This Christmas, I’m giving plates of chocolate chip cookies to friends, my mechanic, the woman who makes my apartment sparkle. Go ahead. Ban me from your precious holiday cookie party.
To me, chocolate chip cookies are love, American style. They’re bite-sized bliss, endorsed by no one less important this season than Santa Claus. No doubt he’d put the sled in reverse if given a snack of meringue cookies. Why even bother pouring the glass of cold milk?
My Christmas cookie tradition began when I lived in Italy. I’d moved to Rome eager to live “la dolce vita,” but during my first year I was feeling very sour as the holidays approached. I constantly mangled the language. Often I’d ask at the outdoor food market for 100 grams of “afternoon,” instead of cheese. My money was disappearing fast on language school and too much sharp, crumbly “afternoon.”
The Roman merchants, however, applauded my progress. They asked about my family and made sure I knew where I could buy peanut butter, which Italians consider our pasta. I quickly realized that I was a long way from the self-checkout aisle at King Soopers.
On a whim, I decided to bake chocolate chip cookies for the many Italians who’d been kind to me using an ancient family recipe passed down from my mother – and Toll House.
The simple act of making the cookies turned out to be not so simple. Some ingredients were nearly impossible to find in Italy. Chocolate isn’t readily available in chip form and brown sugar is what happens when you spill an espresso on it.
While scouring the city for ingredients, I was pickpocketed. Later, I burned a few batches in my celsius oven. I started wondering if Chips Ahoy exported.
But, in the end, the humble chocolate chip cookie paved my way into Roman life. Sure, the cookie is considered generic in the U.S., but in Italy it proved to be a fascinating delicacy, a taste of America.
I delivered a batch to Oscar, my local café owner.
“Burrrrroooo,” or butter, he said with an Italian echo of Homer Simpson’s purring praise of doughnuts. His eyes welled up. I’m not sure if it was the butter, rare in Southern Italian dishes, or the gesture. All I know is that he refused to let me pay for my daily cappuccino for weeks.
Another batch went to Bruno, the butcher, who asked for the recipe. (While American men play fantasy football, Italians exchange cooking tips.) Freta at the fresh pasta stand promised to serve the cookies at her Christmas Day feast, an honor just shy of sainthood.
To the people in my neighborhood, I had been “la straniera,” the foreigner. After delivering a plate overflowing with a typical treat from my homeland, I became the American who made the cookies.
In Italy, making food for someone shows you care. In the U.S., we speak the same language. The expression “the way to the heart is through the belly” rings as true and loudly here as the Salvation Army bell. As I prepare my holiday cookies, I’ll be mixing the batter and folding in the chips, grateful for my American heritage and the lessons learned from Italians.
Nancy Greenleese is a reporter for KUNC 91.5-FM. E-mail her at nancy.greenleese@kunc.org.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
This recipe, courtesy of Ann Greenleese and Nestle Toll House, was tested at high altitude and makes about 5 dozen cookies.
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.
Beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, water and vanilla extract in a large bowl until creamy. Add eggs one at a time. Beat well after each addition. Gradually stir in the flour mixture. Fold in chips and nuts.
Spoon batter onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes or until lightly brown.
Serve hot with cold milk.
