Cookie Puss

Again with the cookies. Today, BOTH of my sons had Valentine's Day parties at school. What's a compulsive mom with culinary-aspirational tendencies to do? Why, make treats for both parties, of course. Son the elder chose the classic chocolate chip cookies, pictured above left. Younger dude selected Snickerdoodles, a slightly more work-intensive cookie, involving the dreaded rolling-into-balls step. Dreaded because: I tend to shy away from recipes that involve the word "balls." Food that is naturally orb-shaped (like, say, fruit, or tapioca, or on the micro-level, couscous) is never described as "balls." The word "balls," besides being funny and coarse (a plus!), implies a level of handling WITH ACTUAL HANDS that seems a little unsanitary even to a non-germophobe like me. Whenever I have to roll dough into balls, between the palms of my hands, I am reminded of the way little rolls of dirt would magically appear when I rubbed my hands together as a child, generated - magically! - out of thin air. Or, alternatively, from my grubby little-girl hands. My hygiene has improved since then, and since the invention of hand sanitizer, but I still don't like to grope my cookie dough very much before baking it. I tend to give the pre-Snickerdoodle blobs a cursory pat and stick them in the oven looking more . . . rustic than spherical. Both batches of cookies were a success. Time to start planning Lincoln-shaped cookies for President's Day.