Making cookies

Last night was my first official cookie making event of the season. My friend and former roommate from Boulder, Rachel, came over to my place and we each made a batch of cookies. We talked the entire time, but our cookies still turned out great. We talked about several of the people we knew back then and several of the things we did. Rachel and I both love food, so we remembered a particularly good chocolate tasting event that we went to one weekend. It cost $5 and we ate gourmet chocolate for about 2 hours. My main memory is that we were grabbing chocolate drinks and desserts with both hands. Another memory was of our little gold house. The landlord had some conspiracy theories about the Postal Service, so he had us tape the rent checks to the front door on the first of the month. The neighbors in the other half of the duplex were in a band--I'm pretty sure the guys had real names, but Rachel always called them Nelson because they looked like the guys from that group. My shower was held together by duct tape (which did keep the floor pretty dry, but there has to be a better way to repair a shower). Probably the highlight of living there was the refrigerator situation. We ended up with a spare one, so the landlord decided to put it on the front porch. Because it matched the house. (Both harvest gold.) When we complained about the size of the refrigerator inside, he suggested that we try keeping our food in the refrigerator that was outside. The only time the outside refrigerator caused us problems was when some of Rachel's friends came over late one night and pushed the refrigerator in front of our front door. We got home even later that night from volunteering at a fancy fund raising event and were not so pleased to see a refrigerator in front of the only door to our place. We managed to push it away, but I've avoided pushing around refrigerators since then.

So, in honor of good food, I'd like to share the recipe for the great cookies I made--basically chocolate, with some more chocolate with chocolate chips mixed in. The recipe comes to me via Derek's Aunt Deanna and Joanna, and I love it. Thanks!

Mocha Truffle Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Melt first two ingredients together
Stir in one tablespoon instant coffee crystals and cool.

3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
Stir ingredients from brown sugar to vanilla into the chocolate mixture.

2 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Stir in ingredients from flour to salt into the mixture.

1 cup of chocolate chips--add last.

Bake at 350º for 10 minutes or until firm.