Or there is the perfectly shaped cookie, the ones you buy at the market, the ones that are too perfectly round. The dough slopes down to the edge of the exact circle that the dough was stamped out. It’s automated and that takes perfection to an artificial level,

How about round, naturally perfect and, on top of it all, delicious chocolate chip cookies?

In Tribeca, a couple of blocks from me, there was a lighting store. The easy place to go for bulbs and switches and all the little things you need when your building was built in 1860. It’s tough to find some of those missing parts. The lighting store closed a couple of years ago and I regretted seeing it depart. I asked them in their last week what was going into that space. “Maybe some kind of bakery,” they said.

I hid my delight. I held my hopes. I was rewarded. The light bulbs may be gone, but the cupcakes are here, and the cookies. And the frosting shooters, although I have told Suzen that I have never, ever eaten one of those.

Tribeca Treats is at 94 Reade Street, just west of Church and before West Broadway. It’s the best bakery in Tribeca. And the owner, Rachel Thebault, is about to publish her new book: Sweet Chic. Here’s her very good chocolate chip recipe that lets you form perfect circles. How? Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, chill for an hour. The chilled dough works wonderfully, nicely rolling into balls that gracefully warm and flatten in the oven. Using mini chocolate chips and no nuts means that dough can uniformly flow into those pretty bites you crave. The proportions of ingredients here give you a crisp cookie. Ones you can dunk in milk or just snap away at.

Sweet Chic will be published on October 26, 2010. I know the quality of Tribeca Treats and I’m sure you will love every recipe in the book. I just may have my first official frosting shooter.

Sweet Chick Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yield: about 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
• ⅓ cup packed light brown sugar
• ⅓ cup granulate sugar
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• ¾ cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

Preparation:

Sift the flour, baking soda and slat into a mixing bowl and set aside.

Beat the butter on the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment at high speed until it is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Add the sugars, crumbling the brown sugar with your hands as you add it to get rid of any lumps. Mix on medium =-high speed until smooch, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula halfway through mixing to ensure that the butter and sugar well mixed.

Add the egg and vanilla and mix until combined Again, scrape down the sides and bottom of the blow to make sure that the ingredients are incorporated.

Add approximately half the flour mixture and mix on low speed just until the flour is incorporated, about 30 seconds. Repeat with the remaining flour and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure that the flour is fully incorporated.

Stir in the chocolate chips and mix just until combined, about 10 seconds. Remove the dough from the blow, press it into a flat mound and wrap it in plastic wrap. Let it chill fin the refrigerator for at least 1 hour or up to 3 days.

While the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two sheet pans with parchment paper or spray lightly with nonstick cooking spray.

Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator and scoop or roil it into balls about 1 tablespoon in size. At this point, the cookie dough can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 1 month (separate layers of dough balls with waxed paper).

Place the balls of dough about 1 inch apart on the prepared pans. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the pans once halfway through, until the edges of the cookies are golden born. Remove the cookies from the oven, let them cool slight, then transfer them a wire rack to cool to room temperature. Or serve warm

Keep the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

Source: Sweet Chic by Rachel Thebault

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she says, not looking up.

Well, something is wrong and I have to help.

Suzen was recently diagnosed with PAD. While it should not prove fatal, it can be quite painful. Fortunately, she is not alone. Millions of Americans unknowingly suffer from PAD. I’m looking for a support group.

Oh, what is PAD? It’s Pre-Party Anxiety Disorder.

We’re giving a party this weekend to celebrate the winding down of summer. No sooner had Suzen issued the last phone call invitation then it began.

“What are we going to serve? What if the hurricane hits? I can’t do the focaccia again because Alice had it here last month.” And on. And on.

Being a systems kind of guy, I sat with her and we’ve worked our way through the menu. Dish by dish. She’s calmer but wants something different at each step along the way.

And as bartender, she wanted me to come up with a good gin drink. Well, I did, and I tested it last weekend. Testing seemed to start out well.

“This is a good drink,” she said.

Then it stopped being well.

“It has the goop in it, doesn’t it?” she eyed me and I had to look away. She’s referring to coco lopez, that coconut stuff in pina coladas.

“I haven’t served you that in five years,” I said in defense.

“I hate it. You know that. Stop trying,” she said warmly. Something about coco lopez clogging the arteries although I think that is an urban myth. How can anything so tasty be bad for you?

Back to my cocktail bookshelf. I wanted something summery with no coco lopez. I even vowed not to have any sugar syrup. Suzen’s cousin Karen was in the kitchen as I was testing, came up to me, and announced, “You make everything too sweet. You make my teeth hurt.” I bit my tongue and did not tell to find a better dentist.

This is a great gin drink, tropical with juice flavor and vibrancy that is ideal for a party. This recipe is for 3 drinks. It easily scales to a pitcher.

The recipe is British — where else would you find a gin recipe? The Little Book of Gin Cocktails was published in 2000, just as the current rash of great cocktail books began. I love this book because it is a bit pre-trendy, avoiding some of the wilder ideas and additions. This drink is perfect example. Just gin and juices.

Oh, Suzen likes it. And I can vouch that it reduces anxiety. Try it for your PAD, too.

Gin Tropical

Yield: Serves 3

Ingredients:

• 12 ice cubes
• Sugar for rimming
• 6 more ice cubes
• 6 ounces gin
• 4 ounces lemon juice
• 4 ounces passion fruit juice
• 2 ounces orange juice
• Soda water
•  

Preparation:

Crush the ice cubes and place in a bowl.

Juice the lemons and reserve the lemon halves. Run a lemon half around the rim of a cocktail glass, then dip the glass into sugar. [See my recent post for Citrus Sugar for rimming!]

Put the gin and juices in a cocktail shaker. Add the 6 ice cubes and shake vigorously until cold.

Pour into the prepared glasses. If you want garnish with a slice of lemon.

Be prepared for compliments and requests for more.

Source: Little Book of Gin Cocktails by Hamlyn

Here’s an idea Suzen and I found quite unintentionally. We’re experimenting with a lemon tart and in the process had to make lemon sugar. It’s so good by itself that I immediately thought about using this citrus sugar for crowning my cocktail glasses.

Here’s how to make the lemon variety. In a bowl, place 1/3 cup of sugar. Zest one lemon, ideally with a MicroPlane zester. Add the zest to the bowl. With your finger massage sugar and zest together until you get a texture of wet sand.

Go ahead. Take a taste. It’s very good.

Now, for your cocktail, take a sliced lemon half and run it around the edge of a dry cocktail glass. Turn the glass upside down and twist in your bowl of lemon sugar. You may need to put the sugar first on a flat plate if the cocktail glass is too wide for your bowl.

Because the lemon sugar is “sandy” you won’t get the same smooth border you would with plain granulated sugar. Don’t worry about perfect converage.

Your glass is ready for your beverage: margarita, Cosmo, or just about anything.

I’ve called this citrus sugar because I believe you can find equal enjoyment with other flavors. Instead of one lemon, try two limes or the zest of a half orange. Grapefruit zest will work, too, of course.

Experiment, taste, and enjoy.

Source: Brian O’Rourke

I recently blogged about a cocktail, Alice in Wonderland, from a superior book, Difford’s Encyclopedia of Cocktails.

I love this book and highly recommend it to you all. Here are more reasons to consider it. If you go to diffordsguide.com you can see all the recipes from the book and interactively find a recipe, with matching picture. This is an immense resource for all of us imbibers. Whether to find a great recipe for a favorite or to seek some way to use up that half bottle of X that you bought three years ago, well, this is the best resource around to locate masterfully conceived and thoroughly tested recipes.

If you have the website, why do you need the book? Because the book lets you quickly leaf through all the recipes – if in fact you can quickly go through the mass of 2600 recipes here. This series of books began in 2001 and has grown substantially with each new edition. I’m looking at edition 8 and looking forward to edition 9.

The other great reason to consider this book is the background and accomplishments of its British author Simon Difford. Here’s some info from his site:

“Simon Difford has been involved in most aspects of the drinks industry from running his own off licence and wholesale company to importing and brand creation, but is best known as a drinks writer and publisher.

“Simon founded CLASS Magazine in 1997, a title which became the leading UK style bar title before he sold it to William Reed Publishing to prepare for the launch of his range of diffordsguide drinks related books in 2001. The best known of these, ‘diffordsguide – Cocktails’, is now in its 8th edition with 2,600 colour illustrated recipes and is widely regarded as the authoritative international cocktail publication.

“In 2007 Simon received the Glenfiddich Drink & Bar Writer of the year award and continues to both judge and compete in cocktail competitions.

“The Observer also chose Simon as one of their Future 500 – was set up to identify ‘the brightest and best rising stars across ten fields in the UK’.

“Simon was part of the team responsible for the creation of St-Germain elderflower liqueur which launched in the UK in 2007. Made from flowers picked in the French Alps, it is produced in small batches and each bottle is numbered and carries the vintage year that the flowers were picked.

“This 20% A.B.V. liqueur has made its mark on the UK trade and established itself as a must-stock item on all good back bars.”

Simon is truly one of the world’s leading mixologists, and his skills do not stop there. If you have not yet tried the St-Germain elderflower liqueur, I urge you to visit a good bar for a taste. Or just save yourself time and get the bottle now. It’s a standard in my home bar. On the rocks, it’s the perfect way to complement a dessert — say apple pie — or just to sip and watch the fire go down. Mix St-Germain and sparkling wine, and you possess a delicate yet potent delight.

Please look at diffordsguide.com, consider the book, and of course enjoy all the tastes Simon has to offer.

I have never understood why people liked Bloody Mary’s. It’s not the most attractive name. And I find the drink’s flavor to be harsh. I wanted to find a tomato-flavored drink that was fresh, not over the top. And subtly beautiful, not necessarily fire engine red.

If you look at the picture above, you’ll see I succeeded. This beverage is lively and fresh to the palette. Rum, instead of vodka, supplies the alcoholic fire, with the overtones that are inherent to rum versus the “purity” of vodka. And this is an example of using Biters to a good cause. That simple dash, when combine with the tomatoes and rum and sugar, makes for a perky, complex beverage.

I did use the obligatory celery stick, but this drink goes far beyond a simple Mary.

Cherry Tomato Daiquiri

Yield: 1 glass

Ingredients:

• 3 fresh cherry tomatoes
• 1 ounce fresh lime juice
• 1 dash of Angostura Biters
• 1 ounce simple syrup
• 2 ounces aged rum

Preparation:

In a mixing glass, muddle the tomatoes. Add the rest of the ingredients, top with ice cubes, cover and shake thoroughly. Strain into a chilled daiquiri glass.

Source: Mr. Boston Summer Cocktails