Sweet or savory? If forced to choose, I know where I stand. Not that I lack the sweet tooth that is hard-wired into our shared biology—all mammals have a propensity for sweetness because it's a good predictor of high nutritional value—but sugar is hard on my body, and over the years I have gradually learned to resist its addictive pleasures. I was not raised on soda, so thankfully I never had to wean myself from that. Nevertheless, with the holidays coming up there will be lots of temptation, what with the pumpkin pie and the eggnog and my own yearly batch of caramels. Between my resistance movement and the gluten intolerance factor, our kitchen sees very little baking action. For all that I have loved and adored lemon meringue pie and chocolate chip cookies and German chocolate cake and cheesecake over the years, we've simply grown apart. So when the lovely people at Tate's sent me a review copy of owner Kathleen King's new Baking for Friends: Over 120 Scrumptious Recipes from Southampton's Favorite Baker, I was curious if it would inspire me. (I had some inkling of what was possible, because we're occasional and enthusiastic fans of Tate's gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, which are excellent facsimiles of their crisp and buttery wheat version.)
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If any cookie can be said to have a cult, it would be Tate's. G was an early convert, after discovering them during his summers in the Hamptons. The original Tate's Bake Shop opened its celadon-green doors more than 20 years ago in Southampton. Founder Kathleen King eventually capitulated to the near-hysterical demand for her insanely crisp and addictive chocolate chip cookies (and other divine baked goods), and they can now be found at select, discriminating retail venues, as well as the brand's online store. Through a coincidence that I prefer to think of as destiny, I wound up practicing yoga with someone who works with Tate's and, learning of G's love of the cookies and sad intolerance of gluten, he very generously sent us a large box of their gluten-free products! Frankly, we did not have high hopes. Gluten-free versions of things so very rarely live up to the originals. But these? Just as good. No less than a miracle.
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