Blue-Ribbon Cookies
By Marni Myers

aaaaet's take a trip down Memory Lane for a moment, shall we? Let's walk backwards into my 20s, meander through college, hurry past that awkward adolescence, and knock on the door of my early childhood, age seven to be exact. aaaaAh yes, age seven. Do you remember it? To be honest, I'm not sure how much I remember of my seventh year as a whole, other than that crush on Troy Stevenson, the boy who sat next to me in the second grade, but I do have very fond memories of summer afternoons spent at the home of my friend Allison Dover, with a group of giggly girls my age, learning to cook from Allison's mom, Rhonda, who was our 4-H leader. Under her tutelage, we learned the proper way to measure dry ingredients (always level the top of the measuring cup with the back edge of a table knife), that vinegar added to milk causes the milk to coagulate (don't ask me why we needed to know this; I've never discovered its relevance to actual cooking), the secret to making blueberry pancakes that don't actually turn blue (use fresh blueberries, not frozen), and that sifting flour before measuring it can be the difference between pound cake and Angel food cake when it comes to the finished product. Another useful tip from 4-H cooking classes: Never put sharp knives in the dishwater! I can't tell you how many times that one has saved my fingers from inadvertent slicing when washing up in the sink after a long baking session.
	a	aaaaThe culmination of our summer as Julia Child mini-protégées was the county fair, where we were to enter a batch of our own, homemade cookies to be judged. My friend Brooke and I made our fair cookies on the same day, standing a few feet apart from each other on kitchen chairs in front of the counter in my kitchen, wearing colorful apron's we'd pulled from the hook in my mom's pantry. We used separate cookbooks, didn't speak of what we were making, and each of us diligently kept our eyes away from the other's creation to preserve the spirit of the competition. My mom was available for consultation in the event we got stuck, but since these cookies were to be a demonstration of our novice cooking prowess and the culmination of our 4-H lessons, we were, on the whole, on our own. aaaaI chose a recipe for basic chocolate-chip cookies from a cookbook with a red-and-white
pattern on the front. I hadn't ever made anything unsupervised before, and I'd definitely never made anything with so many ingredients before either. After reading through the list, I went around the kitchen collecting the ingredients and then, referring to list, carefully measured into the mixing bowl each item in its proper quantity, including three cups of flour and a whole bag of chocolate chips. When I had put in everything on the list, I used the hand mixer to mix it all up, switching to the wooden spoon when it became too thick for the mixer. Perfect! aaaaI then consulted the book again to see what the oven temperature and cooking time were. I was shocked to discover that there were instructions underneath the ingredient list telling me how to actually make the cookies. Interesting. It hadn't occurred to me that there this might be a multi-step process. What was this about creaming the butter and sugar first? About stirring in the flour a half-cup at a time? You mean the chocolate chips were supposed to be added separately, when the dough was already done? Apparently I wasn't supposed to just dump everything in and mix it up. Who knew there was so much to a simple cookie recipe? aaaaIn spite of my culinary blunder, the cookies turned out to be smashing, and I got a blue ribbon from the judges at the fair. In subsequent years, I made these cookies so often that I memorized the recipe, and over time, I've gradually experimented with and altered the recipe until it truly has become my own. In fact, I just learned some new techniques a couple of weeks ago that make the cookies even better. (I didn't know it was possible for them to be any better!) aaaaIt is with great confidence that I share with you my recipe for award-winning chocolate-chip cookies. I'm certain that, even if you don't follow the instructions exactly, these cookies will still win blue ribbons of praise whenever you serve them, like they do for me, every time.

Marni's Blue-Ribbon Chocolate-Chip Cookies
Yield: About 4 dozen

1 cup sugar
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)
1 cup packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup oats
3 cups flour exactly
1 package chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Cream together butter and sugar, using an electric mixer, for at least three minutes, or until super fluffy.
3. Add all remaining ingredients except flour and chocolate chips, and mix until well blended.
4. With a wooden spoon, stir in flour one cup at a time.
5. Stir in chocolate chips.
6. Drop cookies by spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheet.
7. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until top and edges are very slightly golden brown. (The secret to really good, soft cookies is to slightly under-bake them, so, knowing your oven, go for the minimum time rather than waiting until they're good and done.)
8. Remove promptly to cool on racks.
9. Serve with milk and enjoy all the accolades your cookies receive.

P.S. In spite of the myth of cookies hot out of the oven being the closest thing to heaven, I've found that these cookies actually taste better the next day.