Love with Milk

The casuality with which we throw around the term "comfort food" is discomfiting. Not everything warm and wintry is comforting because comfort is not simply a biological response to seasonal changes or stress. A food which comforts does so because it is familiar, and familiar in the sense that it has been introduced through - and its taste espoused by - familial connections. Chocolate Chip Cookies are universally accepted as a comfort food because the majority of moms can make and have made them; they require neither culinary prowess nor time allowance.

Eating a Chocolate Chip Cookie mentally rewinds you to a time when you had to ask to lick the batter off the beaters. When I sank my teeth into these Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, my thoughts and cares shrank to prepubescent levels. The napkin belonged on the lap no longer. Runny remnants of chocolate chips claimed my cheeks and chin, my eyelids dropped to a lusty half-mast, and brown sugar became my world. As when I was a child, I wanted only for milk and more cookies. Pairing milk with comfort foods is instinctive; mothers provide us with both.
The Chocolate Chip Cookie, when executed properly, is one of very few foods in the world capable of producing happiness. I mean happiness in the third-grade sense, as a complete if naive satisfaction in the present. It thrills us with sugar and sustains us with fat. It is inextricably bound with the emotional canopy of mom and, by extension, the aqua vitae that is milk. It is a postscript to recess and a prelude to a nap.

It is maternal love made edible. What could be more comforting?

Transportive Chocolate Chip Cookies
(Lifted from Cook's Illustrated)

2 1/8 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
12 tbs. butter
1 c. light brown sugar
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tsp. vanilla
2 c. chocolate chips (semi/bittersweet)

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position. Line a 13 x 9 inch pan with foil. Spray foil-lined pan with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

3. Whisk melted butter and sugars in medium large bowl until combined. Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and mix well. Using rubber spatula, fold dry ingredients into egg mixture until just combined; do not overmix. Fold in chips and turn batter into prepared pan, smoothing top with spatula.

4. Bake until top is light golden brown, slightly firm to the touch, and edges start pulling away from sides of pan, 27 to 30 minutes. Cool on wire rack to room temperature. Cut into 2-inch squares and serve.