Stateside With Rosalea: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Seems like a time for comfort food. I came across this recipe for Chocolate Chip cookies on a website that was last modified on December 9, 1994 by Bronwen Heuer.

She says that:

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Many believe that this is the best recipe for Chocolate Chip cookies. In the old days (when Clifford Stoll was still a household word and the information highway was not) he publicized this recipe in his book "Cuckoo's Egg" and even published his email address if you felt that this recipe was not the best. See what you think. Here's the recipe for the cookies from "THE CUCKOO'S EGG".

2 eggs, 1 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup regular sugar, 2 sticks softened butter. Fold in 2 1/4 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and a one tablespoon of vanilla. (3 tablespoons of cocoa if wanted). 2 cups of chocolate chips. Bake 375 for 10 min.

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A stick of butter is 4 ounces, so two sticks will be about 225 grams. The equivalent oven temperature in celsius is 200.

Chocolate chip cookies are a staple food in the United States, and they are usually as big as a saucer and sold individually.

The act of baking the smaller variety is sold as family entertainment because most people buy pre-packaged cookie dough. It often sits on the same shelf in the supermarket as the butter does, but it's cheaper. The dough's sold in a roll like sausage meat, and kids can just cut it into slices, put it on a cookie tray, and bung it in the oven.

Anyway, the inspiration for this week's column is from a piece of serendipity--Cliff Stoll got on the BART yesterday and sat behind me. I recognized him from when I used to watch TechTV on Telecom's First Entertainment cable channel back in the late 90s. His contrarian outlook on the computer-idolatory phase the world was going through at the time made a refreshing change and I always enjoyed his commentary.

Until I did a search on his name today, I hadn't realised that he wrote a 1989 New York Times best-seller about his true-life experience of tracing a 75 cent accounting discrepancy that uncovered a spy network. The world could do with a whole lot more people as sceptical and as thorough as Stoll.

Happy baking!

rosalea.barker@gmail.com

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