Wednesday, April 28, 2010

All In A Cookie

We love cookies. And batter, and books, and knowing where our food comes from. So a few years ago when I found the book All in Just One Cookie, I knew we had to have it. This hysterical book takes the reader through the process of making a batch of chocolate chip cookies. With each ingredient, it chronicles its source, and how it is made/processed. I had no idea baking soda starts as a mineral mined in Wyoming that is then mixed with hot water and carbon dioxide. The resulting chemical reaction produces baking soda crystals.

I think about local foods often, and we do our best to stick with local produce. We have also recently taken steps to buy meat from this area. But as far as baking goes, I have no idea where many of the ingredients come from. Why have I never investigated this before? A bit of research yielded local and semi-local sources for some of those ingredients. With that in mind, we set out to make our favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe.

...with eggs from our back yard, and butter from Maine

flour and oats that could be purchased from the Pioneer Valley Heritage Grain CSA

The chocolate chips could be substituted with chopped chocolate from Taza Chocolate

...and the labor, willingly provided by two little gals who'd rather eat the batter raw.

That leaves the vanilla, sugar, baking soda, and salt for the non-local ingredients. Could honey be substituted for the sugar without ruining the texture? Why isn't salt produced on Cape Cod anymore? I'm dreaming of sources, hoping for more luck.

Imagine. All in just one cookie!

11 comments:

  1. How fun, it looks like a great book.

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  2. This book has been added to my "To Get" list for our next trip to the library.

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  3. Isn't that amazing? I think about stuff like that, too. I think about all the labor it would take if we tried to make something like that really really from "scratch."

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  4. This is "meet what you eat" in a book. I just love this and it has to come to our home libary. Plus I just like to eat cookies. Great find Amy!

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  5. That book looks great ( as do the cookies!) I am off to see if I can get it here......

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  6. That sounds like a great book and I had no idea about the baking soda either. So does the whole world's baking soda come from Wyoming? It gets so intricate once you really start thinking about where everything comes from, but it's soooooooooo important too!

    :)Lisa

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  7. just so you know...i stuck my finger in your mixing bowl just as you turned it on...ouch! oi! i am feeling a bit silly right now. we have place in maine that makes salt...nice big chunks of sea salt. do you use kate's butter?! i love finding local foods...it is like a treasure hunt for adults! xo, pennie

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  8. that's brilliant! how lovely to get eggs from your back garden. We wouldn't dare here in London, our urban foxes are just too cheeky and naughty!

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  9. That looks like such a great book and those cookies... YUM!

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  10. What a fun project for your girls (and you)!

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  11. Okay, wow, those cookies look fantastic. And I really like the idea of figuring out where food comes from - I wonder how much I can learn?

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