Homemade chocolate chip cookies

Can we make chocolate chip cookies, mommy?” Margot says on a Tuesday afternoon after I’ve picked her up from school.”

During family dinner, we often ask each other questions to talk about our days - what was your rose and thorn for the day? What’s your favorite color? Who did you play with today at school? My eldest daughter asked, many months ago, “what is everyone’s favorite smell in the whole wide world?” and Margot said “chocolate chip cookies coming out of the oven.”

To her delight, I often say yes to this request. I did not spend any time in the kitchen growing up. The kitchen was a place for the adults in my home to stew in anger, so we steered clear. But I longed to have the type of family where I could pull up a stool and sit on the counter and bake.

Margot does just that. But she doesn’t grab a stool because she is the most agile kid I know, she literally jumps up on the counter, smiling. “I’m ready, mama.”

I grab our family's recipe that a very dear friend gave our girls many years ago. She asked us to keep the recipe a secret, and we have ever since. I’ve made these cookies so many times, I barely need the recipe. I almost think I could mix these up in my sleep.

“Can I measure the dry ingredients, mama?” Margot says, as she grabs the clear bowl we always use. I tell her what measurements to use and she goes for it - flour first (“can I have a knife to level out the flour, mama”), baking soda, baking powder and salt.

I preheat the oven and the upper right burner and place the butter in the pan. Once the butter is soft, I pour it into the mixer and Margot measures the sugars. “I can crack the egg” Margot says. Margot is very good at cracking eggs. I watch as she grabs an egg from the carton and with tiny, but very strong and confident fingers, cracks the egg perfectly - no shell. She pours it into the mixer, along with the vanilla and we turn on the Kitchen Aid. After everything is creamed, Margot pours in the dry ingredients.

We always add more chocolate chips than the recipe calls for. Margot smiles mischievously as she adds more - one of those tiny little secrets only a mother and a daughter hold. I squeeze her hand and smile at her, completely aware that these little moments are THE moments. The ones that I will hold very dear after she is grown.

Margot grabs the ice cream scoop we use to make perfect cookie dough balls on the pan lined with parchment paper. You know the kind where it clicks and the dough (or ice cream) comes out. But everyone in our house knows that this is exclusively used for our chocolate chip cookies.

One time, we were having one of Margot’s friends over and Margot said to me, “I told Adele that my mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, can you make them for my play date?” and in that moment, I did feel a piece of my motherless, childhood self heal, just a tiny bit.

Because in that moment, I realized I had created a tradition I had always longed to have with my mother, for my daughters and son. They will not have the same loss I did. They will bake cookies with their kids (if they choose to have children) and the smell of chocolate chip cookies coming out of the oven will remind them of their childhood, will remind them of these little moments together in the kitchen. Happy moments - that the kitchen is a place for those you love, for joy, for laughter.

When the cookies are done (we are a soft chocolate chip cookie family, we always under cook them), we pour milk in mugs and grab a plate for our cookies. We sit at the counter and eat our warm cookies dipped in milk.

“Can I have another cookie, mama?” Margot says, in which I always reply, “yes” because you can never have too many warm, homemade chocolate chip cookies in our house.