with a cookie. I, like so many of you, have nostalgia for the chocolate chip cookie.

I first baked a batch with my Italian grandmother, Helen. I stood on a stool at the sliver of counter next to the oven. A breeze flowed through the back door of her modest, immaculate Baltimore row home. With each addition, I tasted the raw ingredient. Sugar was sweeter than I imagined; flour coated my tongue and made me giggle. We folded the ingredients together forming a sweet smelling mound of chocolate speckled dough.

Ten minutes, or an eternity to a child later, hot cookies emerged from the oven. I sniffed the air deeply, almost tasting the cookies before ever taking a bite. What went into the oven as a dream emerged as a scorched, overly sweet hockey puck. Seriously, they were a disaster.

To her credit, Grandma Helen's cooking more than made up for her baking blunders. I still smile at this memory because I know my fascination for baking started here at her hem.

I invite you to come along on coco love's adventure that started so many years ago. Here's to cookies and tea and grandmas and sharing memories together. Welcome!