All those many years ago when I first met my girlfriend Janet, she was already a bona fide baker. I was still more of a baker-in-the-making. These days, I bake a mean apple pie, but back then I was still one of those people who used margarine in my cookies. Not to worry. Janet set me straight on the finer points of using butter and, not wanting to produce inferior cookies, I ponied up the cash and starting baking with the real stuff.
Fast forward almost ten years and I read Michael Pollen’s In Defense of Food, which convinced me, thoroughly, of the horrors of margarine. Although I’m generally not one to hop on anybody’s bandwagon, his arguments rang true to me and I jumped aboard. While I admit to still buying diet pepsi (I know!), and the occasional goldfish, it’s more because 1) I’m weak and 2) I’m weak. I still think he’s right.
So yesterday, when I read Julia Moskin’s column in the NY Times, singing the praises of butter in cookies, I expected some sort of nod to Pollen. But no. The article is clearly a baking aficionado’s perspective; not even close to a health nut’s reasoning. It’s all about how your cookies won’t hold their shape if you dare use margarine, or even, heaven forbid, if you use butter that’s been incorrectly melted or creamed. As if! Please know that if you ever deign to eat my cookies, I have probably melted the butter incorrectly. There’s also a really good chance I didn’t cream it long enough, either. However, you can still consider yourself lucky that you’re only getting fatter because I used butter and not dying because I used margarine. I mean, that’s a pretty big gift right there. Please don’t expect the shape of my cookies to be just so or to receive them in a fancy bag with a ribbon on top. I am busy people. I could be handing out Oreos (speaking of non-food).
Nonetheless, I laughed out loud at the comment of Robin Olsen, who runs cookie-exchange.com and is quoted at the end of Moskin’s piece. Olsen’s thoughts: “I can tell a margarine cookie as soon as I bite into it. And then I put it right down.”
Well just tell it like it is, Ms. Olsen! I love that. But I won’t send you any cookies. Too risky.
As for the rest of you, I hope you enjoy whatever it is you’re baking this Christmas!
Pretty much everything will kill us won’t it?
I use butter for baking though.
Ok, this is too bizarre. I JUST NOW took a pound of butter out of my freezer to thaw, so that I can make sugar cookies. And then I opened my laptop to look up a recipe. I had opened your blog page earlier but hadn’t scrolled down to see your post. And voila.
So .. I’m just rambling here to suggest that your post must have ESP’d it’s way into my head and I will blame you for the extra fat that enters my bloodstream this evening ; )
Your views on food are very similar to mine, right down to the Diet Pepsi (although I sometimes prefer Diet Dr. Pepper)
And you’re welcome to send me cookies – however you melted the butter!
oh, I find this amusing. I think that I am still a baker-in-progress, but I have come a long ways over the past couple of years.
I do use butter, usually. But I still think a cookie is a cookie, butter or margarine, I will gobble it up, regardless. 🙂