C is for Cookie

Word of the Week

Scrumptious (scrum-shus): A fancy word that means extremely tasty or delicious. It comes from the Old French word sumptueux meaning "costly" or "very expensive."

Bonjour!

Saturday, May 15th is Chocolate Chip Cookie Day! How could I resist? Talk about scrumptious.

Have you ever wondered how this magnificent cookie came to be? The story is really quite interesting. . .and the cookie might have been a happy accident!

The chocolate chip cookie was invented by Ruth Wakefield in 1938 in Massachusetts. She and her husband ran a small inn called Toll House where she liked to cook and bake for the guests. In one version of the story, Ruth decided to try to create a chocolate butter cookie by adding broken bits of a semi-sweet chocolate Nestle bar to the cookie batter. When the cookies were done, the chocolate had not melted the way she had planned, but the cookies tasted so delicious she decided to share them anyway. In other versions of the story, her creation is exactly what she intended for it to be. I personally like the first version better.

Long story short, the cookies were a huge success! In 1939, chocolate chip morsels were introduced and continue to be used today. You can still find her original recipe on the back of Nestle Toll House chocolate chip bags. The chocolate chip cookie has been tweaked and tweaked over the years. Small modifications change the flavor, crunchiness, chewiness, amount of chocolate chips, and so on.

FUN FACTS:

• In the United States, 7 billion cookies are eaten each year. WOW! I wonder how many of those are chocolate chip cookies.

• The chocolate chip cookie is the official cookie of Massachusetts.

• The world's largest chocolate chip cookie was made in 2003, weighing in at 40,000 pounds and 102 feet wide. I wonder how big that oven must have been. . .

• Nestle bought Wakefield's recipe from her in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate. What a trade!

Now- it's time for me to share my favorite and easy chocolate chip cookie recipe with you!

Celebrate the holiday with one of these. I promise you won't regret it!

Until next time. . .

Gram