The Amazing ‘Un-Relationship’ Chocolate Chip Cookie

This is the story of the Amazing Un-Relationship Cookie. Have you spent your whole life wondering when you would ever find that special something in your life? Well, stop looking. You’ve found it. And guess what? You found it a long time ago.

This is going to be a long post. If you get tired of reading, feel free to skip through to the pictorial guide on 8 REASONS THE ‘AMAZING UN-RELATIONSHIP COOKIE’ WAS MEANT FOR YOU. But for those of you still with me, let’s start with the basics.

What exactly is an Un-Relationship? Un-Relationships are like relationships, but with truly no strings attached. This is because the relationship depends on you, the individual, and you alone. So if you have an Un-Relationship with food, for example, you are the only person who can define your attitude towards, and your satisfaction with, whatever food you happen to be have in mind. For me, these cookies symbolize everything that goes into a healthy Un-Relationship (more on that later).

Just You, and You. No matter what your official relationship status is–whether you’re comfortably married or happily single, flirty & fun or settled & won–we all have our own special relationship with food. What do you love most about it? The thing I love most about food is that it will never judge you. Ever. This is essential for creating an UN-RELATIONSHIP. Others may judge you, and sadly they may judge your relationship with food, although I firmly believe we fixate on what we think other people think about us rather than what they actually believe. Goodness knows many of us judge ourselves for our relationship with food, and I have no doubt hails of self-judgment poured down on my head as I reached for my eighth cookie after finishing the photoshoot you see here. But food itself will never, ever judge you, which is part of why I love it so, so much, just like I love a fortieth rereading of Ella Enchanted or the giant killer whale stuffed animal that sleeps with me at night.

Our Relationship with Food? While I was researching and comparing recipes for this post, I found that this cookie has been raved about all over the blogosphere in a whole lot of ways. The recipe I am sharing with you today is very similar to the Best Big, Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe you’ll find with over 6,000 glowing reviews on Allrecipes. Another original variation is called the “I Want to Marry You” cookie or, alternatively, the “Will You Marry Me?” cookie, and I thought it was the cutest-sounding thing ever when I first came across it at Bakergirl’s blog. And, like Bakergirl, I bookmarked these because who doesn’t want to dream about a cookie that will make McDreamy drop down on one knee and profess his undying love for you on the spot?

So I made these, and as I sat there sinking my teeth into the first, and second, and third test cookie, I started to think about what I would name these cookies. Were they really ‘Marry Me’ cookies, or something else? Food, and relationships. What’s the relationship between them?

Keeping Your Kitchen Clean From ‘Relationship Stuff.’ As a single, extroverted food-blogger-by-day/grad-student-by-the-other-24-hours, I grew up hearing the same questions over and over again: “Why aren’t you dating so-and-so?” and “What happened to guy XYZ who was ‘clearly’ interested?” Why wasn’t it enough that I simply wasn’t interested in guys X, Y, or Z?  I certainly wasn’t thinking along these lines when I first stumbled across the recipe for these cookies: amazing chocolate chip/white chocolate cookies with oats folded into a wonderfully chewy batter. Truth be told, the last thing I want to think about when I’m in the kitchen trying to escape from my humdrum everyday life is whether or not these cookies will be the impetus for a monogamous relationship with the man of my dreams. Because no pressure on this giant blob of cookie dough sitting on the counter, right? Might as well start my new fake and overwhelmingly bikini-tanned account on Match.com now. 

Celebrating the Un-Relationship. As Mel Gibson says in all his worldly, product-placemented wisdom, food does not care what you wear or whether you make more money than it does. It also does not care whether you’re the young bride or “that token single girl” among your group of friends. It amazes me that there is not a single recipe I can think of off the top of my head that celebrates what many of us embrace, or trudge through, or tough out with a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, every single day. And that’s not just the fact of being happily single–which I currently am, without preference or anxiety about it. Every pair of eyes that has so much as glanced at this post (or any food blog out there) consents to the same, unacknowledged idea: we want an honest, beautiful, and judging-less Un-Relationship with our food.

A Powerhouse of Enjoyment. How many of us have paused to think about how many empty calories went into battering and deep-frying the bejeezus out of those apple fritters you used to dearly love? I’ll raise my hand: I’m certainly much more conscious about what ends up on my plate than I was back in my high school swimming, devour-everything-in-sight days. But at a fundamental level, I also realize how important it is that I am the only one in control of what I eat, what makes me feel good, and what I enjoy. This last element is essential to a healthy Un-Relationship. If the food I eat makes me feel in control and makes me feel good, but at the end of the day I don’t enjoy it, I choose not to eat it. It’s as simple as that. I LOVE hummus because I enjoy it, but I would as readily eat a cone of ice cream because I enjoy that, too. And because there are no strings attached, no judgment that matters except my own, I love knowing I have the power to choose.

About the Amazing ‘Un-Relationship’ Chocolate Chip Cookie: Believe it or not, it took sitting down, tasting, writing about, and re-tasting these {AMAZING} cookies to make me realize this. Alongside my favorite Best Biscoff Chocolate Chip Cookies, the Amazing Un-Relationship Cookie I’m sharing with you today is crowd-tested, and both mom AND me-approved (which is rare!). It reminds me about everything I love most about having an Un-Relationship with food: as Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Well, I love these cookies, plain and simple. I love their warming chewiness, I love their decadent melting chocolate, I love that I love to reach for a fourth and a fifth straight from the tray. I love sharing them with others, and most of all I love how they transport me away from all of the exhausting day-to-day relationships we grapple with every single day (because as much as we embrace our loved ones, relationships are still complicated pieces of work!) and let me indulge the here & now. Single, married, taken, loved–everything set aside, for the sake of a single cookie. Pun intended? Maybe.

So forget about the stigma. Forget about the judgment or the fear or the criticism. I realize that we can have amazingly complex, sometimes even painful attitudes towards food and its relationship with our bodies or self-image. BUT FORGET ALL OF THAT FOR A MOMENT THE NEXT TIME YOU COOK, OR PICK UP YOUR FORK, OR PULL THESE COOKIES WARM AND MELTING FROM THE OVEN, OR WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE TO DO WHEN YOU STEP INTO THE KITCHEN. Every judgment-less bit or bite can be an exhilarating experience if you let it. Of course, you can build amazing relationships through shared connections with food, and I would definitely vouch for testing out that hypothesis by serving up a batch of these chocolate chip cookies at your next get-together. But most importantly, if you choose to make these cookies just for yourself to enjoy at the end of a long day, that’s okay, too. Because that’s what Un-Relationships are about. Right now, a cookie, and you.

And maybe a tall glass of milk.

Thank you for reading!

The Amazing Un-Relationship Chocolate Chip Cookie

Yield: Approximately 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 1 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup quick-cooking oats (rolled will also work fine)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a cookie sheet and set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix together melted butter and both sugars until smooth.
3. Beat in egg, egg yolk, and vanilla.
4. Gently stir in flour, oats, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon until just combined.
5. Gently fold in both chocolate chips. Make sure not to overmix, or your cookies will toughen up and you want them to stay chewy!
6. Scoop out 1-inch cookie dough balls and place two inches apart on baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 9-11 minutes, or until they look just set but not overdone (they will have begun to crisp and turn golden around the edges, but seem slightly underbaked in the middle). This is perfect for keeping the cookies chewy–just set your baking sheet on top of the stove for at least 15 minutes to cool and ‘finish baking’ completely before removing to a wire rack.