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CROSS-CULTURAL COOKIES
Cookies are my favorite…especially chocolate chip. For that reason, I think I felt an almost magnetic pull to my mother’s Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book, with the large arrangement of assorted cookies with a vibrant red background to make them look even more delicious.
I loved looking through the Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book, because for one, the pictures made my mouth water, and secondly, it made me feel a little bit more connected to my American background, even though I was spending my childhood in a different culture.
My parents, as well as my brother and me, are both American born, but we moved to Vienna, Austria for the first time in 1972, when I was less than a year old, and my brother was three because they were becoming missionaries.
Every so often, I would appeal to my mom to make those mouth watering chocolate chip cookies, by saying “Mom, the chocolate chip cookies are my favorite, can we make these soon?” In Vienna, Austria, in 1978, there were no such things as packaged chocolate chips. There was plenty of chocolate, but not in the desired form of “semi-sweet morsels”. We would plan ahead, because we had to buy a large slab of cooking chocolate for the “morsels”.
In our cozy kitchen, my mother and I would sit at the Formica covered table and cut that chocolate slab into pieces. Sometimes there were chunks, sometimes shavings, but rarely were there pieces of chocolate the size of those “morsels”. It didn’t matter, they were bits of chocolate, and I was spending time with my mom. Mixing the batter and dropping in the mutilated chocolate bar was half the fun, anyway, as we laughed at the way the pieces looked, and the delicious shavings that ended up in the batter as well.
The cookies were baked, and savored by the whole family and occasionally a guest or two. I remember loving the time I spent with my mom. That memory is still one I savor, especially when my own seven year old daughter brings out our Christmas cookie cookbook with the mouth watering pictures and says, “Mom, this one is my favorite…can we make these soon?”
Ultimate Chocolate Chip CookiesJust like the name says, this is the chocolate chip cookie extraordinaire! Definitely one of Betty's favorites!
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
2 1/4 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts
1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)
1 . Heat oven to 375ºF.
2 . Mix sugars, butter and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.
3 . Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.
4 . Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.
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