While this is the first chocolate chip cookie recipe posted on this blog, I can promise you it will not be the last. I love chocolate chip cookies something fierce. It’s not my fault. When I was a kid, my parents (dad) always had a slice-and-bake style roll of homemade chocolate chip cookies in the refrigerator. Pretty much every night after dinner they would take the roll out of the fridge and slice off a cookie, (okay two) for each of us and bake them. We would always eat them warm, always with milk. It was pretty great, but it also left me with a life long sugar (read: chocolate) habit.

While I still sometimes struggle with craving sugar, what I reach for when the jones’ hit has evolved over the years. In avoiding refined grains and sugars, I have recreated many of my favorite sweets using wholesome ingredients. Inadvertently, ditching the baking standards has broadened my culinary horizons, and things that I would never have thought of putting in, let’s say, a chocolate chip cookie, have ended up blowing my mind. This recipe has a seriously crunchy list of ingredients, but I implore you to not be frightened! These cookies are exceedingly good. They are chewy in the middle with crisp edges, are scented with vanilla and an intangible nuttiness. And even if you don’t normally like it, don’t be put off by the (spoiler alert!) tahini. The tahini ends up lending itself to a mellow nuttiness and I swear every once in a while I get this subtle sugar cookie flavor. It’s really strange and lovely.

But, seriously, let’s talk about sugar. I am really excited about the national attention sugar is getting. Finally some of the blame for the severe health crisis that we are facing is being taken off misunderstood fat and being placed on the shoulders of the true culprit. While I contend that sugar is not in itself bad, the way that we process it coupled with its abundance in our food, makes for a dangerous equation. We are programmed to crave sugar because in nature, sweetness is a sign that something is both edible (won’t kill you) and calorically dense (bang for your hunter-gatherer bucks). Hunter-gatherers consumed twenty-two teaspoons of unrefined sugar per year. Today we eat that amount in a day and children often eat more. And, in our case, those twenty-two teaspoons aren’t coming from peaches.

So, why am I writing about the horrors of sugar in the lead up to a cookie recipe? Because I think we have generally been given really crappy choices in the dessert department. And while refined sugar is something that I try my very best to avoid, my food philosophy is not one of restriction. I don’t want to have to think in terms of what I can and can’t have. I fill my world with wonderful wholesome choices and then live. If I want to eat a chocolate chip cookie every once in a while, you better believe I do, and love it, and don’t feel the least bit guilty about it.

And so, I give you this cookie, in hopes that the next time the urge hits you, you will remember that there is more than one way to make a great chocolate chip cookie.

xo, Dillon