December 14, 2003

Yesterday, after a harrowing and largely unsuccessful shopping trip, E.S. and I decided to lift our own spirits by baking chocolate chip cookies.

Now, I have a recipe that consistently turns out perfect chocolate chip cookies. Without fail, people to whom I serve these cookies are amazed and delighted at how wonderful they are.

So of course I decided to use a different one, just for fun.

I looked through my recipes for a while and eventually found one that looked kind of elegant in its simplicity; what made it more interesting was that it was written in my own handwriting on the flyleaf of the first cookbook I ever bought, but I had no memory of writing it there.

So we went ahead and made the cookies according to the recipe. They turned out fine—nothing like my perfect cookies, of course, but certainly acceptable. In fact, they tasted vaguely familiar. I clearly hadn’t used this recipe for years, if ever, but somebody had.

In fact, a great many people had, as the recipe proved, to my horror, to be the Nestlé Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe.

At least it’s good to know that my tastes have become somewhat more refined over the years.