ever since the new york times posted its definitive recipe for chocolate chip cookies, i’ve been meaning to do a taste test between those and our trusty standby, toll house. we all know i’m a sucker for taste tests; the best ones that come to mind include the shaws whole chicken v. chinatown whole chicken (the chinatown chicken tasted surprising like a chinatown chicken you would get in a restaurant, which was really surprising to me) and the apple pie taste test, after which i swore off cinnamon in apple pies.

so, gristedes. i had decided to do three batches of chocolate chip cookies, since the gimmick of the new york times recipe lies in both proportions of sugar/flour/butter and also in how long the dough is chilled. the three batches are then: (1) the new york times recipe; (2) toll house, chilled as long as the ny times recipe; and (3) toll house, chilled the normal amount (about an hour, until the dough is firm enough to use). i went to gristedes to get ingredients, assuming that a supermarket would definitely have all of the ingredients i needed for my experiment. (because that’s what this is, folks: a geeky experiment. so sue me.) of course, i was wrong, and this is why gristedes makes me hate new york. because they don’t carry the chocolate chips i use in chocolate chip cookies, which is not an exotic brand and is basically carried in every other grocery store known to man. the brand, incidentally, is simply ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chips. i like the size and shape of these chips in particular – they’re chubbier, and a little bigger and flatter, so they’re more pleasing to the eye and consequently make them more attractive to eat. kind of like the way that arborio rice is more pleasing to me to eat than basmati rice. (more…)