October 8, 2024 | Awake & Dreaming

My current morning routine starts with me waking up sometime around 7:30 am. Even though I usually have my alarm set for 8 am, I end up waking up by 7:30 am; sometimes earlier but I try to go back to bed till 7:30. I stagger out of bed and then start my laptop. I know, I know – I can’t help it! I go to the washroom and then brush my teeth and wash my face.

I then check on my system and open both Firefox and Chrome and switch on the bluetooth speaker and then go to the kitchen to boil water, get the coffee and sugar and then the milk to make my first cup of coffee of the day. Coffee in hand I come back to my room and start watching Youtube videos, checking football scores etc. By 9 am I look to see what is for breakfast and then get my bowl or plate ready and eat it at my dining table.

Then it is back to my laptop until 10:30 am when I get another cup of coffee. Back to the laptop and by 11:45 am I will take a shower and sometimes a shave. As I dry myself, I come back into my bedroom and then boot up the work laptop. By 12:15 pm I would be logged in and checking my work emails and gearing up for the day’s work.

1. Chocolate chip cookies were invented by accident.

Back in 1938, a 33-year-old woman named Ruth Wakefield was baking a batch of her famous butter drop dough cookies when she broke up a bar of Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate chips and added them to the batter, intending to create a chocolate cookie. Instead, the chocolate bits held their shape, and the chocolate chip cookie was born.

2. They were originally called Toll House Crunch Cookies.

Ruth’s recipe became instantly popular when it was published in a Boston-area paper, named after the Toll House Inn restaurant that she owned with her husband in Whitman, Massachusett. The current name didn’t come about until Nestlé turned her inventive idea into something much bigger.

3. One Nestlé chocolate bar = 160 chocolate chips.

In 1939, the company made Ruth’s cookie recipe easier to recreate by scoring their chocolate bars into little pieces especially for baking. These eventually evolved to become the teardrop-shaped morsels we find on shelves today, and her classic recipe is always printed on the back of the package.

4. The morsels come in tons of flavors.

Toll House chips first branched out beyond chocolate in 1958, and various flavors have been introduced over the years, including butterscotch, white chocolate, dark chocolate, and pumpkin spice. They even have Delightfulls—baking morsels filled with caramel, peanut butter, cherry and mint flavoring. The dessert possibilities are endless!

5. They’re the official state cookie of Massachusetts.

Residents of Wakefield are truly proud of the cookie history in their town, and the beloved semi-sweet morsels have managed to have an impact on the entire state as well. In 1997, a third grade class from Somerset proposed a bill that would honor chocolate chip cookies with the designation of official cookie of the Commonwealth. The cookies have not, however, dethroned Boston Cream Pie as the state dessert.

6. Toll House made an appearance on Friends.

Phoebe claims that her family holds the secret recipe for the best-ever chocolate chip cookies, but after baking several batches, Monica gets the truth out of her. The recipe was passed down from Phoebe’s French grandmother, “Nestlé Toulouse.”