Hello dear friends! A year ago this week I was in the kitchen at the White House, making holiday cookies with Ashley and Molly and oooohhh just the White House Pastry Chef. Exactly 1 trillion things have happened since that time. Just all the stuff that makes us cheer and cry, scream and wonder, and hopefully act more generously with our empathy and genuine curiosity for one another. Hopefully.
I’ve been in San Francisco visiting my maj (a maj is a best friend, a major) this past week. The skies are bright blue, the air feels easy, we’ve gotten to spend some really sweet and important time together, and as a bonus, I’ve made a post 10pm webmd self diagnosis that I really think I’m right about.
Everyday is a winding road. Sheryl Crow had it right all along.
Here’s some words from this week:
• Medium has a series of essays gathered together as Words That Matter. There are all sorts of important writers and thinkers who have offered essays to the group including Margaret Atwood, Roxane Gay, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. May I humbly suggest you get into it?
• This is a profound piece of writing about a woman who explores the topography of tears. About grief and gratitude, joy and pain, capturing the small details of all of it: The Tears of Rose-Lynn Fisher. Thank you for sharing this with me, Suzonne!
• How many starving polar bears to we have to see on Facebook before we act differently? Things you can do to reduce global warming.
• This year’s TIME’s Person of the Year is The Silence Breakers. This, at a moment when it feels also like, oooh wait… is it all too much? Too bad.
• Related: Inside the demise of Al Franken.
• This is juicy and accurate: The Consumerist Church of Fitness Classes.
• The search for the best chocolate chip cookies is over and humbly, it’s mine.
• Related: The Best Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.
• I spent some time with my maj Tracy this week. We went on an adventure to this Aftel Archive of Curious Scents in Berkeley CA. It’s such a unique experience. Please go!
• Strong as Hell and don’t you forget it. And I know by now I don’t even need to tell you this but please continue to Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered. K, good deal.
• I’m working on 2018 workshops at The Bakehouse and I’d really like you all to come make this Galette Des Rois (a French King Cake) with me.
• Appropriately festive reading and it’s snowing in places it shouldn’t be snowing so… Christmas Days: 12 stories and 12 feasts for 12 days.
Enjoy today and Happy Sunday!
xo Joy
Kate
Yay! I will be in Nola April 16-20! I hope I can take one of your workshops!
Melanie
Thanks for another great week of posts! I clicked on that climate change link and was surprised/not surprised to see that reducing/cutting beef consumption is not on it. Big agriculture shuts a lot of publicity about that down, but the science speaks volumes if you look into it: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/03/eating-less-meat-curb-climate-change
Dottie
I made David’s Galette des rois last year and it was amazing. Anyone who gets to make it with you at your workshop is lucky indeed!
I’ve been following you for some time and love your blog!
Denise in Austin
Here it is Thursday the 14th and I am just now reading your ‘Let It Be Sunday’ piece. It has been a crazy week and now I am really sorry I did not make the time to read all of this earlier. It could have made my almost over, week better! Words That Matter is amazing (I am a huge Dave Pell fan). Your chocolate chip cookies are my favourite cookie recipe – I made them for my cookie exchange. MFM is my favorite podcast, I have been listening for over a year and I laugh so hard during my morning commute other drivers look at me funny. Lastly, I would love to go back to NOLA and make a Galette Des Rois with you but alas I have traded Austin for Mardi Gras and I miss it every year around this time. SSDGM
Stella
I just made your Brown Butter Chocolate Chip cookies the other day and was literally eating one when I read about your WP win! Of course they won, they’re the best ever! Congrats!
Tracy
Your brown butter chocolate chip cookies totally deserve the win! They are AMAZING!!!
Molly
Congratulations on the WP superlative. Your recipe is the one I reach for over and over and is a favorite!
wendy benoit
Your chocolate chip cookie recipe is the best! So glad it got the recognition it deserves!
Cat
What a great pic!!! Your ccc’s are, no contest, the BEST!!! Was in NOLA for the crazy snow… did not pack for that…but had super awesome visit anyway. Lots of good info for 2018…can’t believe it’s just around the corner!
Kristen
Congratulations! They are some tasty cookies.
Nicole Lortie
Congratulations! For winning the best chocolate chip cookie. I will do them today ! I am too far to go to your workshops, I am in Montreal, but we plan to visit your city in the next years and I will hope that you will offer a workshop during my visit. Thanks for your blog. I love to read your Sunday post. Nicole
Elizabeth
Relevant to the food world: one of the best things we can do to reduce global warming – eat less meat!
A much more profound impact than turning out the lights.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-up-beef-reduce-carbon-footprint-more-than-cars
Robyn
I’ve started to think about some things i want to do in 2018 and one of them is definitely to take a trip to New Orleans and come to The Bakehouse!
Gabrielle
Congrats on the Post win!
Annaliese
What a year indeed! And yes, it is the season for cookies so get at them! I firmly believe that chocolate chip and/or chunk cookies deserve a place in the holiday round-up of cookies. Congrats!
SCgal
No humble brag Joy; just the truth. Congratulations to the champ of chocolate chips. Well deserved
Lily
How cool! Though, I stared at that photo for entirely too long before spotting you. I haven’t seen very many photos of you besides the Joy the Baker cookbook cover, and you’ve always been tall, Julia Child-esque, in my imaginings!
Angela
After having eaten hundreds, if not thousands, of chocolate chip cookies over the course of my lifetime, I’m so thrilled for you at the Washington Post has finally declared what I’ve known to be true since the day that recipe was published and I pulled them out of the oven. Those really are the best chocolate chip cookies. ever.
the gold digger
This, at a moment when it feels also like, oooh wait… is it all too much? Too bad.
Yeah…. So sad for those guys whose bad behavior is causing them problems. Because I really enjoyed being groped and kissed at work by married men my dad’s age when I was in my first job out of college.