Men's Guide to Women

First dates can be amazing fun or torture. You take two people, slam their lives together for a few hours and watch them try not to embarrass themselves or reveal too much in the discovery process either for fun or to see if there is a chance their lives will line up in a future together.

Dating has evolved a bit though. Over the last few years as coffee houses have sprung up at almost every major American street intersection the tried and true dinner and a movie is slowly losing its footing in the hierarchy of first dates.

What's wrong with dinner and a movie? I am sure the owners of every theater and restaurant owner will tell you the same thing I am going to say. Nothing.

So why are they losing steam? Three things really.

What if you figure out in the first twenty minutes that the person you are out with is just awful? Who wants to spend $75 to $100, or the time for that matter to graze with a person you would rather not be talking to? Yikes.

While dinner is very workable for conversation, a movie is a terrible place to get to know someone. You look at the screen for two hours. She looks at the screen for two hours. At best you get a better idea of what her profile looks like and what earrings she decided to wear. Fantastic. That was worth the price of admission. Unless of course you are past the talking part of the evening and are just looking for a good dark place to hang out for a while. So, unless you are looking for dark, $10 for a ticket to sit next to a person you are not going to really be able to visit with at a potentially suspect movie seems like a little bit of a steep price to pay. Get to know the woman, wait six weeks and you can get the same movie for a $1 out of a vending machine in front of a Wal-Mart or go Netflix.

Simply put, the investment in time and money in many cases is not justified by the quality of the date.

Enter the coffee house. You can have a mini date, drink some coffee and get the heck out of there for $5.00 if it really sucks a latte.

A few years ago the coffee house was an original date so you earned style points as well. You were somehow more sophisticated because you took her to a place where her shoes were not sticking to the floor, no buttery fingers, and best of all no little Billy behind you spoiling the moment by kicking the crap out of your chair every few minutes and throwing popcorn in your date’s hair.

Yeah, I like the nice quiet coffee shop. Yesterday’s coffee shop, however, is not the coffee shop of today with people standing because there are not enough of the little cute two seat tables.

Of course seeing some of these people mauling each other in the name of love really makes you want to reconsider the whole dark movie theater idea. Maybe the true genius of the theater was being able to go on a date and avoid seeing some really unattractive people make out. I might just have to rethink my whole "theater position" after that thought. Hmm.

OK. So what are you to do if you are done with the whole dinner and a movie thing and the coffee shop has just lost its magic for you?

As you might have guessed, I am already ahead of you.

We need something to score some originality points with our dates, not too expensive until we have a better feel for where the date is going, something to sell some boyish charm, and something that will stay with her for a while, continually reminding her of you.

You ready? Three words. Chocolate chip cookie baking experience. OK, five words.

Yes, we want to create an absolute experience around baking the best chocolate chip cookies you ever ate.

For the unimaginative types in the room who are just now trying to figure out how they are going to ask a girl out to bake cookies without looking like a full on idiot, I have the answer.

But first, here is how the whole "Chocolate Chip Cookie Baking Experience" works.

What we are not going to do is simply throw a list of ingredients in a bowl, stir, bake, bam!

No, there is an art to this and an art to not making burnt organic Frisbees out of perfectly good cookies.

What we are going to do is create an experience. Baking cookies is baking cookies. What we are going to do is take a boring process that produces an average cookie and make it a fun process producing an exceptional cookie. The craftsmanship is in the combining the ingredients just the right way. In short, the "Experience" is demonstrating before her very eyes the skill to take something ordinary and making it something fun and extraordinary.

How are you going to pull that off? Good question. Let's go over it. I am going to give you everything you need before we are done, but right now I have to go back and tell you how you are going to get here in the first place.

For the unimaginative types above, here is your answer.

Are you going to glide up to a girl and ask her out to bake chocolate chip cookies? You might get some points for originality and I am sure you might get a few to say "Yes," but let’s try to bump the odds a bit.

Here are a couple of ideas, take what works for you and toss the rest, make your own. For the timid this first one is for you. You ask her out for tried and true coffee and if that goes well you try to extend your date and/or set a second one with this:

"This coffee is great, but something's missing. Did you notice that? No? Just me? I just figured it out. I am craving something sweet. That's it! Hey, how about we get out of here and head over to (my place, your place or Neutral third party kitchen.) It’s the only thing I can cook, but I make some phenomenal chocolate chip cookies that sound perfect right now. Yes, that is what we need to do. We need to make some serious chocolate chip cookies. You up for it?"

To set it up for the second date…

"This coffee is great. How's yours? What did you get? Ah, its hard to hear you in here, let me scoot over a bit so I can hear you better. (If you are not sure a second date is in the cards yet, scooting over and watching her body language will give it away) Next time we do this I will stop by and get the coffee, then lets meet at (pick your kitchen) and bake some cookies. Seriously, we can talk while you help me bake the best cookies you have ever eaten. You can't tell any of my secrets though, promise?

Change some of the words to suit you would be one way to go. Here is a better way in my opinion.

Again, you have asked, let’s call her Erica, out and she said "Yes." Perfect. Saturday morning I was going to bake some of my favorite chocolate chip cookies and take them up to (your mom’s house, your grandmother’s house, the hospital, the senior citizens center, anyone or any group that works for you.) What do you say; do you want to help me bake some cookies?

How much did your stock rise with that one? Now you have to make good on it.

Not that I should have to say it, but if you do say the hospital or the senior citizens center work it out so that you actually do take them there, and preferably with her. Don't throw the line out there and kick back watching football on Sunday eating some damn good cookies.

Can you do that? Of course you can. I recommend you practice actually baking the cookies at least once unless you are good on your feet and can make the whole thing funny if you botch it. You have been warned. Nothing delivers all these potential benefits without some risk of downside.

Ok, again, how are you going to pull this off?

First you need the recipe. The recipe I recommend is the most famous one, the Nestle Toll House Cookie Recipe. Remember we are turning the ordinary into extraordinary.

What are you going to talk about for the two hours you spend baking cookies?

Most people pile everything in the bowl, turn on the mixer, add the chips, stir, and bake, bam! Remember this is an "Experience" and she needs to be a part of it.

At the end of this article are the eleven things you need to do to turn a plain chocolate chip cookie into a fantastic one.

Talk about each one as you get ready to do it and talk about what it does to make a better cookie. Show her your secrets don't bark them; make her part of this creation. Make sure she if off the barstool and is in the kitchen helping. You want her to have some ownership in these cookies be they golden or garbage.

If you need more conversation material, how about the history of chocolate chip cookies? How about why are they called the Toll House cookies ? Where did chocolate chip cookies come from?

Need some more talking points? Talk Vanilla. For a few interesting fast facts on vanilla, click here.

Did you know that Vanilla is thought of as an aphrodisiac ?

Remember, the recipe slapped together will only give you an ordinary chocolate chip cookie, below the recipe are the tricks you can use to make the cookie extraordinary. Make sure you get familiar with all eleven points before you start the cookies.

This chocolate chip cookie date thing has been top secret for years, though I had a lot of help pulling all of this together. All of this is free of charge, but it will cost you a story if and when you pull it off. Post and let me know how it went either way.

As a final touch you need to send her home with some cookies to remember you, and you something to put cookies in if they are going out for delivery. Now go bake some serious cookies.

Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks, 1/2 pound) butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated [white] sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

2 cups (12-ounce package) NESTLE TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels

1 cup chopped nuts

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large mixer bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE in preheated 375-degree [Fahrenheit] oven for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

PAN COOKIE VARIATION: PREPARE dough as above. Spread into greased 15"x10" jelly-roll pan. Bake in preheated 375-degree [Fahrenheit] oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pan on wire rack.

FOR HIGH ALTITUDE BAKING (>5,200 feet): INCREASE flour to 2 1/2 cups; add 2 teaspoonfuls water with flour; reduce both granulated sugar and brown sugar to 2/3 cup each. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit, drop cookies for 8 to 10 minutes and pan cookies for 17 to 19 minutes.

Steps to Make the Cookies and the Experience Extraordinary

Use real butter. Period. Avoid the Hydrogenated Fats, or Trans Fats, in Crisco or margarine

Use real Vanilla, not Vanillin. Vanillin, the cheaper imitation will impact the flavor.

Use triple the amount of vanilla called for in the recipe.

Put your brown sugar and butter in cup and with the microwave on low slowly and carefully melt the butter, stirring it in with the sugar every few seconds or so making sure it does not burn. The warm butter will dissolve the sugars better than room temperature butter smashed up (creamed) and tossed in the bowl. Your cookie will have a richer texture.

Put the sugar/melted butter mixture in the bowl and let it cool a bit before you add the eggs and other wet ingredients. Do it too early and you will have a slightly poached eggs staring back at you. Oops.

Add two tablespoons of milk when you are mixing the cookie dough. This will give you a little chewier than crunchy cookie.

Make sure the dough is cold when you put it on the cookie sheet. This is an important one; make sure the dough is cold when you put it on the cookie sheet. The cookie sheet should be at room temperature when you are loading it up with cookie dough. If the cookie dough is too warm the edges of the cookies can melt and cook too fast burning the edges and creating your first batch of organic Frisbees.

If you like real sweet cookies go to #9, if you would like to take a bit of the edge off back off the sugar by 1/8th of a cup. No more.

Make sure the cookie sheet is cooled to room temperature between batches of cookies. Cool it with water or run multiple cookie sheets. Skip this step and you could have more organic Frisbees.

Do not over mix the dough. Stir long enough to combine all of the ingredients nicely, no more.

Use semi-sweet Nestle, Ghirardelli or Guittard chocolate morsels. The Hershey morsels do not melt as well in the cookies.