On Chocolate Cookies and Patience

It was 8:00 pm tonight when I decided to tackle a Martha Stewart chocolate crinkle cookie recipe. One that by the looks of it, would take over three hours to assemble and bake thanks to the lengthy chill time. Three hours? I didn't have that kind of time, let alone the ingredients needed for these cookies. Yet off I went to the grocery store only to find myself thirty minutes later standing in our little kitchen, proudly sporting my new frilly apron, delightfully soaking in the whirling noises of our new stand mixer. Just days before you had made the.most.delicious chocolate chip cookies and even I had admitted that they were in fact the best I had ever tasted. But on this night I wanted to prove you wrong. Because I want to be good at something. No let me correct myself; I wanted to be better at baking cookies than you and I wanted my cookies to taste better than yours.

Yet something went terribly wrong. When I noticed the dough wasn't really doughie (I know, I totally just made that word up) and I peered into the sink to find it held one too many pieces of broken egg shells I knew I messed up. Maybe I was too anxious to really make these cookies the best. Better than yours. But I knew it and hated that I had indeed used one too many eggs. I stomped into the living room where you were working on your paper. With undoughie chocolate batter smeared on my cheek, and a sticky, batter-covered spatula in hand, I said a bad word. And I couldn't help it but the tears came streaming down my cheeks, hot and sticky. I turned on my heels and ran quickly to the washroom. Was I really this distraught over one extra egg? You laughed. I couldn't be serious you asked. Oh but I was. That one extra egg? I was so serious about it it wasn't even funny. I sat on our toilet seat and cried. You talked sweetly and quietly to me through the crack in the door. Told me it would be OK, after all it was only cookie dough. You threw out the undoughie batter when I didn't have the heart to. You put your paper - the one due at midnight - on hold to go out and get more bittersweet chocolate for me. Just so I could tackle a Martha Stewart chocolate crinkle cookie recipe - that would take over three hours to assemble and bake thanks to the lengthy chill time - for the second time in one night. 

The dough is still chilling in the fridge. And when I wake up in the morning I will probably forget about it sitting there because those melt in your mouth chocolate crinkle cookies really don't mean much anymore. Instead your unwavering support, ability to hold me up when I feel like falling down and patience in even the most trivial of times is what makes waking up to you, my husband, the best baker in the world, so beautiful. Thank you Apb for loving me through both the better and the worst and for making sure I crack open two, not three eggs into the batter.

And because your such a babe and a great sport, one of my fave photos of you :)