Marry me cookies

I don’t really do anything for Valentine’s Day. It’s not that The Husband and I don’t relish the chance to express our affection for each other; it’s that we’d rather do that on any random Tuesday rather than succumb to the pressure for perfection that can surround Feb. 14. I still remember the time a couple of years ago when I came home to dozens of roses and a note that said, “Just because.”

But the impending Hallmark holiday does give me the chance to write about the sweet thing I cooked for him when he wasn’t “the” anything quite yet: not The Boyfriend, not The Fiancé, of course not The Husband.

Table of Contents

• My next Zoom cooking class! Finally, it's BEANS!

• I break for animals: Bonnie

• Recipe: Carl's Chocolate Chip Cookies

• More favorite chocolate recipes

TBH, I had gotten pretty cynical about dating at this point, and I was especially frustrated by how many prospective partners seemed to have such issues with food. Or, to be more charitable about it, how many of them didn’t share my, well, gusto for it. I just got the sense that they were so much more concerned about their appearance than anything else, and while I have no shortage of vanity, my love of eating has always outranked it.

Anyway, I had come from dating someone who was so careful about food it was infuriating. “That’s such a huge portion!” he’d say when I served him something — something I thought was no such thing. “I don’t do dessert,” he’d say, which should have been a deal-breaker.

So when I started seeing Carl — we met at the gym, where we shared a personal trainer (Ivan, the best trainer either of us has ever had) — I was a little worried this same difference might show up again. On our first date, he was a good eater, but he did confess some dislikes that gave me pause. No “cooked fruit”? What about jam, what about pie? I would eventually learn to convert him.

But one evening, he hadn’t been feeling well, so I made him my go-to for such occasions: A clear-steamed chicken soup with ginger and scallions that I learned from Nina Simonds. He ate a bowl, seemed to revive before my eyes, and asked, “Got any cookies?”

Be still my beating heart. Right?

I didn’t have any, but I couldn’t resist the chance to whip up some. I used what I had to sub in for the ingredients in a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, tossing in some rolled oats and a little whole wheat flour, some shredded coconut and pecans. Of course, plenty of chocolate — long before I knew that he preferred milk to dark. And one of my special ingredients, then and now: Fiori di Sicilia, the orange-vanilla extract I buy from King Arthur Flour that’s a traditional ingredient in some Italian baked goods. If you haven’t tried it, it’s got an almost haunting, ethereal fragrance, and it adds just a touch of mystery wherever I use it.

I scooped out huge portions of the dough — ¼ cup! The cookies spread a little more than I had intended, but that just meant that the edges ended up being chewy-crisp and the center softer.

The important part is how the cookies taught us something about each other. Carl took a bite, his eyes lit up, he might have moaned a little bit, and he asked for another. He also said, “I taste a little orange and vanilla,” which, well, major points for his palate. But more importantly, I realized that here was a man who loves food as much as I do. Maybe he’s The Keeper?

I asked Carl this morning if he remembered what the cookies taught him about me. He didn’t hesitate: “You were taking care of me,” he said. “I thought it was so sweet.”

I made them again recently, and just like that first time, I adapted to what I had in the pantry. Out went the whole-wheat flour and chocolate bar; in went more all-purpose flour and semisweet chocolate chips (see milk chocolate, above). This time, using a trick I’ve learned from great food stylists (Hi, Lisa Cherkasky!), I pulled the cookies a little early and used a little offset spatula to nudge the edges toward the center, which thickened them.

Fifteen years later, I realize, it turns out that cookies are much like a marriage, aren’t they? You love what happens naturally, and you also aren’t afraid to roll with the punches, be flexible and, perhaps most importantly, put in whatever effort it takes to make things work for the both of you. Now that is sweet.

A word about The Washington Post: I’ve been heartbroken by what’s been happening, particularly the latest round of layoffs, which has put 300 of my former colleagues out of work. My former team in Food, which I carefully built over almost two decades, lost three valued staff members: Daniela Galarza, Olga Massov and Aaron Hutcherson.

If you’re more tempted than ever to cancel your subscription, please please please think twice. It’s not going to hurt Jeff Bezos; it’s going to hurt the great journalists who remain there, and they need your support more than ever.

My next Zoom cooking class: BEANS!

Mark your calendars and buy your tickets! On Sunday, Feb. 22, at noon, I’m going to share all my latest tips and tricks for making a perfect pot of beans, then we’re going to turn them into three delicious dishes!

As always, you get 25 percent off a ticket to the class as a subscriber to this newsletter; just use the promo code “eatatjoes”! And don’t worry; if you just want to watch and not cook (or pipe) along, you’re welcome to do that. And if you can’t make it live but want to watch later, your ticket gets you access to a recording. Come join us — and invite your friends!

I break for animals:
Bonnie

Recipe: Carl’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 8 to 10 very large cookies // Time: Weekday // Storage: In an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days. Freezing the baked cookies not recommended, but see the Note at the bottom of the recipe about freezing the dough.

Ingredients

• ¾ cup (95 g) all-purpose flour

• ¼ cup (20 g) rolled oats

• 2 tablespoons unsweetened finely shredded coconut

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon fine salt

• 8 tablespoons (115 g) unsalted butter, softened

• ¾ cup (165 g) packed light brown sugar

• 1 egg

• 1 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia (see Substitutions)

• 6 ounces (170 g) semisweet chocolate chips

• ½ cup (50 g) toasted pecan halves

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, coconut, baking soda, and salt. In a separate small bowl, using an electric hand mixer on medium-high, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg and Fiori di Sicilia.

Reduce the mixer speed to low, add the flour mixture, and mix just until incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips and pecans.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Use a No. 20 disher or a measuring cup to drop ¼-cup mounds of dough onto the sheets, 4 inches apart. (They will spread significantly.)

Bake, rotating the sheets halfway through, until brown on the edges and dry to the touch in the center, 15 minutes. (If you’d like, after about 12 minutes you can use a small spatula or butter knife to nudge the edges of the soft cookies toward the center to make them a little smaller in diameter and thicker.) Remove the cookies and let them cool on the baking sheets, during which time they will further set.

Substitutions

• To make them gluten-free: Use a gluten-free flour blend you like.

• Butter: Non-dairy butter.

• Light brown sugar: Dark brown sugar.

• Fiori di Sicilia: Vanilla extract, or ½ teaspoon orange oil plus ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

• Semisweet chocolate chips: Your favorite chocolate (darker if you’d like) or white chocolate chips, or a 6-ounce chocolate bar of your choice, shaved and chopped into irregular shards and chunks.

• Pecans: Walnuts.

Note

You can freeze these before baking. Just drop the mounds onto just one baking sheet, as close together as you need without touching, and freeze them until firm. Then transfer them to heavy-duty freezer bags and store in the freezer for up to six months. To bake from frozen, increase the time to 25 minutes or longer.

Recipe adapted from “Eat Your Vegetables” (Ten Speed Press, 2013), copyright Joe Yonan.

More favorite chocolate recipes

These are gift links to the recipes at the Post. Note that they require you to register but not subscribe. Gift links are free to access for 2 weeks, so if you want to come back to any of these recipes, please consider subscribing: The Post needs your support more than ever.

Chocolate Grapes

Chocolate, Red Bean and Rose Brownies

Vegan Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies