The best chocolate chip cookies.

Also, Pilates and some Amazon updates.

There is only one chocolate chip cookie recipe and I use and that’s the one from BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts* by my old Serious Eats colleague and friend Stella Parks. Every time someone starts talking to me about other cookies— doughs that are rested overnight, ones with brown butter, or other fancy and time-consuming techniques, I get immediately annoyed. Annoyed!

A really perfect cookie.

But it can be hard to get people on board. Most people get weirded out by the mixture of white, milk, and dark chocolate. “I don’t like white chocolate,” they say. Well duh. White chocolate is gross and not even real chocolate. But when it bakes, it gets caramelized and toffee-like, offsetting the bitterness of the dark chocolate perfectly.

Others get intimidated by the stand-mixer. Yes, these guys aren’t slice-and-bake, but the mixer creams the butter and sugars until they’re fluffy and light, which is essential for the cookies to turn out right. I don’t make the rules. I just follow them.