She's Baked

Although I love to bake, there is one recipe that eludes me with coy surety – chocolate chip cookies. I can make flans, cheesecakes, you name it – but to make a chocolate chip cookie that rises and is chewy? That I cannot do. I recently made a batch of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies which had some elements that I look for in a cookie. And yet, it was not the classic cookie that is so well known throughout North America. Around 1998 I had one batch turn out perfectly; if only I had saved that recipe and noted the planetary alignments!