I'm a REAL cookie killer

I've been cooking since I was a girl and I'm pretty good at it. As the eldest of four children with working parents, I was making family meals earlier than most kids my age. I have always read cook books like they were novels (like Granna) and love trying out new recipes every chance I get (like my father). My repertoire of meals is mostly committed to memory as I am confident in the kitchen and rarely shy away from new culinary challenges.

I guess one could say I'm a mixture of Paula Deen (minus the accent), Rachel Ray (minus the perkiness), and Giada De Laurentiis (minus the perfect smile and that killer body). So basically I guess I'm no more than a really mediocre Julia Child... oh well. But I can cook most anything with varying levels of success, except the one dish which has proven to be a menace to me my entire cooking life, my absolute favorite treat of all...

Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookies.

Yes, I admit it, I couldn't make chocolate chip cookies if my life depended on it. I have attempted hundreds, probably thousands of times over my years in the kitchen and every time, every last time, I ruin them somehow. I finally accepted defeat and hung my head in shame as I regularly bought those big tubs of chocolate chip cookie dough from a warehouse club. I thought they tasted okay, but my family loved them (because they didn't know any better), so all was right in my little fake cookie world. Until a few nights ago when one of my children excitedly asked if we could have REAL chocolate chip cookies, "you know Mom, like the kind with flour and eggs in them."

Oddly, the request tugged at my heart. Now admittedly, I am bad at plenty of things, but this chick can cook and I'm not going to be afraid anymore of a silly little cookie recipe that every cook in America (and most children who can read or be read to) can make without a problem.

So I carefully measured each ingredient, mixed according to the directions, and even doubled the recipe so my children would have enough to take to school the next day and say, "Look what my mom made! REAL chocolate chip cookies!" And their friends would ooh and aaah and tell my children how lucky they were to have such a cool mom who took the time to make her family REAL chocolate chip cookies, leaving my children feeling stuffed and confident of their mother's love for them.

Filled with the knowledge that I would do my family proud, I preheated the oven and placed 16 perfectly formed cookie balls on the cookie sheet and prepared my children to experience the beauty that is Nestle Toll House cookies.

This is what emerged from my oven ten minutes later:

















Oh good grief! The children tried to stifle their disappointment as I curtly scraped off two "cookies" for each child and sat back to answer the inevitable barrage of questions: "Where are the cookies Mommy? Are these them? Why do they look so funny? Where is that tub with the cookie dough, I like those much better. Why do these look so gross? When are you going to make the REAL cookies, Mom? " And on, and on, and on...

Yes, I failed yet again. I can not make Toll House cookies and I accept defeat. My poor children must someday be shoved into the cruel world as adults having missed out on that important bit of childhood culinary delight. Well, that and Rice Krispy Treats 'cause I can't seem to make those either what with all the stale-like Krispies I somehow create by the time I'm done. What is wrong with me? I think my kids may have been seriously short-changed.

Well, I won't stand for it. I am off to the store to get me some Rice Krispies cereal because it's one thing to screw up a recipe with 9-10 ingredients, but there is no excuse to screw up a recipe with three measly ingredients that any imbecile (well, almost any imbecile) should be able to make for her children...and these Rice Krispie Treats will be REAL. Do you hear that kids? REAL!