I have always faltered at getting the timing right; I either play my cards so soon they haven’t yet been dealt, or I over-project meaning onto something and never get to achieve it at all. On my birthday two years ago I found — in a moment of pure magic that I still haven’t processed — Judy Holliday’s 1958 Trouble is a Man record, a circle of vinyl I didn’t even know existed in New Zealand, let alone for me, let alone on my birthday. For some reason, I promised myself that I wouldn’t listen to it until I had my very own space, beholden to no one but myself and my whims (and also my landlord) and that alone would be the perfect context to finally absorb this record. Two years and then some passed, and I have, as of December 1st, at last moved into a place where I am the only resident, and yet — I don’t know, it still just hasn’t been quite right, I haven’t been in the right frame of mind, and so I still haven’t listened to this record despite it meaning the world to me.

I have, however, made some cookies, and I baked a loaf of bread, and both were Nigella Lawson recipes, so despite my existential fumbling for the needlessly unattainable, this new place is undeniably mine, all mine now. (And my landlord’s. But for the purposes of romantic drollery: mine, all mine.) If in doubt, Nigella. If really in doubt: Nigella and chocolate.

I am always the first person to talk a big game about how much I hate SEO and how it has been the ruination of food blogging but I also freely admit that I added Nigella’s name in front of this recipe despite the possessive apostrophe not actually denoting her own titular grandmother, because while I despise SEO, I do love context. These cookies originated in Nigella’s incredibly comforting book How to Be A Domestic Goddess and I’ve made them numerous times since I got the book around fifteen years ago; somehow I haven’t blogged about them yet. Breaking in a new kitchen seemed the perfect opportunity; they only have a few ingredients and require just a bowl and a spoon, so in this no-man’s-land unpacking time where I lack muscle memory or the literal memory of where I packed 90% of my pants, they were quite feasible.

The simplicity of these cookies is magnificent — disarming, even — with only a cloud of cocoa providing the heartily replete yet elegantly complex chocolate flavour. Don’t be fooled by their uncouth, fork-pronged appearance either — these cookies melt with each bite, chocolate flavour blooming, ebbing and flowing in heady, toasty waves, barely sweet yet also not bitter in the slightest; it sounds like I’m exaggerating but it really can’t be overstated. I’m not sure quite what it is that takes these from regularity into the sublime — though I suspect it’s something to do with the proportions of butter and cocoa specifically — but in a way I don’t want to know, it’s enough that these simply-furnished cookies taste like five million dollars (adjusted for inflation.)

In the mood for more cookies? Normally I’d oblige, but in this case, keep an eye out for my next blog post, the eleventh Annual HungryandFrozen Edible Gift Recipe Round-up, coming soon.

Nigella’s Granny Boyd’s Biscuits

The most meltingly intense chocolate cookies despite the simplicity of the ingredients. I’ve used brown sugar here, which results in a slightly softer bite, but the original caster sugar still makes for a perfect, perfect cookie. Recipe from Nigella Lawson’s How to be a Domestic Goddess.

• 250g soft butter
• 125g brown sugar (or caster sugar)
• 30g good cocoa
• 300g self-raising flour (or regular flour and 2 teaspoons baking powder)

1: Set your oven to 190C/375F and line a cookie sheet with baking paper.

2: Beat the 250g soft butter and 125g sugar together in a bowl with a wooden spoon; I lost steam quite quickly but the aim is to thoroughly incorporate the ingredients and get them lighter and more aerated than when they started.

3: Carefully fold in the 30g cocoa and 300g self-raising flour — avoid sudden movements or you’ll send floury dust clouds into the air – working the dry ingredients through the butter. As Nigella notes, it’ll seem like far too much flour at first but it truly will absorb. I refrigerated the dough for about 15 minutes as a matter of habit but theoretically you can bake it straightaway.

4: Roll heaped spoonfuls of the dough and place them around 2 inches apart on the baking paper, squashing them down with the back of a fork as you go. Bake for 5 minutes, then — important! — lower the heat to 170C/340F and bake for a further fifteen minutes, though check around the 12 minute mark. Remove the cookies from the oven, gently transfer them to a cooling rack — they’ll seem a little fragile but they will firm up as they cool — return the oven to 190C/375C and continue baking the remaining cookie dough.

Makes 20-24 cookies, depending, as always, on how much cookie dough you eat while making them. Store in an airtight container in a cool place.

Notes: Please make sure the cocoa you get has 20% or more fat per 100g. Any less and it’s just not worth it. I used salted butter because that’s how it comes here in NZ, so I’d add a pinch of salt if your butter requires it.

music lately:

Faith by Limp Bizkit. Two weeks ago I saw them live for the first time and look, there’s no way to explain their VIVID hold on me other than the music that you hear at a formative age tends to have astonishing staying power; but whatever, I’m obsessed and never thought I’d get to see them live. Fortunately, time has been surprisingly kind — eventually — to them, and the Limp Bizkitnaissance led them to our oft-ignored shores. I actually can’t explain the levels of dopamine that punched their way through my body when they performed this Wham cover — with an odd beauty, despite itself — the culmination of twenty-something years of adoration materialising almost made me feel queasy, like spinning around too fast. It was a fantastic setlist, though they left off several of my particular favourites — possibly for the best, given my one-molecule-at-a-time ability to bear this level of joy — but they did perform the vastly superior remix version of Rollin‘ and graciously acknowledged the horrific ticket prices.

The 1969 Tony Awards performance of Turkey Lurkey Time from the musical Promises, Promises. I have a silly little tradition where I rewatch this grainy video at the start of every December to herald the approaching yule season. Yet again I couldn’t quite get the timing right and wasn’t in the exact precise frame of mind to watch it until now, but still as per usual I start to cry when they get to the diagonal bit of the choreography near the end; again, I can’t explain why — I’m not sure explaining would help — but it all just feels so momentous and overwhelming and Donna McKechnie’s rubber spine is no less than a science-flouting miracle.

Brain Damage/Eclipse from Roger Waters’ In The Flesh concert; I’ve always leaned Waters-wards in the great Pink Floyd divide, he may not have Gilmour’s voice but I vastly prefer his lyrics and political moxie; the moment when PP Arnold comes in with the vocalising is unbelievably, almost unbearably exhilarating, as is the moment when the audience realises what song they’re hearing.