13 Ways to Eat a Chocolate Chip Cookie

When my poetry pal and fellow Slicer Molly Hogan posted a poetry prompt to write about “Cookies!!! Christmas cookies, sugar cookies or any sort of cookie,” I had to think for a bit. Like many of you, my family has many cookie traditions to choose from. In the end, I decided to stick with the cookie that’s been part of my memories forever, chocolate chip.

Once I settled on the kind of cookie, I had to come up with a form. I like to play with poems I’m working on in my head as I drive to work. This isn’t always a good idea because I have to actually pay attention to the other cars on the road! But, as sometimes happens, inspiration struck. Wallace Stevens “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” popped into my head. There must be at least 13 ways to look at a chocolate chip cookie. Or, even better, of eating a chocolate chip cookie. So here you have it, my “13 Ways to Eat a Chocolate Chip Cookie.”

Raw*

Sugar dissolves on your tongue
Sweetness fills your mouth
The chocolate chips still crunch.

Warm

Eleven minutes of heat transform
Lumps of dough into a golden brown,
Gooey confection.

With a glass of cold milk

Break the cookie in half
Dunk one end into the milk,
The longer it’s submerged, the softer will be.

At Nana’s House

There is always a tray of my favorite treat
Waiting on the table by the kitchen door.
Nana serves me two cookies on a red and white plate.

In small pieces

Break the cookie into small bits around the chip.
Nibble slowly. The sweetness of the softened
Morsel explodes like a ripe blueberry.

With Breakfast

Instead of pancakes
Both have eggs and flour
Sometimes people add chocolate chips to pancakes.

Crispy

Let them cool completely
They will crunch when you bite down
And leave crumbs at the corner of your mouth.

After school

When I get home, I’m so hungry
Lunch was hours ago
Cookies ease my hunger pangs.

In two bites

This way your entire mouth
Can savor the flavor
But they’re gone faster.

Chewy

If you put a slice of bread
In the tin
Your cookies will become soft and chewy.

After sledding

While my cheeks are still cold
Cookies and hot cocoa
Warm me up in no time.

Before bed

A single cookie
Helps me forget my cares
And sweetens my dreams.

Anytime

Because chocolate chip cookies
make everything better and
Are the most delicious cookie ever!

* I know all about salmonella concerns, but some habits die hard

Draft © Catherine Flynn, 2019

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

This poem, which is partially true, evolved from a story idea I found in my journal. This cheesecake is delicious and has become a holiday tradition in my family. You can find the recipe here.

The Cult of the Cooking Channel

She “got” cooking like
some people “get” religion.
The lure of pristine,
well-stocked kitchens was
impossible to resist.

Her favorite high priestess extolled
the virtues of butter,
so tubs of margarine
were tossed in favor
of sticks of unsalted butter.
Garlic was now purchased in bulbs,
not bottles.

She found herself at the mall,
clutching a recipe for cheesecake
searching for the kitchen supply store.
The saleswoman showed her how
to use a springform pan,
Located the “perfect microplane”
For zesting lemons.

At her next stop, she found
red currant jelly, something
she’d never heard of,
tucked away on the top shelf,
filled her cart with cream cheese,
sour cream, and eggs.

Assembling the batter was
surprisingly easy; she just
followed the recipe,
step by careful step.

After the pan was filled
and safely in the oven,
she ran her finger along
the rim of the bowl and licked.
She’d never tasted anything
so delicious.

Baking this luscious concoction
was tedious, but she never
deviated from her mentor’s
instructions.

When her creation was cool
and topped with raspberries tossed
in the warm melted jelly,
she offered it to her family.

Their mouths dropped open.
They regarded her with new eyes.
Who was this woman who had such
hidden talents?

An acolyte of the cooking channel,
eager to discover new recipes,
new truths about herself.

© Catherine Flynn, 2019

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Yesterday, I wrote about the importance of choice. Sometimes that choice is within a broader topic. This poem is an example of that kind of choice. This month I am also participating in Laura Shovan’s “February” Poetry Project. (Why we’re doing it in March is a long story.) The theme this year is food, and yesterday Laura shared a picture of sourdough bread as a prompt. She also offered the alternative to write about a “bread of your choosing.” Since I don’t have much experience with sourdough bread, and have been baking pumpkin bread every year for almost forty years, this was an obvious substitution. Like the goal of writing a daily slice of life, the goal of Laura’s project “is to practice the habit of writing regularly…so that we can focus on generating ideas.” I may return to this poem to rework the ending, or I may not. I did enjoy the process of writing, and the piece of pumpkin bread (from a loaf hidden in the freezer) I ate to help me write it!

Pumpkin Bread

In November,
After the geese have flown south
And only brown oak leaves
Still cling to tree limbs,
It’s time to make pumpkin bread.

The cookbook falls open
To the recipe,
Spattered and stained
From thirty years of use.
The heady scent of cinnamon
And cloves fills the kitchen
As ingredients mix and meld
Into honey-colored batter.

I fill the pans, like a bee
Filling honeycombs.
Then into the oven, where
The golden glop transforms
Into loaves of amber sweetness
That we will devour
When they cool.

© Catherine Flynn, 2019

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Naomi Shihab Nye has famously said that “poems hide…What we have to do is live in a way that lets us find them.” I often find inspiration in images, and when I saw this photo on Twitter recently, I knew a poem was hidden within:

At a bend in the trail
I freeze, startled
by an upturned mushroom.
Suddenly,
I’m at your kitchen table,
wisps of morning breeze,
rich with melodies of songbirds,
drifting in through wide-open windows
as you set an ancient flow-blue
bowl before me.
Nestled within its chipped rim
are glistening blueberries,
which you rose at dawn
to pick,
making sure to leave a few
for the birds.

© Catherine Flynn, 2018

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every Tuesday. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

As you may know, April is National Poetry Month. Many poets and bloggers are writing and sharing a poem a day in celebration. I won’t be posting daily, but I am following these projects and joining in when I can. Today, I’ve created a Golden Shovel (Mary Lee Hahn’s project) with a line taken from a recent episode of Krista Tippett’s program, On Being. This is one of my favorite podcasts. Tippett interviews a wide range of theologians, scientists, philosophers, poets, among others to, as explained on their website, “pursue deep thinking and social courage, moral imagination and joy, to renew inner life, outer life, and life together.”

In “Cosmic Imagining, Civic Pondering,” Tippett facilitated a conversation between the creator and editor of Brain Pickings, Maria Papova, and Natalie Batalha, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Their rich and thought-provoking exchange was full of insights, and I found myself nodding in agreement over and over again. After poring over the transcript, I chose this line to create today’s poem:

“We share this tender planet.”
Maria Papova

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every Tuesday. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.