Cookies. The culmination of millennia of treat making lore. The ultimate delicious nugget of baked goodness. Cookies.

I don't really like most cookies. Now, now, now - put the big sticks away and let me explain. There are some cookies that put me into something approaching an orgasmic trance. It's just that the cookies that do this are (luckily for you) fairly rare. There are Salerno butter cookies. Milanos from Pepperidge Farms. Cocoa chocolate chip cookies from ... well ... me. Necessity is the mother of invention and since no elves bothered to learn how to make cocoa chocolate chip cookies I had to take this as my own mission. You, my lovely readers, benefit now from my efforts.

How to make Jim's Cocoa Chocolate Chip Cookies

Step 1: Tell somebody that you're going to make them some Cocoa Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Step 2: Wait a month or so.

Step 3: Offer various lame excuses about why the cookies aren't there yet. Illnesses in the house, a bombing at the post office and death all work well at least once.

Step 4: Wait another month until the excuses run out.

Step 5: Get off your ass and make the damned cookies already.

Step 6: Gather the ingredients

2 1/4 cups self rising flour*
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder**
2 sticks of butter***
3/4 cup regular sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla****
2 eggs
12-ounce package semi-sweet chips*****
1 cup chopped nuts******

* Yes, self-rising. Not all-purpose. You can use all-purpose if you have too but they won't be quite right.
** Get a decent cocoa powder. If you want cheap cookies you should stop by Food Lion or the Piggly Wiggly and save yourself the trouble of making good ones. Note that this is cocoa powder, not hot chocolate mix. The two are not the same. Trust me on this one.
*** If you think about it ahead of time take the butter out of the fridge a bit before you get started. It'll soften up and be much easier to work with. I never remember to do this, that's why there isn't an official "Step" for it. Oh, the crosses we bear...
**** Real vanilla extract, not the imitation stuff. Seriously, real vanilla is cheap enough and you use like 3 cents worth per recipe - don't ever cheap out on vanilla.
***** Once again, invest in decent chips. There is a small but measurable difference and the objective here is a spectacular cookie.
****** If you get shelled whole nuts chop them up with a big knife or hand chopper. Do not use the coffee grinder. The coffee grinder makes walnut paste. Tasty, but the wrong consistency for cookies. Once again just trust me on this one.

Step 7: Prep the dry ingredients - put the flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder together in a bowl. Mix them up.

Step 8: Put the butter, sugar and vanilla into a bowl. Mix them with a hand mixer until they're a clumpy mess. Low speed, please - you're the one who's going to have to clean up.

Step 9: Add an egg. Mix with a mixer until the egg is well mixed in.

Step 10: Add the other egg. Again with the mixer.

Step 11: Slowly add in the contents of the dry ingredients bowl while continuing to mix with the mixer. If it gets too stiff for the mixer switch to a spoon. You should also consider getting a new mixer because yours is a pussy.

Step 12: Add the chips and nuticules and mix them in with a spoon.

Step 13: Cover the dough and put it in the fridge overnight. Or two nights if you don't manage to bake the first night. Like I did. Or didn't, depending on which way you look at it.

Step 14: Preheat oven to the all purpose bachelors' baking temperature (375).

Step 15: Use a teaspoon or tablespoon to portion out cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet. If you have a melon baller that's even better. You're aiming for a round ball here, not a shapeless mass.

Step 16: Cook 10 or 11 minutes. Look for the vanishing moist top. These are brown so it's a bit difficult to tell doneness by brownosity like with plain chocolate chip cookies. When the sides look dry and the top doesn't glisten wetly any more they are done.

Step 17: Remove from oven when ready.

Step 18: Let stand for a couple of minutes so they can set up then transfer cookies to a cooling rack. The cooling rack is optional for the first batch - you should put those directly on your plate and do a Step 20 on them.

Step 19: Repeat Steps 13 through 16 until all of your cookies are cookied. Er...I mean "cooked".

Step 20: Enjoy hot from the oven with a glass of ice cold milk.

Step 21: Enjoy hot the next day by nuking a plate for about 30 seconds (in my microwave) so they're nice and soft and warm again.

Step 22: Vacuum pack a bunch and seal them inside a cigar box (cushioned well with folded paper towels or bubble wrap). Send them to the person indicated in Step 1.

There you have it, simpleasy instructions to make Jim's Cocoa Chocolate Chip Cookies. And at only 22 steps it is less than twice as difficult as your average substance abuse program!

Enjoy!