It’s been a hard couple of months: one night in April, I was reduced to making a quarter batch, only enough cookies for one. In May, moving from couch to couch, I rebuilt the mobile cookie unit to include every ingredient and a bowl, cookie sheet and half cup measure. We’ve hit some kind of watershed in New York and many of the people I know are leaving the city; tonight I went to a goodbye party for a friend on her way to Northhampton. I was running low on light brown sugar so rounded out the half cup with white, which I am almost afraid of now, it’s been so long. Two capfuls of vanilla a friend gave to me when she moved. A half bar chopped of Green & Black 85% cacao baking chocolate and, a new ingredient, coconut chips, flakes bigger than flakes that turn a hint of coconut into a bonafide coconut cookie. I made the same combination last night, both times the baking soda (tonight it was powder) had died and the cookies came out flat but not burnt, fragile but not too sugary, still a bit of cakeyness, I thought very good. A friend asked if I really experiment since I always make chocolate chip and for the most part oat cookies? Was I, she asked, after “the perfect cookie?” Cookies are necessarily experimental, different in every oven, with each chocolate, active or dead baking soda, different sized eggs, vegan or gluten-free as the need arises. I don’t believe in one perfect cookie but they should always taste good and make people, especially me, happy. I am leaving town too soon, I hope I will find Stewart, he is as lost as I am, and together we will keep doing what we do best.
