From Charleston: Chocolate chip cookies, anyone?
My name is Kim Mills, and I work with Mel on the copydesk at the News & Record. She has allowed me to kidnap her blog for a few entries on my recent trip to Charleston, S.C.
What does it take to make 3,500 sailors smile? Get your minds out of the gutter. I’m talking about 10,000 chocolate chip cookies!
My husband, Jeff, and I toured the USS Yorktown, which is in Mt. Pleasant, just over the Cooper River. The Yorktown is a World-War II-era aircraft carrier. It is HUGE! And I should know. I had to walk all over that thing behind my military-history-loving husband. He read every plaque on that ship.
But the interesting part for me came when we ventured into the ship’s mess area (military speak for the kitchen and dining room). There, I read about what it was like trying to feed 3,500 sailors. There was a whole room just for vegetable preparation. There was a pantry big enough to park a small car in. There was an entire room specifically for washing dishes (a room I would’ve avoided at all costs!). And my favorite, an entire kitchen just for making pastries, breads and cookies.
I got a really nice stand mixer as a wedding present and I adore it. I think I am just the fanciest pastry chef ever when I’m using it. But it is a tiny speck of an appliance compared to the mixers they had in this pastry room. Two people could’ve stood in the mixing bowls. The paddle was about 10 times bigger than the one for my stand mixer. And they had several of these monsters. I’m sure some of you have worked in professional kitchens and this doesn’t faze you, but I was in awe.
Then, I turned around and saw my favorite plaque on the ship –- a recipe that makes 10,000 chocolate chip cookies!
10,000 Chocolate Chip Cookies
112 pounds of chocolate chips
165 pounds of flour
500 eggs
100 pounds of granulated sugar
87 pounds of shortening
75 pounds of brown sugar
12 pounds of butter
3 pounds of salt
3 cups of vanilla extract
1 quart of water
1.5 pounds of baking soda
Cream the shortening, white sugar and brown sugar. Add the eggs. Mix flour, salt and baking soda. Add flour mixture and water alternately into sugar mixture. Add vanilla. Add chocolate chips. Bake.
The USS Yorktown’s Web site offers a cookbook for sale. I’ve never seen it so I’m not sure what the recipes are like. But here’s their description of the book:
“A cookbook every kitchen should have. Recipes from the sailors and aviators who served their country on board the most famous ship in the U.S. Navy, the USS Yorktown. Julia Child purchased one and sent an autographed photo and two personal notes to the Yorktown crew saying that she was "delighted to add it to my collection."
If you want to check it out, go to their store. The money benefits the USS Yorktown CV-10 Association.
Contact Kim Mills at 373-7014 or ksmills@news-record.com
Related posts:
From Charleston: On shrimp and grits
From Charleston: The culinary tourist in the Lowcountry
From Charleston: Where to eat
Comments (2)
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so, when are we trying it out? (the recipe) :)
Posted on May 31, 2006 6:21 PM
Kim, I hope you also toured the adjacent submarine and looked at its mess area. (I also visited the Yorktown, when I was down there for a family wedding in May.) I'm normally OK with enclosed spaces, but looking into that galley, even I got a little claustrophobic! Not to mention all the burns for which the Navy cooks must have had to have been treated, given that there was a heating element pretty much everywhere you looked.
Posted on June 2, 2006 9:40 AM