recipe | chewy chocolate chip cookies (and why I’ve been AWOL)

I’ve been AWOL from my blog for six full weeks. Why the hiatus? Well, on 27 December, Panu and I got married. On 2 February, we celebrated with friends. About three days after that, we made a baby.

Ok, so we didn’t make a baby yet per se, it’s still gestating (urgh, I hate that word) but that was pretty much the beginning of the undoing of Catty the Food Blogger, and the introduction of Catty who basically doesn’t want to eat food, cannot stand smelling food and oh, even photos of food? Yes, even they make her want to throw up.

Pregnancy. I bow to thee, I never thought there’d be a force strong enough to make me dislike food.

So, 16 weeks in and how am I doing? Better, I think. On a scale between people biatches who have ‘easy pregnancies’ and those who end up in hospital (like poor Kate Middleton), I land somewhere in the middle. I always expected pregnancy to be fantastic, I expected to be glowing and ecstatic. But what am I instead?

• Nauseous 24 hours a day
• Averse to ALL kinds of food, especially my favourite foods like matcha and quinoa (!!)
• A vomit machine, any time of day, anywhere – without warning
• Repulsed by the smell of cooking meat and fish, especially bacon 
• Even repulsed by photos of food (oh Instagram, you kill me)
• Disgusted by the constant horrible, bitter taste in my mouth
• Pimply like a prepubescent teen
• Rashy like… I don’t even know what
• Bloated, as though I attacked a Vegas buffet
• Fanatical about my thyroid which has yoyo’d since I fell pregnant
• Tired, cranky, anxious, nervous
• I would also say I pee a lot, but that’s not a biggie because I peed a lot anyway (TMI, sorry)

Pregnancy is hands down the most fucking unglamorous thing I’ve ever had to endure.

But. We’re making a baby, and the sheer concept of that blows my mind to smithereens. I knew nothing about the development of life before I fell pregnant and now it’s all I read about… and I really can’t put into words how amazed I am at the marvel of life. Scientific little me has even started to believe that there’s gotta be something more to it than science. I could go on about this forever, but if there’s one thing I’d share… it’s this amazing TED Talks video.

And… I wouldn’t swap all my pregnancy misery for anything else in the world.

Anyway, I haven’t cooked in 10 weeks. Even the idea of cooking makes me sick to my stomach, and poor Panu, when he cooks for himself, he gets banished to the balcony. But somewhere along the way, I have baked twice.

Once, I made my quinoa chocolate cake (the smell from cooking quinoa made me puke – I mean, who knew it even smelled like anything?) and a couple of weeks ago, I made these amazing chewy chocolate chip cookies, which I must say, smelled – and tasted – damn fine.

Original recipe can be found here.