Certain urban legends live forever on the Internet. Ever since I got my first modem (300 baud), people have been sending me the story of the $250 cookie recipe. This week, three people sent me the same story that goes roughly like this…
Some company makes great chocolate chip cookies. Someone calls the firm and asks if they sell their recipe. The person at the company says, "Yes…for a charge to your credit card of two-fifty." The caller says that's reasonable, authorizes such a charge and soon receives the recipe. Soon, the caller also receives their credit card statement and discovers that the charge is not $2.50 as they expected but $250.00. The caller is so angry that they post the recipe on the Internet for all to read and use. End of story that supposedly happened.
For a while, it was the Mrs. Fields' chain that had supposedly ripped someone off for that amount for their cookie recipe. Later on, it was Famous Amos and lately, it seems to be Neiman-Marcus. And my question is not, "Where does this story come from?" That, we'll never know. My question is: "Has anyone ever made these cookies?"
By the way: I once met Famous Amos — a charming gent — and he told me that the cookies that made him famous were not great because of the recipe. The recipe, he said, was pretty much what you get off the bag of Nestlé's (or maybe it was Hershey's) toll house chocolate bits. The secret was in using quality ingredients and skill in baking. He said something like, "Thinking you can make great cookies because you have a secret recipe is like thinking you can paint like Rembrandt because you have a list of the colors he used." And he didn't say this but I gather that he's not particularly proud of the product now marketed under his handle by the company to which he sold his operation…even though they may be using the same recipe.