Last Saturday the Food Bloggers Los Angeles group got together for a Holiday Cookie and Cookbook Exchange. It was so much fun to see everyone and see what kind of cookies they brought. Everyone also brought one or more cookbooks to exchange. Erika, of In Erika’s Kitchen, whose house we were meeting at, contributed about 40 books. I brought one and came home with four. What a good deal. We also brought lunch dishes which we noshed on while we caught up on all the news. And then the fun part, we divided up all the cookies to take home. Links to the available recipes are at the end of this post.

Fig & Date Prairie Cakes ~ Chocolate Orange Macaroons ~ Rocky Cranberry Rugelach

Coconut Walnut Crescents ~ Hazelnut Blondies ~ Savory Parmesan Cookies

Nutella Chocolate Chips ~ Chia Crunch Cookies ~ Peanut Butter Fudge

Gingersnaps ~ Parmesan Smoked Paprika Cookies ~ Light Molasses Cookies

Ginger Snaps with Lemon Cream Filling ~ Oatmeal Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies
Persian Saffron Cookies ~ Lemoncello Pizelles

FBLA Holiday Cookie Exchange 2011

The Recipe List

Chia Crunch Cookies – Jeanne at The Jolly Tomato
Chocolate Orange Almond Macaroons – Gloria at The Ginger Snap Girl
Coconut Walnut Crescents – Lana at Bibberche
Fig and Date Prairie Cakes with Sherry Icing – Leslie at Bake This Cake
Gingersnaps – Lynne at Cook and Be Merry
Ginger Snaps with Lemon Cream Filling – Gloria at The Ginger Snap Girl
Hazelnut Blondies – Cate at Savour Fare
Lemoncello Pizelles – Nancy at Adventures with Nancy Rose
Light Molasses Cookies – Patti at Worth the whisk
Nutella Chocolate Chips – Valentina at Cooking on the Weekends
Oatmeal Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies – Bryce at Bite Sized Chef
Parmesan Smoked Paprika Cookies – Erika at In Erika’s Kitchen
Peanut Butter Fudge – Dorothy at Shockingly Delicious
Persian Saffron Cookies – Laura at Family Spice
Rocky Cranberry Rugelach –
Savory Parmesan Cookies – Erika at In Erika’s Kitchen

Not Pictured
Chocolate Chip Macaroons — Melissa at Soul on a Platter
Pine Nut Rosemary Olive Oil Cookies — Greg at Sippity Sup
White Chocolate & Apricot Scones — Cathy at She Paused 4 Thought

Hi everybody! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and your waistband is still the same size. My holiday was fantastic because I got to see my brother, who lives in San Francisco, and my older son, who lives in Davis, California. They came to our feast with their wives and it was so much fun. I hadn’t seen my brother for two years, so it was very special for me.

I made these White Chocolate Chunk and Pecan Cookies to set out on a plate with the other hors d’oeuvres in case someone wanted something sweet. I also made the Kalamata Olive and Sun-Dried Tomato Toasts, and little garlic butter crostini topped with Boursin cheese for our appetizers. Alas, there were no leftovers.

The first time I made these cookies was about a month ago. I woke up one morning craving the original Chocolate Chip Cookies. I came home from work, after thinking about them all day, ready to mix and bake, only to discover I had no chocolate chips! Darn! Not to be deterred, I checked my pantry and discovered I had some Callebaut white chocolate. Ah ha! The project continued on. I threw in the pecans for textural interest. Actually, they don’t look like much, but all the little crumbs of white chocolate get mixed in and melt into the dough, making them so rich, you cannot eat just one. Truly.

My Cookie Monster sons, Brian and David

My original intent was to freeze those cookies and keep them for Thanksgiving. I made the mistake of leaving them in a container on the kitchen counter and not telling my younger son, Brian, not to eat them. So he did, plus he has friends. I ended up with five cookies, which I fully intended to photograph. I even put a note on them saying “Do Not Eat!” A couple of days later there were three cookies. I just threw up my hands and said to myself, forget it. So I made another batch a couple of days before Thanksgiving and hid them. And I hid the last dozen in order to take these photos. They are so good. Buttery. Nutty. Chocolate-y. Melt in your mouth. You get the idea.

The last time I was at my book store, I was so delighted to discover Nancy Silverton’s fabulous new creation, The Mozza Cookbook, was now on the shelf.  When I paged through it, I found that there were recipes for each of the dishes my friend Michele and I had eaten at Osteria Mozza a year ago for our birthdays. I wrote an entire post about our fabulous meal with fuzzy photos, because I had just gotten my camera. Grilled Beef Tagliata, Rucola and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Lamb Chops Scottadito with Insalata di Fregola Sarda, Mint and Yogurt. Burrata with Leeks Vinaigrette and Mustard Bread Crumbs. Burricotta with Braised Artichokes, Pine Nuts, Currants and Mint Pesto. I had to buy it, of course.

When I got home, I was absolutely submersed for about four hours. These recipes are so reminiscent of the food I was helping prepare at Campanile when I did my internship there for culinary school. Nancy Silverton would usually wander through the prep area with her toddler son on her hip, talking to the kitchen manager on her way to the pastry kitchen on the second floor. In the early ‘90’s, she was the premier pastry chef in the nation, and I watched and listened to everything she said and did. Her desserts were known for their subtlety and perfection, and for not being too sweet. She was my idol.

These Crostate are so Nancy Silverton. Subtle sweetness; a hidden surprise under the almond hat in the filling with cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg; and the visual beauty of the sugar dusted almonds and glistening marmalade. Perfect. They are really good with your afternoon or after dinner coffee. These are a cross between a cookie and a crostata, so they are big enough that I could share half with a friend and still be happy. Just saying.

The dough circles are rolled out, cut and the edges turned over to make a rim. A tablespoon of orange marmalade is spread to the rim.

A teaspoon of the spiced almond filling is spread on the marmalade. The dough is rolled out and smaller circles are cut out to top the filling.

The dough hats are brushed with egg white and sprinkled with almonds. I was so pleased with how beautifully they turned out. Good enough to be served at Osteria Mozza.

The 2011 Holiday Season is upon us and it is time to start thinking about what desserts we are going to be serving at our feasts, buffets and cookie exchanges, and to give as gifts. That is why I love these cookies, because they can be make 3 days ahead and kept at room temperature. They don’t need to be taking up precious space in your fridge.

Another reason I adore Maple Pecan Pie Bars is you can cut them into small squares to serve. So instead of having to eat a big piece of  really sweet Pecan Pie loaded with corn syrup, your guests can get the same great pecan flavor in a one-inch square sweetened with maple syrup. These are perfect for a buffet or brunch table. Or for taking as a hostess gift. And at home, you can cut the pieces as big as you want for yourself, of course. Who will know?

Today I received an email from my Food Bloggers Los Angeles group announcing there will be a Holiday Cookie Exchange on Saturday, December 3rd. Do you know what that means? OMG! It’s almost Christmas!! And I haven’t even started my Christmas shopping. I don’t know where my Christmas tree decorations are! I have no idea who is coming over for dinner. I don’t even know what I’m cooking for dinner! Heeeeelllpp!

Ok, seriously, it goaded me into thinking about what cookies I might want to bring to the Cookie Exchange. Chocolate Chips, Gingersnaps and Snickerdoodles won’t do, because they’re everyday treats we make all year. I am seriously considering my Linzer Cookies, though. They’re a Christmas tradition at our house. Oh goodie, I’m looking forward to all the cookies everyone will be bringing to the Exchange, plus the recipes.

When I was making these Chocolate Crackles, I had gone into my office at the other end of the house while the first batch was baking. The timer went off and as I walked into the living room, I was almost knocked over by the smell of chocolate that was undulating out of the kitchen. Thick and resonant. Is there anything that smells like something baked with chocolate? So delicious.

I got this recipe from a friend back in the day. I had gone to her house for a brunch and these Chocolate Crackles were on the buffet table. After one bite I knew I had to have the recipe, which she generously supplied. I have to laugh now when I look at that scrap of paper. It lists the ingredients, the temperature and baking time. That’s it. No method, whatsoever. But that’s what we do sometimes, don’t we? Thank you, LeeAnn.

Ok, ok, I know everybody and their brother has a recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies on their blog, and they’re all pretty much the same recipe, but I want to have it here for myself. My go-to place, you know. Peanut Butter Cookies are one of the four cookie recipes I brought from my childhood, along with Chocolate Chips, Snickerdoodles and Gingersnaps. We mixed them up in a big bowl with a fork and we used salted butter. This was in the 1950’s, and even though the KitchenAid stand mixer came on the market in 1919, we didn’t have one. A fork and muscle power, and we did just fine.

Peanuts are native to the tropics of the Americas and were mashed to a paste by the Aztecs hundreds of years ago. J.H. Kellogg, of breakfast cereal fame, invented an early version of peanut butter which was patented in 1897. George Washington Carver is the most well known promoter of the peanut and in 1916 he compiled 105 recipes for its use. Included were 3 peanut cookie recipes using crushed or chopped peanuts. In the 1920’s peanut butter began to be listed as an ingredient in recipes, and sugar and molasses were added to it for sweetness.

Early peanut butter cookies did not have fork marks; they were rolled and cut into shapes. The first reference to the famous criss-cross marks created with fork tines was in a Peanut Butter Cookie recipe published in the Schenectady Gazette on July 1, 1932. Pillsbury, one of the large flour producers, popularized the use of the fork in the 1930’s. The 1932 or 1933 recipes do not explain why a fork is used, though: peanut butter cookie dough is dense, and without being pressed, it will not cook evenly. Using a fork is the perfect tool, plus it makes a distinctive decoration that is instantly recognizable.

And just in case you might need this information, the oil in peanut butter is known to allow chewing gum to be removed from hair. A good thing to know. Just saying.

I have been thinking about making cookies for about a week, because I have been craving a sweet little treat and we had nothing dessert-like in the house. I didn’t feel like making your standard drop cookies either. I wanted to make something special, something different, intriguing and unusual. Something that would elicit a “How in the heck did you do that?” response. Well, I think these cookies fit that description to a tee. It was so much fun to follow the various steps and see those neat little checkerboards appear at the end. And they taste so good, too. Yummy.

The vanilla and chocolate dough are each rolled out into an 8×12-inch rectangle. One is painted with beaten egg whites and the other dough rectangle is placed on top. This is then cut in half into two 6×8-inch rectangles. Which, again, is painted with egg white and the other half placed on top, creating a four layer block of dough.

The four layer block of dough is sliced into 3/8-inch slices. These are brushed with egg white and four are stacked together.

Each slice is turned over so the dark squares alternate and the end looks like a checkerboard. The remaining slices are formed into four layer stacks and wrapped in plastic wrap.

Then they are chilled for several hours and up to three days. Or frozen for future use.

Each stack is sliced into ¼-inch slices. I think these look so… cool!

The dough slices make an excellent pattern on the cookie sheet.

And then there are beautiful little goodies to eat and share.  This is the best part.
Oh yes.

My older son, David, lives in Davis in northern California, and as I live in Los Angeles, I don’t get to see him very often. He works in the Physics Department at UC Davis and he builds things, like bionic arms for NASA. So when he said he was coming down for Christmas last year, I asked him if there was anything in particular he wanted for his gift. “You know what I want, Mom,” he said. He always asks for the same thing: a big box of Twisted Cookies, his favorite since he was a little kid. Twisted Cookies are made with a yeast dough and rolled-in sugar, which is folded over, rolled out, and folded over several times, producing a many layered cookie. I only make them at Christmas because they are so labor intensive.

Well, I said, I can’t make those because everything in my house is covered with roofing debris and I have no surface to roll out the dough. So I asked what his second choice would be. He said he wanted Snickerdoodles. So I made a big batch and wrapped them up. When we opened our presents on Christmas Eve, he carefully opened the end of the package, assured himself that the cookies were in there, then carefully reclosed it. He whispered that he didn’t want anyone to see what he got, because he didn’t want to share. Just a little secret between a son and his mom. (By the way, this guy was born in 1970 and is going to be 41 years old this year.)  lol.

This Snickerdoodle cookie recipe is from the Betty Crocker Cookbook I inherited from my Mom that was published in the 1950s. The original recipe calls for 1 cup of soft shortening (part butter) and that is the way we made them back in the day. Using Crisco was probably a leftover method from the time during WWII, when butter was rationed. I went to all butter in the 1980s and have been making them that way ever since. I love the soft chewy buttery interior with the kiss of cinnamon and sugar on the outside. Oh, and I make these all year round.

A few posts back we made these terrific little tartlet shells, and proceeded to fill them with lemon curd with little bee decorations. I had quite a few tart shells left over that I froze, so they were already made and waiting expectantly for their next incarnation.

In those posts I suggested several other options for filling the tartlet shells, one of which was banana slices and whipped cream. Sort of a banana cream pie, Lilliputian size. I wanted them to be sort of fancy and whimsical, so I decided to pipe some white chocolate in silly little shapes to enhance them. You may notice that the intricate shapes have a “tongue” piped on the bottom for inserting into whatever you are decorating.

First I drew some designs with a pen on the back of some parchment paper. I turned it over and put it on a cookie sheet. I put about an inch of water in a sauce pan and got it simmering and put a stainless steel bowl on top. I put about a cup of Ghirardelli’s white chocolate chips in the bowl and stirred for about 5 minutes until it was melted. I made a piping cone from a 9-inch square, which is a couple of inches bigger than the one used for the bees. Then I scooped the chocolate into the piping cone, cut off the tiniest point and traced over the penned designs. I still had quite a bit of white chocolate left in the piping cone, so I piped a bunch of free form shapes in between the original ones.

The chocolate took about two hours to set, but still wasn’t really hard. It has been about 90 degrees and it was affecting the chocolate. So I put it in the refrigerator to get really hard. Removing the chocolate from the parchment paper was sort of tricky. You have to peel the parchment away from the chocolate, not peel the chocolate away from the parchment. By this I mean, don’t have the parchment flat and try to lift the chocolate off. It will break. Hold the parchment in your hands and slowly peel it away from the chocolate pieces. Keep the gewgaws on the sheet in the refrigerator until you are ready to use them.

Next I whipped the cream to stiff peaks with a little sugar and put it in a piping bag with a star tip. I sliced a banana in thin slices and piped some of the cream in the tart shells. The banana slices were inserted in the cream and more whipped cream piped in between. And then the white chocolate gewgaws were inserted into the whipped cream. Voila.

Now that the Holidays are coming, I’m getting out all of my recipes that I only make at this time of year, such as these Linzer cookies. I love having these baking traditions that mean so much to me and my family. When they come for our Holiday gatherings, they can count on finding these little pastries that help connect all the memories of our shared past. This is my absolute favorite time of the year.

These Linzer Cookies are actually a riff on the famous Linzer Torte, which is named for the city of Linz, Austria and is the oldest-known torte in the world. The recipe was found in 1653 in the archive of the Admont Abbey in Austria. The Linzer Torte has a lattice design on top of the pastry and the dough is made with ground nuts, usually hazelnuts, sometimes almonds or walnuts and is filled with black currant preserves. It is a Christmas classic in Austrian, Hungarian, Swiss and German traditions.

Unlike a cake, a torte replaces all or most of the flour with ground nuts. White torte dough is made with blanched almonds, and brown torte dough with toasted hazelnuts. In North America the same torte dough is used to make these cookies and they’re filled with raspberry jam. The top cookie has a small cutout in its center (known as Linzer eyes), through which you can see the shiny jam which adds to the visual appeal. While the traditional cutout is circular, all sorts of shapes, such as hearts, are also popular.

When you have your dough rolled out between plastic wrap, use an offset spatula to loosen the dough rounds from the bottom wrap and to place them on the baking sheet.

I like to make my cookie dough with hazelnuts, because I love their flavor and the way they complement the raspberry jam. If you can’t get hazelnuts, you can certainly use almonds or walnuts. Your dough will still have that wonderful nuttiness to go with the jam. Be sure to process your nuts very finely, so you will have no trouble pushing the cookie cutter through the dough. I like to use a fluted cutter, but a plain round one is fine, or any other shapes you choose. Just make sure to make a cutout in the middle.

I would love to hear what you bake for your traditional Holiday gatherings.

Yesterday my plan was to make these Mini Tartlet Shells and photograph them. Next I was going to make the Lemon Curd and fill the tart shells. A couple of weeks ago I made the Little Buttercream Bees that were going to embellish their tops. Then I was going to photograph the finished tarts and write my blog about the whole thing. Well, guess what, that isn’t what happened.

Here you can see the 2-inch mini brioche tins and the ball of dough.

You fill a ½-tablespoon measure with dough, which is then rolled into a ball and placed in a tin.

I made the tart shells and photographed the process. Then just to make sure they were ok, I looked at them on my computer monitor. I take a lot of photos, hand held, so I have no idea what the photos are like until I see them on my screen. I mean, how interesting are tart shells, really. On a scale of 1 to 10, they’re a 1 at best. But this bunch of photos of the tart shell process were really interesting to me. Usually I photograph one food item at a time. If they’re small and alike, maybe three items. But here I had 24 small metallic brioche tins. That were also shiny. When they were lined up on the baking sheet, all of a sudden there were these visual patterns that were mesmerizing. And I had to show you… forget about the lemon curd.

Here you can see how to press the dough into the brioche tin. Poke a hole in the middle with your finger and start spreading it up the sides. Make sure when you’re done that it is flat on top.

This photo was a complete surprise to me. When I looked at it for the first time, I said to myself, “Whoa, that’s gorgeous.” I don’t mean to be blowing my own horn here, because I have no plan when I shoot and the way the photos turn out is a complete surprise to me. I think I’m going to print this out, frame it and hang it in my kitchen.

While your first batch of shells is baking, you can measure out and roll up the dough for the next batch.

This photo has been endlessly fascinating to me and is the optical illusion I discovered hiding in my photos.  The first time I looked at it, all of the wells were in-ies. The next time I looked at it, the upper left corner well was an in-ie and all the rest of the wells were out-ies. Now when I look at it, I can get one well to be an in-ie if I really concentrate on it, but when I blink it is an out-ie. I cannot get two side by side wells to be in-ies no matter how hard I concentrate. Our brain is such a mysterious thing. How do you perceive the wells?

I was doing some research on patterns and why the human brain likes them, which you may enjoy reading:

James Kent says: “If there’s one thing the human brain loves, its ordered patterns. The brain likes audio patterns (rhythms); visual patterns (stripes, mandalas, mosaics); syntactic patterns (language, logical formulas, melodies); interpretive patterns (charts, graphs, symbols); metabolic patterns (respiration, hormonal pulses, circadian rhythms, action potentials); behavioral patterns (routines, habits); etc. In fact, it is not a stretch to say the brain’s entire function is ordered pattern recognition, memory, and recall. That’s it.”

And if you are weird like me and want to read more about patterns, particularly Fibonacci numbers, you can go here at World Mysteries. I thought this was very thought provoking.

Ok, so back to the Mini Tartlet Shells. Here they are in all their golden glory and the recipe is below. Next I will make the lemon curd, fill them and some little bees will be landing on top.

If you have read about me, you know that in 1991 I decided to go to culinary school at UCLA. I had this bone-deep intense longing to learn how to do all the techniques I was reading about in food magazines. I wanted to learn to make sauces and to understand pastry and baking. I didn’t own a stand mixer or a food processor, or know how to use them. I remember trying to make a red wine butter sauce and having it break into a greasy mess. I tried to make meringue with the little hand mixer I got as a wedding present in 1965, which ended in dismal failure. And remember, back then there were no food blogs, no food channel, no facebook. If you wanted to learn how to do something you went to the library, found it in a food magazine or took a cooking class. I was tearing my hair out in frustration.

So the magical day came when I called up to register for my first class, and was told that I would have to take a little test on cooking knowledge before being allowed into the culinary program. Oh my god, there was actually a chance I might not pass and not be able to get in! My heart was galloping in my chest. They were giving the test in the near future, so she gave me the address, building, room number, date and time. She said you had to get 70% of the answers correct to pass.

So on that fateful day, I had to drive for 45 minutes to get to the UCLA campus, find street parking that was non-existent, walk blocks to the proper building, go up the elevator and walk through a maze of halls to find the room. I walked in and it was a maelstrom of about 50 people standing and talking, people sitting at tables taking the test, people standing in lines at the front of the room to get their tests graded, people at another table filling out forms and writing checks, and people trying on new chef’s coats. So for people like me who can’t concentrate if there is any noise, I had just walked into my version of hell. And I was supposed to take a test!

So I got the test, which was about 5 photocopied pages stapled in the upper left hand corner, and sat at one of the conference tables. I was so afraid I wouldn’t know anything and my hopes of going to culinary school would be dashed. If I was someone who hyper-ventilated, I would have been gasping. So I stuck my fingers in my ears and looked at the questions. Eureka! They were easy, such as:

• How many teaspoons in a tablespoon?
• How many ounces in a pound?
• At what temperature does water boil and freeze?
• Name 5 leavening agents
• True/False  Chefs never need to wash their own dishes
• How many cups in a quart?

Well, I whipped through that test like a hot knife through butter and took it to the front of the classroom to be graded. There actually were a couple of people who got less than 70% and left so dejectedly. It was really sad. I, on the other hand, got 100% correct. The lady said I was only the second one all day who had done that. My head was pretty big, let me tell you. So I got to fill out the forms to put my name in the culinary school data base, and write a check for my Chef’s Coat, which we were required to wear to the cooking classes. There were big stacks of new folded chef’s coats wrapped in plastic, so the lady gave me one and told me to try it on to make sure it was the right size.

Oh my god! I was so excited. My first Chef’s Coat! I walked to the side of the room and facing the blackboard, I put that chef’s coat on. I had this shit-eating grin on my face that I could not stop. I buttoned up the white jacket and ran my hands up and down the stiff new fabric. I folded up the sleeves, which came past my fingertips. I couldn’t stop grinning, so I couldn’t turn around, because I would have looked like a total idiot. Finally I was able to straighten out my face and tell the lady I had the correct size. She said I could now call and register for one of the classes.

As I was going down the elevator, holding that chef’s coat, that real thing, the fantasy now transformed into reality. I was going to go to culinary school. For real. Yes!!!

(See me in my chef’s coat here.)

I chose the Twirly Lemon Butter Cookies for this post because piping was one of the new techniques I learned in my first culinary school cooking class. We practiced with mashed potatoes because we were making Coquilles St. Jacques, which was a scallop gratin with mashed potatoes piped decoratively around the edge.

If you like the heady taste of lemon, then this is the cookie for you. The cookie dough and the frosting have lemon juice and lemon zest, and the dough even has lemon extract. These would be perfect with your hot afternoon tea, or with your iced tea, for that matter. I bet you can’t eat just one.

The last time I made cookies was February 12, when I made Chocolate Chips. I just don’t keep sweet stuff around. I am totally a salt freak. If you put anything sugary next to a  big bowl of buttered popcorn, I would be running off with the salty, buttery popcorn every time. And if I never ate chocolate again, that would be fine with me, too.

But over Memorial Day weekend, I all of a sudden had this craving for cookies. Little sweet crunchy ones that could be dunked in creamy sugary coffee. It had to be Gingersnaps. I also think I was stalling. I was putting off making and photographing the Potato Salad with Buttermilk Dressing that had been making me so crazy. You can read the previous post for that story.

This Gingersnap recipe was handed down from my mother, who used to make them in the 1950s. They are a little bit of nostalgia from my childhood, so I guess I have been making them for about 50 years. They fill the house with the smell of cinnamon, ginger and allspice. So delicious and enticing.

If you like them soft in the middle, bake them a minute less. If you like them more crunchy, bake them the full 12 minutes. They freeze well in a big ziplock bag, so you can eat one per day for a month. I said the recipe makes about 48 cookies, so what you freeze will be less the dozen or so Gingersnaps you eat while they are still warm. They’re that good.

I have never thought of the avocado as a fruit. It’s not sweet. I think of it as one of those in between foods, like the artichoke. So there I was at Ciudad Restaurant for the Food Bloggers lunch and cooking demonstration with Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, and I was being served a dessert of Avocado and Mango slices with a honey and lime sweetened Yogurt Sauce seasoned with salt and cayenne. The cayenne was so interesting with the sweet sauce. And along with it came a shooter of Avocado Liquado (think smoothie) with a Lavender Shortbread Cookie.

Mary Sue Milliken pours the Avocado Liquado

This was the perfect light dessert after being stuffed with an Avocado Taco, Avocado Bacon Salad and Avocado Chicken Chilaquiles. Plus the bowl of guacamole and chips we’d made during the “Guacamole Challenge,” which we snacked on while we watched the Too Hot Tamales cooking demo.

This event was sponsored by the California Avocado Commission and one of the fun things about it was the Goodie Bag we received. It was filled with avocado related stuff, like an avocado scoop/slicer, a little cutting board, three avocados, CAC refrigerator magnets, coupons to Ciudad/Border Grill and best of all, the book Cooking With the Too Hot Tamales by Mary Sue and Susan.

At the end of the event we each had our photos taken with Mary Sue and Susan and they signed our books. Mary Sue wrote, “Eat your Avocadoes! I loved your guacamole!”

The perfect ending to an amazing day.

Click to continue for printable recipes.

I LOVE chocolate chip cookies. I have been thinking about making them for a couple of weeks. To me they are the ultimate comfort food, a warm, buttery, chocolaty memory from my childhood. The whole milk and cookies thing when  I came home from school. So today I had to make some.  Also, I wanted to get the recipe into my permanent recipe index, because sometimes I don’t use chocolate chips and don’t have access to the Toll House recipe on the package.  Instead I chop up semi sweet chocolate from a big (11 pound) bar of Callebaut that I keep on hand.

And, I have to admit, I wanted to photograph the cookies stacked up Martha Stewart style, with that one cookie leaning against the stack. Did she invent that?

When I did a Google search for Chocolate Chip Cookies there were

3,100,000 results, so I know I’m not giving you an original recipe.

Every cook has a favorite take on this cookie, but I think the Toll House recipe on the chip package is the best one by far and it is the one I always make. If I made any other one my family would be in an uproar.

I was curious where chocolate chip cookies came from and discovered they were first conceived in Whitman, Massachusetts in 1930.  Ken and Ruth Wakefield opened an inn that was on a road between New Bedford and Boston. It was called the Toll House Inn because stage coaches used to stop to pay a toll at the gates.

Mrs. Wakefield accidentally invented the chocolate chip cookie when she was making a butter cookie called “Butter Drop-Do’s.” She was out of nuts so she substituted a Nestle chocolate bar which she broke into little pieces. She called them “Chocolate Crispies, “ much to the delight of her restaurant customers.

Nestle began to sell a lot of the chocolate bars after a Boston newspaper ran her popular recipe. In 1939 Nestle began making chocolate chips and in 1940 bought the Toll House name from the Wakefields. The recipe has been printed on the back of the package ever since.

The chocolate chip cookie became very popular during World War II when GIs from Massachusetts shared  those sent from home, and this began a nation-wide clamor for the recipe. On July 9, 1997, Massachusetts made the chocolate chip cookie the Official State Cookie to honor its origin in their state. I think if there was a vote, it would also be considered the United States National Cookie. What do you think?

Did I say I LOVE chocolate chip cookies?