Cookies!

A Photographic Journey

Before anything begins, music must fill the air. In this case, 25 Rock Revival Greats, one of the ultimate albums of my childhood.

For the recipe, I refer to my Care Bear cookbook (which is about twenty years old) for my mom's classic chocolate chip cookie recipe, a favourite amongst kids in the the neighbourhood.

Preheat the oven.

Next, cut up some butter and dump it in a big bowl. Cutting it up in little pieces makes it easier to mix!

"How do you like your eggs?"

"Baked inside cookies."

Mmm... yolk.

Next, prepare a bunch of brown sugar. Also, enjoy looking at the miscellaneous stuff on my fridge.

Then, dump it in the bowl, making a sandcastle of brown sugar.

Looks delicious, right?

Mix it up with a hand mixer, or by hand with a big spoon if there is no mixer available or if you are making cookie dough in a power outage so you can sit around in the dark and no one will see you eating a whole batch of cookie dough by yourself while you cry. Here's what it should look like at this point:

If not, get a razor blade and swiftly apply two quick but shallow slits to your belly as punishment. Unless you're a recovering cutter, as this may cause a relapse.

Now you have to add the flour and, now this is key, a wind-up glow-in-the-dark skeleton. You might not believe me, but this is what will make the difference between a successful batch of cookies and the kind of cookies that will get you banned from being invited to shindigs for at least a two year period.

You're also gonna have to toss some baking soda in the mix.

About this point, side A of 25 Rock Revival Greats has ended, so I dig out my old Pac-Man Record.

The flour needs to be added slowly while mixing.

You may have to fight with the mixer while the dough thickens and the mixer is all like "Don't overwork me like this! I'm doing my best!" But you're all up in it's face like "Your best isn't good enough!"

The dough should look like this now, thicker:

Let Gary Oldman have a taste!

Now, lick the beaters.

If at all possible, make yourself look like a monkey while you do it. It tastes better.

Carefully measure out the chocolate chips by dumping almost a whole bag into a retro style glass.

Dump them into the mix.

Now comes the manual labour. You have to stir the chips into the dough by hand.

At about this time I realize this Pac-Man record is not as good as it was twenty years ago. First of all, I thought the ghosts were called Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde. But according to this, their names are Speedy, Shadow, Bashful and Poky. What is that?! That's not catchy! Also, it's a story record, and I remember more songs. And they gave Pac-Man a totally fem voice and personality! Whatever! Pac-Man is all man! How dare they? And he's all about eating fruit. And the ghosts with dumb names are going to steal all the fruit so that Pac-Man won't be as fast and they can finally catch him. So Pac-Man's all walking to the local grocer for some fruit because he's all healthy or something but the ghosts are stealing said fruit. This record is just throwing in my face the fact that I have ingredients in my house to make cookies, but not a single piece of fruit. Stupid record!

At this point, you will need to calm yourself down and doll out some cookie dough onto a cookie sheet. In this case, the best cookie sheet ever made! Cookies slide right off this thing! And I got it at Dollarama! Thanks kids in Indonesia!

Throw cookie tray into the oven.

Okay, so turns out that the Pack Rat got his name from Pac-Man who made a trade with him for information leading to the missing fruit. Pac-Man traded his name for the information. And he traded it with a really effeminate voice. Turns out, the ghosts took all the fruit to a haunted house and called Pac-Man yellow, to which he replied (with a lisp) "I may be yellow, but I'm not afraid." On the plus side, now the stupid named ghosts are singing my theme song "I Hate Fruit Blues".

Now, ignore Pac-Man and set the pear-shaped timer. If you don't have a pear-shaped timer, sit in front of the oven and count off 10-12 minutes aloud.

By now, Pac-Man has retrieved the fruit and returned it to the people of Pacville, and he has received the key to the city, which he should have had anyway, seeing as how the city was named after him. So, while waiting for the first tray to bake, sit down for a moment and watch "How It's Made" to see how marshmallow cookies are made by a giant corporation.

After the pear-shaped timer goes off, if the cookies look right, take them out and let Yukon Cornelius inspect them.

Continue this process until all cookie dough has been baked into cookies or has been eaten while snubbing a Pac-Man record.

Result: Cookies!

Enjoy 1-20 cookies as a reward for making cookies for your friends. For those of you whom I will be dining with tomorrow night, start salivating! But don't let that go on too long. You're already pretty unlovable. You don't need drool added to your problems.