What is with Me and Cookies (for steve but the rest of you can read it.)

Last night I was craving cookies really, really badly. It's been over a week for me now since I had any, longer since I have baked any. When I crave cookies I don’t just crave eating them. I want to bake them, my finger itch to grab my mixer and create a batch from scratch. I want the noise, the mess, the smell, the taste, the whole experience.

For me, cookie baking is an event. (I live a pretty low key life, in case you couldn’t tell.) I usually have a child helping me (and the others all fighting over the chance.) I carefully consider what kind to make but most often its plain chocolate chip. It takes an hour in the afternoon, when my energy is up for a bit. I love every stage of the process. I love the feel of the dough in my fingers as I test the consistency, the sweetness on my tongue when I sneak a taste.

Cookies are my thing, more than scrapbooking, more than photography, more than reading. I have an emotional connection with the process. I need to feed that emotional space more than I really need to eat the cookies. There is comfort in a cookie. It’s small, and easy. It doesn’t intimidate. it’s simple and familiar. They never bore you because there is always another cookie to try. Other things I do make me happy, but the happiness from a mouthful of freshly made cookie dough is a very tangible thing. You can touch it. You can hold it in your mouth and savor the moment. When it’s gone, there’s more cookie dough. My childhood is wrapped up in that moment, my good times with my kids, my success. It’s all there, sweetly melting away, full and rich and full of promise of more good things to come. A good batch of cookies will turn an afternoon around. So when I’m feeling fidgety, sad, lonely, grumpy, I make cookies. They center me and make it so I can finish the day.

There’s a lot in a little chewy circle, isn’t there?