Chocolate, Chocolate Chip and Fleur de Sel Cookie Delights

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It was a few days ago, and I was decked out in an outfit that can only be described as brown.

Head to toe in the stuff.

Sure, there was cashmere involved, but really, it was uncharacteristically monochromatic. And honestly dear-hearts, the color seems to have affected my palate.

It was as if the redundant luxuriousness of the ensembles tone became a launching (tipping?) point for a chocolate craving. A chocolate delight craving.

So like any sensible girl, off to the market I traipsed, clad in my cognac colored boots, and a cocoa drenched London-designer-re-imagines-Laura-Ingalls skirt focused on the idea that I needed some quality ingredients, stat.

Whatever else was on the day's agenda had to be forfeited for the cause.

You see my loves - trying to put more than one bit of imperative information into my flightly noggin at a time - just plain doesn't work.

Which can be my only explanation for why I had completely spaced what awaited me at that fine Whole Foods, and yet still headed there like a heat-seeking missile.

Upon arrival, my mind was still vacant, except for the notion I needed my intended delights to be chocolatey, salty AND sweet.

Moments later, I stood, in awe of the salt shelf options, stunned at my choices, (and as much so at the prices. Heavens! I may be incomprehensibly frivolous with my purse strings when it comes to my culinary adventures, but there is no way on this green earth I would purchase 3 ounces of salt for $80. Heck no Daddy-O! And shame on whoever is selling such a thing. Tisk tisk! You're selling salt! Stop being so pretentious! ...oops, sorry, soap box moment...back to my story) when I turned to the lithe and ethereal blond standing next to me looking equally perplexed. I brazenly queried if she had any kind of sodium purchasing preference. Alas, she did not, but we both agreed that with something like salt, the price is the point, and with that I snatched up a (only somewhat reasonably priced, but oh-so-worth-it) bag of crystals and sashayed over to the produce section...

And what did my shiny eyes behold signing books, right there in front of the Washington Delicious Apples? A pair of sensational red boots filled out by Washington's very own delicious apple...Miss Shauna of Gluten Free fame! And who stood next to this juicy peach of a gal? None other than her dear friend Sharon...my saviour from the salt section! It was kismet I tell you, kismet! Swept up in the excitement of the day, I had just plain forgotten that Shauna was in town! Yes, I had still headed right to her like the beacon of light she is...it's as if my mind was on its own agenda. Thank goodness!

Love it, doncha? I sure did. I can only thank goodness that sometimes my over-taxed mind pulls it together, consciously or unconsciously...

I can't really relate the rest of the experience, because it was far (far, far) too (too, too) brief, and non-to-culinarily inclined (unless you consider Pinkberry altogether culinary) but it was a shining moment of bliss in my week and an encounter that brightened my little life indescribably. I am a huge fan of Shauna - and of Sharon too - and their combined loveliness and was tickled pink to finally get to meet Shauna's sassy self. Kinda, sorta rocked my world.

I can only hope that the next time I see this fine woman, I will have a gluten free recipe to share...because these are most assuredly not. They do have the fantastic crackle of salt enrobed in the buttery fabocity of chocolate though, so they will do for now...

Now try this my peaches, and taste the joy.

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 sticks plus 6 tablespoons butter, room temp
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons fleur de sel
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips

Preaheat your oven to 350F.

Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking soda in a medium bowl.

In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachement, cream the butter. Add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, fleur de sel and vanilla and beat until combined. Beat in the sifted dry ingredients until blended; your dough will be kinda crumbly. Add the chips and combine.

Divide the dough in half and roll into a 1 1/2- logs. Wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, 20 minutes.

Line 4 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Cut the logs into 3/8-inch slices and arrange about 1 inch apart on the sheets. If the slices crumble, just smoosh them back together.

Bake for about 17 minutes, or until puffed and cracked on top.

Cool for 5 minutes on the sheets, then transfer them to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes about 2 dz. cookies

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Fleur de Sel - "flower of the salt." A rare sea salt harvested by hand in Brittany, France and available only in limited quantities. - Recipe Gold Mine

According to the European Fair Trade Association, non-fair-trade farmers get barely 5 percent of the profit from chocolate, whereas trading organizations and the chocolate industry receive about 70 percent. This means that producers get only 5 cents from every dollar spent on chocolate, while the companies get 70 cents - 14 times more. - GlobalExchange.org