Cookies

There's something about baking cookies. Getting out your old favorite recipe. Buying fresh ingredients at the store. Turning up tunes you can sing along with--namely, the Beatles--while you work. Mashing the butter into little bits because you forgot to leave it out to soften. My favorite part: using a spoon to eat the rest of the dough after you put the cookies on a baking sheet. Waiting for them to bake, and smelling them when they're ready. Finding out you accidentally put them too close together, so you have to use a knife to cut them apart, and realizing that made them gooier. Which is good. Then, of course, the hot cookie with the melty chocolatey goodness. Mmhmm. Hopefully that made you want to bake some yourself. Everything seems better after a home-baked cookie.

Photo: The results of my baking today--a large plate of chocolate chip cookies!