Howdy,
Today we said goodbye to the Christmas tree but Hello! to the rain.
Then — in the cooking of good old fashioned chocolate chip cookies — came a whiff of a lesson in (FLAVOR!, as Nacho Libre would say) dissemination.
We didn’t have any of the called for pure vanilla extract — left in the ‘Posa (as some of Turlock calls my Mariposa) after Christmas meal prep, it appears — so Sarah stayed strong, kept us together, SAVED THE KITCHEN FROM A CULINARY CATASTROPHE, one of collapsing in panic.
What are we going to do …? I mean, I’ve got the flour, baking soda, salt — the dry stuff — in the small bowl over there, and the butter (the butter! My goodness, the butter. You make a double recipe and it’s four sticks: 4!) and sugars (yes, sugars plural: white and brown) here, waiting for the vanilla. BUT I CAN’T FIND IT. We don’t have any.
I turned off the preheating oven. Before it hit its 375.
Sarah offered the idea of maple extract in its place.
Bold.
Real bold.
In the Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies?
So bold.
Strong move.
Smelled good. Tasted great in the dough — a little like pancakes, but not in a bad way, not like it sounds.
Rest assured, cookies tasted just fine as well.
Then we left the house in a rush for an evening out-and-about — pleasant, really, spending a Saturday evening as a fam in about five different places on the fly. Returning after three hours, entering our home became akin to swimming in a maple syrup factory.
Ahh, “Imitation Maple Flavor.” Different, but delicious
Amazing. We’d debated using a half instead of the full teaspoon of maple flavoring in place of vanilla so as not to overwhelm the cookies with a foreign ingredient, but after a pleasing sniff test decided to go for it. And, as I’ve said, the chocolate chip cookies turned out great.
Just crazy that a teaspoon of distilled flavor mixed and baked can disseminate into a rooms-filling aroma.
I’m itching with the notion that distilling that idea holds a metaphor for the power of good, or evil (more likely evil, unfortunately), influence. A movement, starting small as a mustard seed, growing to great strengths, or a sin (sometimes pictured symbolically as leaven or yeast in Scripture, not unlike an extract in being used in baking, though yeast’s very purpose is exponential expansion) that spreads, cancerously.
A drop of something dark can seep widespread toxin.
Yet light shines in the deepest darkness, cutting through all, and reaching out, disseminating hope (Isaiah 9:2; John 1:5).
Too good not to type:
Isaiah 9:2 — “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.”
John 1:5 — “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
A tiny teaspoon of Imitation Maple Flavor is powerful and pleasing in the air. And tamed and tasty in an Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie. Trust me, I’ve tried a few.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
P.S. What’s the big deal with Nestle Toll House? Well, okay, to tell the truth, that was just me employing the back of the yellow bag to mix up some cookie dough. If I make it, I can steal more of the good stuff before it’s gotta get baked 😉
Got milk?
Word Count: 46,854 / On Pace: 45,650 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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