
There are people who encounter recipes – in cookbooks, newspapers, magazines, websites – and prepare them with such frequency that there comes a point when the recipe isn't associated with that cookbook, newspaper, magazine or website, but with the person doing the cooking.
Or, in this case, the baking.
Several years ago, the New York Times published a much-talked-about chocolate chip cookie recipe, and a colleague of mine embraced it with the kind of gusto ordinarily reserved for binge-worthy television series.
I mean, girl went on and on about it, how she has never encountered a better recipe, and how she bakes it for everyone (except me, and don't think I didn't notice) and then sits back and lets the raves wash over her, blah, blah, blah.
Such uncharacteristic enthusiasm from a seen-it-all journalist made me wary, and I was beginning to interpret her enthusiasm for the recipe in a backlash kind of way. You know, can it really be that [expletive deleted] good? (Her words, not mine).
In a word, yes. Lord, yes.
I'm not sure that I've ever encountered a chocolate chip cookie – well, one that came out of my oven, anyway -- that simultaneously hits all the right chewy-crispy-cakey parameters, or so readily satisfies my insatiable chocolate-butter-brown sugar hunger.
This is one glorious nod to the Toll House tradition, but cleverly updated to appeal to more contemporary tastes. For starters, there's a palate-teasing sea salt tickle, and what feels like a metric ton of wickedly dark bittersweet chocolate. And it's dang good-looking, too.