Great Grandma Jo's Chocolate Chip Cookies

To me, the memory of my Grandma Jo will always be combined with her perfect, baked-from-scratch, made-with-love chocolate chip cookies.

She was poised, elegant, put together, always kind, soft spoken. She carried a Louis Vuitton handbag (the same beautiful one for 25 years). I don't know if she always had a stash of chocolate chip cookies in her freezer, but whenever I was at her house, she did, so to my 8-year-old mind her kitchen and home were always full of cookies. Not only that, but she sent them to us every Christmas in a tin stuffed with waxed paper, and made a batch or two with us every time we visited.

They were the best. 

I asked my sisters and parents what made her cookies special, and this is what we remembered: 

• She whipped them into fluffy perfection with a hand mixer,
• made them small (she used teaspoons to scoop them onto the cookie sheet),
• used Egg Beaters instead of eggs,
• and bakers got to lick cookie dough off the beaters once the dough was done. (very important!)

So one day last week, Lydia and I tried to recreate Grandma Jo's cookies. Here is her recipe. It's based on the recipe on the back of the Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chips bag, with a few tweaks. We pieced it together as best we could based on all the memories my sisters and parents could think of:

Great Grandma Jo's Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 2 1/4 C all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 C margarine (she preferred this but I used butter)
• 3/4 C granulated sugar
• 3/4 C packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 C Egg Beaters 
• 2 C chocolate chips

Mix well with electric mixer. Scoop onto cookie sheet using teaspoons. Bake at 375 for 9-11 min.

To show Lydia a little more about her Great Grandma Jo, we looked at a few pictures.

With my Grandpa Chet: 

This picture, from their wedding on November 18, 1942, is one of my favorites. She wore a light blue wool suit with beaver trim; so elegant and chic. Can you see the rice being thrown over them?

Another favorite: here she is in the '90s helping paint the fence at my parents' house. 

I hope one day I can be half as kind and glamorous and poised as Grandma Jo. Until then, we have some cookies to eat!