How to make the perfect chocolate chip cookies.

Step One: Prepare your ingredients.

Flour, brown sugar, chocolate chips, milk, eggs, sugar, and baking soda.

Step Two: Mix them together.

Not too little and not too much, because mistakes are irreversible and the slightest bit over or under could mess it all up.

Step Three: Portion the dough and line them equally distant from each other along the baking sheet.

Too close together and the cookies will combine, merging together like hands on winter’s night. But breaking them apart would only make them too small, and no one wants a cookie that can be eaten in one bite.

Step Four: Place the baking sheet into the oven.

The cookies will warm like people by a fire, sharing the warmth, they’ll begin to grow closer. If the oven’s too cold they’ll never bake, the ingredients won’t blend and their connection won’t be made. Too hot and they’ll burn, the sweetness of the sugar masked by the char and the kindness of their smile hidden away somewhere far.

Step Five: Remove the sheet of cookies from the oven.

Listen for the timer, hear it ring, and don’t ignore it, because even with the right temperature the cookies may burn. And don’t touch with bare hands, put your oven mitts on, two mediums cannot meet when one’s cold and one’s hot. If the two hands shall meet and a kiss shall be shared, just hope with your soul that your heart will be spared. A burn is only temporary, but the pain is profound.

Step Six: Let the cookies cool.

Take a breath and relax, your cookies look great, a little burnt on the edges but perfect to the taste.

Here’s the thing. Perfection is in the eye of the beholder, but if everyone has a different set of eyes, then no one or thing is truly perfect. Your cookies might be burnt and your heart might have scars, but that doesn’t make you any less worthy of a person or cookie any less of a cookie.