious all summer.



I've even taken to carrying around cookies with me when go to friends' houses or other places. One of my favorite memories from this summer was when I got home from Costa Rica, and Mark asked me--on the car ride from the airport--"Will you bake cookies when we get home? I haven't had any in two weeks because you've been gone..." I might be turning into Bill. But there could be worse things.