Sure, those store bought cookies with a summit of frosting on top hit the spot every once in a while. They offer that hit of sugar that seems to linger in my kids’ bloodstream for at least a week. And the colors, THE COLORS!
And yet I am convinced that the best cookies come from a place called “Home”.
If I spend most of my time in the kitchen at the sink, my wife spends most of hers at the stove and oven. You see, back before we were married, we struck the brilliant deal that whoever did the cooking should not have to do the dishes. That way, neither of us has to spend too much time toiling in the kitchen.
But here’s the beautiful thing: when my wife is bored, she bakes cookies. She has recipes that she’s accumulated or memorized over the years for snickerdoodles, peanut butter cookies, sugar-plum cookies, peppermint chocolate crackle cookies, peanut butter and cheerio cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies and that time-honored classic you see here: chocolate chip cookies. Ask her about Brother Juniper’s cookies if you’re looking for a healthy cookie that you won’t be able to stop eating.
Even more wonderful is the fact that my wife doesn’t hoard the cookies herself. Her baking binges mean cookies for days for the whole family, for neighbors, and even my coworkers. Unsuspecting new neighbors are usually the recipients of a cookie plate, courtesy of my wife. She matches her gifts of baking with the gift of generosity.
One of my favorite parts of these home-baked cookies is the way that the house is transformed as they are being made. From the moment the over is flipped on to preheat, the barely-there noise of the quiet oven fan gets me salivating. The heat spilling out of oven begins to warm the rest of the house by a degree or so in a way that nobody minds. The kitchen also becomes a lot messier, with trace amounts of flour floating from surface to surface — often aided by kids who are eager to help mom out. And mom is gracious to let everybody in the family try a bit of cookie dough before rolling it out on to cooking sheets. It is like the kitchen becomes this hot and lively magnet that draws in the family from whatever had interested them just minutes before. That’s when you could look in our oven and see the scene in this photo. And by the time the cookies have cooled, the family is still quite interested.
So my wife certainly has some incredible-home-baked-cookie powers. But perhaps the even more amazing thing is how she uses cookies to make our place into home.
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What cookie recipe is not worth living without? Tell us in the comments!
