This morning, my younger daughter and I made cookies. Our chocolate chunk and peanut butter cookies are a firm favorite with my kids, their friends, our neighbors and practically every person who's ever had a taste. We also do a white chocolate version, which my older daughter prefers, and which we've christened Blondies. Sometimes we bake the dark chocolate version as Brownies, that is, baked in a pan and cut into small squares. Whatever the shape, the cookies are always a huge hit. Friends (men, women and children) on their way home from school or shopping have been known to detour past our house for a nibble or two when they hear there's a fresh batch baking in the oven. And when it was my little one's turn to bring something to sell for Bakers' Day, she brought a tray each of Blondies and Brownies - around 48 pieces - and they all sold out!
My kids always say I should open a bakery and make cookies all day long when we move back to Manila. Sweet, though the likelihood of that [the bakery] ever happening is as slim as me donning one of those horrid orange and green team jerseys. Nevertheless, it is heartwarming to realize that these cookies - along with Nutella Pie, "special sauce" chicken, tonkatsu, adobo and "creamy pasta", all made from scratch - will forever embody for them the taste of home. Their Proustian madeleine, I guess. They'll always remember that first bite of the warm, chewy cookie with the melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chunks and the unexpected kick of peanut butter the way I remember my mother's paella.
So anyway, today, as we poured the sugar into the butter, my daughter said with unabashed enthusiasm, "Mom, I'm so lucky I'm your daughter!"
"Why do you say that, darling?" I asked.
"Because if I wasn't your daughter, someone else would be here making brownies with you, and it wouldn't be me, 'cause you make the best brownies and cookies and cakes in the world!"
Awww.
There are days when I feel like a short-order cook in a diner, making my older one's omelette with bacon and cheese just so, and the younger one's pasta with this but not that... but when they tell me I'm the best, all culinary exigencies are forgiven... till the next meal.
Of course they have yet to discover my dessert guru Pierre Hermé! One bite of his macaroons and I'm history!
Just ask Dorie Greenspan, who always samples the latest creations of le maître himself whenever she is in France.
Cookie, anyone?
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