A comment and a question: Comment: I've had excellent luck chopping chocolate bars with my heavy Chinese cleaver. If I'm going for chunks of a specific size, I can carefully chop across the bar (as you attempted with the bench knife, but I think the cleaver gives some extra weight and sharpness) and I'll get chunks of approximately equal size without too, too much of the shredding problem. Question: This is the first cookie recipe I've seen that calls for dissolving the baking soda in water. Is it an anachronism from the days when baking soda was, perhaps, unreliable and needed to be "proofed" or lumpy and needed to be broken up? If I understand aright, dissolving the baking soda in water will reduce it's raising power up-front (but maybe give it a small increase in the oven if it's double-acting?) Does this step make the cookies flatter? Or is the baking soda just there to improve browning and not doing much for leavening at all? Yes, it seems to be a hold over from the 'olden days". These days you would not need to take this step, PJ was just staying true to the original recipe. ~ MaryJane

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