Tips on how to make my most favorite food: chocolate chip cookies

Yes.

I admit it.

I’m a whole foods vegetarian chef and my favorite food is the Chocolate Chip Cookie.

I “opened” my New York Times online today to find an article on this most perfect of baked good. In the article, several apparent “experts” were interviewed about how exactly to make the perfect cookie.

Yummy!

Surprisingly, one of the most important things you can do is let your cookie batter sit for about 30 hours. Who knew? Also, it’s important to mix all your ingredients at room temperature. Don’t melt the butter in the microwave. Don’t use frozen butter. Lastly, salt is a critical component to not be overlooked. Be generous with the salt!

The article, with more tips and ideas, is below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/dining/09chip.html?ex=1373342400&en=e65af79d36135b2d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Don’t forget the (soy)(organic) milk!

Cooking and Gardening: We are so efficient

So, in an effort to cut down on expenses and use only the finest ingredients, we (that being me and Eric, the manfriend) are planting an outdoor and indoor garden. Of course, it will be organic. AND, Eric has decided to use a planting method called “the Square Foot” method. I’m a bit more chaotic about my gardening, I guess….

He is an engineer and has been plotting and planning. I am a chef and have been thinking of what I can use in various dishes. Basil, chayote squash, chipotle peppers…..yummy!

We’re both very excited.

From time to time, I’ll give you the update of how it’s going. In a previous life, I lived in an urban intentional community (http://jasonstreetcommunity.org) and we had a half acre of land to plant a fairly large gardens (can you say “row planting?”). Currently, we are using about 6 square feet of raised beds in Eric’s backyard.

Last week, we spent a whole day tearing Grape Hyacinth, weeds, and grass out of the beds and picking out stones and woodchips.

We moved on to what I call “panning for dirt”. Eric has rigged a contraption that looks like a gold pan, except that you sift dirt through it and what comes out is “pure dirt,” the good stuff.

Probably about a week passed after that (we got busy), and sure enough, little grape hyacinths popped up. After a consultation with our friend and longtime organic gardener, Lori Wostl, we’ve decided to pick up some black cloth and burn the little f-ers. More to come…..