
I love that the recipe for chocolate chip cookies was created by accident. Ruth Wakefield dropped some chocolate pieces into the dough, thinking they would melt. The chips retained their shape, and the rest was history.
One of my favorite teachers is my 8th English teacher, Mrs. Wood, from Townsend Junior High. I love doing creative writing in class. She shared that her first kiss was making chocolate chip cookies with her boyfriend. It stayed in my memory forever because Mrs. Wood was the best storyteller. She engaged the whole class with things that happened in her life.
During my senior year at Scripps College, the Dummies books were quite popular, with a guide available for virtually every topic imaginable. I didn't like taking shortcuts, which led me to create a video piece titled "Cookie for Dummies." In this project, I baked chocolate chip cookies one at a time, investigating the merits of taking the longer route.
Back then, it took a whole night to render a two-minute video. That must be the only all-nighter I could recall in college. I documented myself making one cookie using a packet of butter, a teaspoon of sugar, and a tablespoon of flour. This was before social media, so the excitement was showing the video to my class for their input.

I invited people to my makeshift studio at Scripps by setting up a photo booth and serving people cookies. Using these photos as a reference, I drew gigantic portraits of these people! This was before the age of iPhone photos. I took black-and-white photos, developed the film, and processed them in the lab. I loved working in the darkroom. It was exciting to see the pictures appear in the chemical solutions.

Nancy Bekavac was the first woman president at Scripps College at the time. She brought her dog for the portrait. I also made doggie biscuits. But there would be another story or another blog post!
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