Personal Narrative Essay: The Chocolate Chip Cookie

Like many others, the chocolate chip cookie brings back memories from my childhood. One of my favorites is running into my grandmother’s house after chasing my dogs around outside and being greeted by the warmth and aroma of freshly baked cookies in the oven. Even nowadays, when I enter her house, the sweet smell fills the air and I leave any bitterness, frustration, or sadness that I may have at the door.

All across the Internet, there are many chocolate chip cookie recipes that claim to have perfected the art of this American classic. Some of them are pretty delicious to be perfectly honest, but none of them taste quite as heavenly as the ones that are made with my grandmother’s love. J. Kenji Lopez, a writer for The Food Lab, a popular

As a constantly stressed out high school student, I am looking for ways to comfort myself, whether it be from an exercise, meditation, or food. I find that the cookies help to relieve my stress and put me in more of a carefree mindset. That is why I set out to find the best store bought alternative.

Methodology:

To find an answer, my mom and I went to a few of the grocery stores that we shop at on a regular basis(Lucky, Walmart, and Costco). We bought a package of the store’s brand of chocolate chip cookies. Then, we brought them home and shared them with the rest of my family. Each person received a plate of the three different cookies without knowing which cookie came from which store. They tasted each cookie and reflected on what they liked about it and what they thought could be better.

Texture(40

I was unhappy to find that the dry, crumbly texture of the cookie left my mouth covered in a flour-like-powder after thanking my first bite. There was crystals of sugar covering the lower surface of the cookie, which also caused an distasteful crunch. When my dad bit into the cookie, it fell apart into crumbs which landed all over is lap as he furiously exclaimed, “What a mess!” The cookie had huge chunks of chocolate throughout, which made the overwhelming majority of every bite chocolate. Perhaps that the lack of cookie dough in the cookie caused both of these issues(the unpleasant texture and the unbalanced ratio of cookie to chocolate).

The cookie dough was not overly sweet, but it also did not have any of the subtle flavors that I was looking for--no toffee, butter, vanilla, or butterscotch. It was, for the most part, bland with the exception of the sugar on the bottom of the cookie. If that sugar had been incorporated into the batter, the dough would have been more enjoyable.

Texture(out of 40):