Lately I’ve been thinking about food. I’m not on a diet, the emblematic precursor of a food fixity, and anyone who wanders into the shop these days will be forgiven for mistaking me for Sidney Greenstreet or Charles Durning. Yup, I’m a fat old man and more and more my feet hurt, but I have no intention of cutting down or cutting out anything at all.

And yet, it seems like everyone else is on a diet, or quitting something, or inventing something they think will make them rich. The inventors among you should try and invent something that makes people into skinny non-smokers. People would buy your deal in a minute and you’d be on your way to rich. In the mean time, I encourage you to get Dori Greenspann’s book Baking: From My Home to Yours out of the public library, or to buy one from your favorite independent bookstore. If you own one book on baking this is the one to own.

Dori is a nice looking woman, but what won her to my heart was the lucidity of her prose and her no nonsense insistence that real food—real butter, real cream, real chocolate—clinches the difference between merely tasty and exquisite. Dori also writes that carbohydrates are the best part of breakfast and that desert ought to be eaten first because if there isn’t any room for the Lima beans, well, so what?

Korova cookies, one of my favorite recipes, is named for obscure reasons after the Korova Bar in Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange. I wish I knew the reason for this—it is one of those literary and culinary mysteries that Diane Mott Davidson (Chopping Spree) might solve—but what really matters is that these are good, good cookies. It goes like this:

• One and one quarter cup all purpose flour

• One Third cup Dutch cocoa powder

• One half teaspoon baking soda

• One stick plus three tablespoons unsalted butter

• Two-thirds cup packed light brown sugar

• One quarter cup granulated sugar

• One quarter teaspoon salt

• One teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• Five ounces bittersweet chocolate chopped into little bits

  Sift the flour, cocoa, and baking soda together. Put the butter in the bowl of a mixer and beat on medium speed until the butter is soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt, and vanilla extract and beat for another minute or two. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the sifted dry ingredients. Mix only until the dry ingredients are incorporated—the dough will look crumbly. For the best texture, you want to work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix.

  Turn the dough out onto a smooth work surface and divide into two large clumps. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. (Cookie-dough logs have a way of ending up with hollow centers, so as you're shaping each log, flatten it once or twice and roll it up from one long side to the other, just to make certain you haven't got an air channel.) Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and chill them for at least 1 hour.

  Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper (I use silicone sheets I got at Wal-Mart) and keep them close at hand.

  Working with a sharp thin-bladed knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. Place the cookies on the sheets, leaving about 1 inch space between them.

  Bake only one sheet of cookies at a time, and bake each sheet for 12 minutes. The cookies will not look done, nor will they be firm, but that's just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies stand until they reach room temperature.

Men, if you’ve hung in here this long, congratulations! Real men go to church, celebrate diversity, and bake cookies. Bake these cookies today and you may get lucky tonight.