Brain Fog

You know those days where you feel like part of you is still lying at home in bed? That's today. I can't shake this brain fog I've got. It's very distracting.

Not much to talk about today. I baked some New York Times chocolate chip cookies last night and they turned out pretty well. I didn't think they were awesome, but comments from neighbours and co-workers have been positive. I'd think they were being polite, except they went for seconds. And these are big cookies.

What I find interesting is that they're definitely more than the sum of their parts. I used mostly Lindt 70% cocao chocolate in them, with 3 oz of bittersweet baker's chocolate and 3 oz of semisweet baker's to make up the weight (1 1/4 lbs of chocolate in this recipe). When the occasional piece of choclate breaks away, it tastes terrible (being generally unsweet), but when part of the whole cookie, it's pretty damned good.

The tricks this recipe employs are a long refrigeration period (36 hours) and some sea salt sprinkled on top (as well as coarse salt in the dough, which I found odd). The wait time is so the liquid from the egg can be fully absorbed by the dense cookie dough. In the end, it makes for a nice colour, and very rich cookie.

There are metaphors in there somewhere about improving things through combination and patience resulting in more fulfilling results I'm sure. Really, chocolate chip cookies are comfort food of the highest order.

Of course, I still have over a dozen balls of dough in my fridge. I shall either get fat or share.