Aunt Betty & Uncle Bubba's cookies

Aunt Betty is my mother who taught me how to cook. Uncle Bubba is how some of my friends’ children know me; Uncle Bubba is Latin for bringer of cookies. So that is the name.

I am using a recipe that like most great things was a happy accident. Thirty plus years ago I was asked to make the Chocolate Chip Cookies as per tradition, (our family anyway). So on the night before Thanksgiving at the last minute, more accurately last call, I remembered I had to make these cookies before my ninety minute drive to dinner. Now, here I am with a good friend, three o’clock in the morning beginning this process. Other than not having a power mixer, not a happy realization, cookies get baked without injury.

The next day my mother (Aunt Betty) complimented the cookies and said they exceeded her own. Now at first I thought this was her loving Irish way of making me bake the cookies from there on. Since I was working with the recipe she gave me how could they be different? Maybe the fact she was always sober when she cooked, maybe…just sayin’. I take a few attempts, figure out what I did that was slightly different and that became my recipe.

Over thirty years people have remembered and recognized my cookies over others. That brings us here and now, if so many have enjoyed them in the past, why not let the world in on the secret (not the recipe).