Anti-depressant peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies!

I'm in a foul mood. I haven't needed nor really wanted to leave the apartment all day, I read the new Harry Potter in about 6 hours and now it's all over, and I've spent far too much time on the internet. Everything I've eaten today has been bland and unappetizing, and just thinking about food now is slightly nauseauting.
Which means if I want something good to eat, I'll have to make it myself. Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies should do the trick. I already took out the stick of butter once to warm to room temperature, only to decide I didn't really want to make cookies and placed it back in the fridge. But now it's four hours later, and although I'm still not convinced I really want cookies, I've taken it out of the fridge again. Because even if I don't eat these cookies (well, I'm sure when the time comes, I'll step up to the challenge), my enterprising roommates will.
Here we begin with exhibits A and B, The Joy of Cooking, 1964 edition, and a stick of warming butter. Mmm. As I have a multitude of cookbooks, I consulted Bakers Illustrated (they wanted ground peanuts, requiring a food processor, so for once let me down) my Joy of Cooking, my roommate's JoC, 1997 edition, and the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Strangely, the simple recipe from JoC (1964) is different from a more complicated version in JoC (1997.) Since the first recipe is no longer in print, I'll post an adapted version of it here. It claims it makes "sixty 1.5 inch cookies." All cookbooks are liars. This made about 27 cookies, perhaps 2 inches across.
Preheat oven to 375^oF.
Cream one stick of butter, add 1/2 cup brown sugar and a 1/2 cup white sugar and beat. Add 1 egg, 1 cup peanut butter (I used chunky), 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp vanilla and mix. The JoC says you should "sift before measuring" 1.5 cups of all-purpose flour. Sifting flour for cookies is absurd. Who knows, maybe they would have been even more delicious, but there's really no reason I can for it. Anyway, add that and mix it all together.
I then took it upon myself to add chocolate bits, from the giganto-block-o'-chocolate from Trader Joe's. Hand included in picture for scale.
I broke off a fourth of this and alleviated some angst by chopping it into small bits, reducing a once formidable chunk of chocolate into this:
It was between 3/4 and 1 cup of chocolate, and got mixed in. Place balls of dough on a greased or parchment-ed baking sheet, and press fork tines down orthogonally. (My roommate did wander in while they were baking and said they smelled wonderful. Although he enjoyed eating them, he wondered why there were fork impressions in the cookies . I am led to assume that he's never had peanut butter cookies before, as making the criss-cross and eating it is one of the best parts about these cookies. He's also the same one who didn't know that one did not have to bake Rice Krispie treats, so he may not be the best go-to person for this sort of thing. That said, I guess you don't really *have* to flatten the cookies with a fork, you could do it with your palm or the bottom of a glass, but why wouldn't you? Gah.)
Aw, I sometimes wish they could stay this way; uncooked, young, innocent, free from worries and the heat of the oven/world. (Hmm. See previous posts about killing myself with bacteria. Into the oven they go.)
Bake for 12-15 minutes until light golden brown, and let cool on sheet to finish baking slightly to your taste.

Okay, fine, they did cheer me up. It's what cookies do best.