Did you enjoy all those links yesterday? I did.

Katamari Damacy totally rocks. Look for a review on RJ’s as soon as I sit down to write it.

That’s right, chocolate chip cookies. I haven’t actually ever made these by myself so I figured it was about time. You can’t live without:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 12 oz. package semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

This recipe is notable for being the first one I didn’t actually have to buy anything special for. Because of all the cooking I’ve been doing, I actually had all of these ingredients sitting around my kitchen. Well, actually, I bought the chocolate chips a long time ago expecting to use them for something else, so I did actually have to buy the chips, but that’s it.

Also, actually, I didn’t really have 1 cup butter. I only had a 1/2 cup, so I just decided to half the whole recipe. I figured it would work out ok anyway.

I preheated the oven to 375, and then mixed up everything but the chips. My brown sugar has been sitting in my pantry for a little while, so it was pretty clumpy. I’m not sure if that’s ok or not– does brown sugar go bad? Nevertheless, I mixed it in. I microwaved the butter for about 30 seconds to soften it up, and then beat the egg and threw it in, added the vanilla (next to strawberries and baking bread, one of my favorite smells), baking soda, salt.

And then I beat the whole thing to a pulp. The recipe I used said to beat on medium speed, but I don’t have a mixer. I have a fork. I picked up my fork and said “Ok fork, let’s go medium speed,” and just whipped the mix around for about five or ten minutes. First it was floury and clumpy, then it was clumpy and dry, and then, like magic (beating magic), it was doughy. I poured the bag of chips in (half the bag, actually), mixed them into the dough, and I had chocolate chip cookie dough. Technically, I could have stopped here (I did sneak a nibble), but no– it must be cooked! I forged on.

I dropped the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet with a tablespoon. In retrospect, I made my drops way too big. I guess because they’re mostly butter and sugar, the cookies really spread out while cooking. I put about 12 on a cookie sheet, and had enough dough left for about 4 more on another.

I let it cook for 10-15 minutes (and played more Katamari Damacy, man that game is fun). When the edges browned, I pulled them out and let them cool.

This is when something weird happened. I was in the other room playing the game, and I heard a crash. I came back into the kitchen, and one of my cookie sheets had curled up so much it had rolled over onto the floor. No idea what the heck happened there. I assume on side cooled faster than the other, causing the metal sheet to curl up on one side, but it didn’t happen to the other plate, and I’ve never seen that happen to any cookie sheet before. Very strange, and I lost four cookies because they fell all over the floor.

Ok, so I didn’t completely lose them. I ate two. Don’t worry, they were fine. I checked.

I Require Sustenance is supposed to run every Wednesday on mikeschramm.com, but to tell the truth, Mike is getting pretty tired of doing it. You could help, though– want to cook something, tell us how it went, and share the recipe? Sure you do! Email Mike, or your precious cooking column goes bye bye!