Marguerite Gaquin, daughter of late Toll House baker Sue Brides, and I succumb to the charms of Boston TV host Maria Stephanos, up to and including Gaquin showing us her mother’s original recipe! As chapter one of my book explains, Brides was chief baker for cookie inventor and Toll House restaurant owner Ruth Wakefield and was at her side when Wakefield invented the chocolate chip cookie. See more photos and what Gaquin says is the real, original recipe at WCVB’s website.
Sadly, I spent Chocolate Chip Day 2014 at my dad’s wake but Kate Erbland picked up the slack with this Mental Floss meditation on the chocolate chip (duly crediting some of my historic findings). There are also book mentions in two recent Dede Wilson pieces (one in the Boston Globe and this other one on her Bakepedia website) exploring her obsession with making Toll House cookies the way Ruth Wakefield intended.
Good friend Valerie Richardson and I discussed Ruth Wakefield, good chocolate chip cookies in New Haven, CT (especially the greasy, cheap and delicious ones at the Educated
Burgher), and my all-chocolate-chip birthday party on her Radio Something show on listener-supported WPKN-Bridgeport radio last Tuesday — podcast here, should you want to catch up. Check out some of multitalented Val’s intriguing still-life-produce-with-skeleton artwork here.
On Thursday, my essay about the real story behind the invention of the chocolate chip cookie (i.e. it was no accident) posted on Slate’s Food page. Eater posted links to it, The Daily Mail in the U.K. wrote this story off it and the story itself has been reprinted in a number of newspapers around this country.