Yesterday I had the opportunity to photograph Laura Parrish. Laura’s mother let the Post-Dispatch know about her daughter’s delicious chocolate chip cookies. That’s how I ended up in her backyard, photographing a stack of her cookies. Laura says she has loved baking since she was little and dug up a photograph of herself from December 1987 to prove it. She cooked her first dinner at age 7. She’ll be featured in next week’s Let’s Eat section. Be sure to check it out for her recipe!

All this time around Laura and her cookies made me realize how much I enjoy baking. As a kid, my best friend Lissie and I would bake chocolate chip cookies at least once a month. After eating handfuls of dough, sometimes we had room left for a warm cookie dipped into cold milk. Once Lissie saved my life or, at very least, my hand.

I was pulling a tray of cookies from the oven when the mitt touched the coils and started on fire. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring at my hand inside the flaming mitt. Before I could contemplate what to do, Lissie whisked the mitt off my hand and into the water-filled sink. We still laugh about the incident, and we still bake cookies. She now lives in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Last Labor Day I had the opportunity to visit, and what did we end up doing? Whipping up a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Some traditions never die. I guess that’s what makes them traditions.