I guess I'm a purist. I still rank Nestle's Original Toll House Cookie recipe #1.

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I'm with you, Mel. Mrs. Field's as the best Chocolate Chip cookie? I think not. Those heavy things from the local mall hold no appeal -- they don't come close to a simple Nestle Tollhouse cookie, anyday of the week. Or even the slice and bake, frankly, with those crispy exteriors.

I use an office supply company which sends me a tin of Mrs. Fields' cookies with every order. I can't GIVE them away. They sit in the lunchroom of our office, largely ignored. They are the most tasteless things, mass produced, and not as good as a bag of Chips Ahoy from a local market, which is a sad thing indeed.

I suppose in her effort to go global, she lent her name (and this CANNOT be her famous recipe) to mass bakers who stick these tins of tastless greasy little morsels in with my pens and paper. Please. Stop. I beg you.

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The key to chocolate chip cookies is that they should be freshly baked, eaten within a half an hour or so of when they come out of the oven. That was Mrs. Field's gimmick--her stores made them fresh all day long, and the smell of the freshly-baked cookies was quite alluring. Once these cookies get put into a tin at a central shipping location, and then are spend a day or two traveling through the mail, I'm sure their taste and texture dissipates quickly.

I've never tried the chocolate chip recipe in Mrs. Field's cookbook. I use an adaptation of the Nestle's version. But I only bake as many as my family will eat at one time (about 15 for a family of 5), storing the cookie dough well covered in the refrigerator til the next time we want to eat them. The dough keeps several days in the refrigerator, and can be frozen.

I have tried the Mrs. Field's malted milk cookies in the cookbook. They are fabulous, but they come out of the oven looking nothing like the picture in the cookbook.

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