The Easiest Chocolate Chip Cookie EVAH!

I think chocolate chip cookies are our quintessential comfort food.

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Bad day?  Let’s make some cookies.

Frigid outside?  Let’s whip up a batch.

Feel like you’re getting a cold?  No chicken soup here…what about a cookie?

I desire them greatly and I know I could sustain myself on them indefinitely.

bascove

This round of Cook the Books had us reading Sustenance and Desire:  A Food Lover’s Anthology by Bascove. (Rachel at The Crispy Cook selected this anthology of “sensuality and humor” for the December/January round.)

cook the books

I sat down with Sustenance and Desire  with a totally open mind.   I was a blank slate.  I thought I might really challenge myself for this round of Cook the Books and show my creativity.  As I perused the contents of this anthology, I was excited to revisit selections from M.F.K. Fisher and Virginia Woolf and Barbara Kingsolver.    I eagerly read the poetry selections of Langston Hughes and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Would I be inspired by Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to French Fries” or “Artichoke”?  Quite possibly I thought.

Would I whip up a peach dessert inspired by Wallace Stevens’ line:  “With my whole body I taste these peaches”?

Or, would I create a pear dish as inspired by Stanley Kunitz’ “My Mother’s Pears”?

Only twenty-five pages into the book, I landed on Carol Weston’s “My Life in Cookies.”   I would look no further.

She spoke to me. (Or, should I say the cookies were calling my name?)

Weston waxes poetic about all things cookies but more importantly she includes a super easy chocolate chip cookie recipe.

 

PARIS, 2003, oil on canvas (Bascove)

PARIS, 2003, oil on canvas (Bascove)

Weston describes her twelfth grade year spent abroad in France where she was amazed “that the whole gastronomically-proud country was chip-free.”    After being without beloved chocolate chip cookies for this year, her “Life in Cookies” includes seducing her husband with freshly baked cookies “full of chips” and their subsequent wedding which featured cake and cookies.

weston's cookies

Here is her simple recipe for chocolate chip cookies which she writes is straight off the “yellow all-American Toll House bag” except she leaves out the brown sugar, baking soda, salt and nuts.  🙂

Carol Weston’s Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks butter
3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
dash of vanilla
2 c. flour  (more or less)
1 pkg. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Cream the butter and sugar.   Beat in the eggs and vanilla.   Blend in “just over two cups of flour.”   Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop by small scoopful onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet.

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Mounds of goodness.

 

Bake for around 10 minutes.   Let cool for 2 minutes.   “Serve while the chocolate is still melty and gleaming.”

 

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While it may not be the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie EVAH (from a previous CTB post),  these are certainly tasty and the easiest recipe ever.   I added one cup of chopped pecans to the second batch I made and I liked these even more.

 

Thank you Rachel for suggesting this collection.  I have a notebook on my night stand that is now full of the wit and wisdom of the authors Bascove collected for this anthology.   And thank you for introducing me to her art.

heirloom_tomatoes

HEIRLOOM TOMATOES, 2002, oil on canvas (Bascove)

Please join us for the February/March edition of Cook the Books.  Membership is open to anyone.  Just grab a copy of the latest selection, Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures at the Table by Ruth Reichl (one of my favorite food writers EVAH).   Deb of Kahakai Kitchen is hosting.   I hope you can read along with us.  (For more information, click here.)

Please check out all my CTB posts.

 

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