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"The One With Phoebe's Cookies" is the third episode of the seventh season of Friends, which aired on October 19, 2000.

Plot[]

The gang discuss what to get Monica and Chandler as engagement presents. Monica really wants Phoebe's grandmother's chocolate chip cookie recipe but Phoebe's grandmother made her swear never to let the recipe out of the family. She finally agrees to give it to Monica. Unfortunately, the fire in Phoebe's apartment destroyed the recipe so she gives Monica and Chandler the only cookie left as a present, from a batch that she had made and frozen several months ago. Monica tries to figure out the recipe from the cookie by taste testing it; but when Joey eats it without warning, she, Phoebe and Ross are left making heaps of different cookies. Upon being asked if friends of her grandmother know the recipe, Phoebe says that her grandmother got the recipe from her French grandmother "Nestle Toulouse". This makes Monica realize that Phoebe's grandmother got the recipe from a bag of Nestle Toll House cookies, causing Phoebe to get angry at her grandmother.

Joey is enjoying his new boat, but when he reveals that he hasn't taken it out of the marina because he doesn't know how to sail, Rachel offers to teach him. The first lesson proves to be quite difficult when Joey struggles to remember the methods that Rachel teaches him and is upset when Rachel gets abusively angry with him for forgetting. When she explains that she was just trying to be a good teacher and that her father was more abusive as a sailing teacher, he agrees to another lesson if Rachel tones her anger down. However, during the second lesson, Joey again struggles in remembering and Rachel, trying to hold in her anger, ends up boiling over and becoming even more abusive than the first time that Joey angrily quits in her face. In that moment, Rachel realizes that she was trying so hard not to be her mother that she has become too much like her father and apologizes to Joey. She then enjoys Joey's way of sailing: sitting on the boat in the marina, relaxing, eating sandwiches and drinking beer.

Chandler wants to bond with his future father-in-law Jack, but when they go to the steam room after their racket ball game Chandler accidentally sits on his lap. Chandler is humiliated over the incident and is even more upset when Ross tells him that Jack will tell this story to his friends for years. Not wanting to be embarrassed by his father-in-law, Chandler clears things up with Jack in the spa and persuades him to not tell anyone; Jack understands, having had to lie to his own in-laws in order to make a good impression. However, Chandler accidentally screws up again when he walks naked into a room with a hot tub and no steam.

Nestlé_Toulouse

Nestlé Toulouse


Cast and Crew[]

Main Cast[]

Jennifer Aniston - Rachel Greene
Courteney Cox - Monica Geller
Lisa Kudrow - Phoebe Buffay
Matt LeBlanc - Joey Tribbiani
Matthew Perry - Chandler Bing
David Schwimmer - Ross Geller

Supporting Cast[]

Elliott Gould - Jack Geller
James Michael Tyler - Gunther

Crew[]

Directed By:
Gary Halvorson

Written By:
Sherry Bilsing & Ellen Plummer

Trivia[]

  • Phoebe states that she believes she will die on October 15, 2032, and when Ross comments that he has shuffleboard that day, Phoebe's response suggests that she believes he will die before her.
  • Ross and Rachel agree they should have had engagement presents for their wedding. It's also revealed that Chandler owes Ross two engagement presents suggesting that Ross didn't get an engagement present for his wedding to either Carol Willick or Emily Waltham.
  • It's revealed that Rachel took Ross sailing on her dad's boat when they were dating.
  • Ross and Rachel poke fun at Chandler's incident with Jack revealing Ross has told Rachel what happened.
  • Rachel had previously described sailing with her dad to Chandler in "The One With The Two Parties".
  • This episode was used as "N is for Nestle Tollhouse" in the Nick at Nite Friends A-Z Event (January 2023).

Continuity[]

  • This is the first time Chandler wears glasses, outside of the alternate reality in "The One That Could Have Been". Unlike in those episodes, where they used prop glasses, these are real; Matthew Perry needed glasses, so they were written into Chandler's part.
  • When Rachel and Joey are sailing on the boat, the background changes between shots. In the bloopers as the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center appear and disappear between shots, it is shown that this scene is done using a green screen, which explains the changing background, as it has been assembled later.
  • Rachel tightens the windward sheet of the jib. In other words, she tightens the right side rope on the front sail, while the sail is on the left side of the boat.
  • When Ross invites Chandler to the health club, he says that Mr. Geller requested "Chauncy." Yet in the previous episode, the Gellers clearly knew Chandler's name when they were out to dinner, not to mention that they've known him since he was Ross' college roommate, and he has visited the family several times.
  • Jack tells Chandler that Judy's parents think he is a lawyer and that if he ever sees him giving them legal advice to just "nod along". However, as of "The One Where Nana Dies Twice", both of Judy's parents are dead (her mother dies in that episode, and it is mentioned that Nana is "with Pop-Pop and Aunt Phyllis now"). Jack may have been talking about seeing their ghosts.
  • In this episode Rachel teaches Joey how to sail, saying she owned a boat when she was younger and has been sailing her whole life and took Ross sailing. But in "The One Where Ross Moves In" Rachel says she doesn't sail. However in the latter episode, she was acting out a plan to date Danny.
  • The introduction of this episode is mixed with Season 5's first intro as it showed scenes from "The One With The Embryos", "The One With Rachel's New Dress" and "The One With Ross' Wedding" among others.
  • In "The One With Joey's Bag", Phoebe's grandmother Frances who appeared in "The One With Phoebe's Dad", died in a supermarket, although in this episode Phoebe says that her grandmother spoke to her on her deathbed, although considering Phoebe's quirks she may be referring to a dream or using a figure of speech.
  • Ross states that he has been engaged twice; this is a reference to his marriages to Carol and Emily, as he was never 'engaged' to Rachel but they both just got married on impulse while completely drunk. Although since Rachel proposed, technically they were engaged prior to their marriage. Rachel and Ross also state they ought to have had engagement presents for their wedding plus Ross told Chandler he's owed two engagement presents. Presumably Ross meant a planned engagement such as Chandler and Monica's engagement.
  • When Monica yells at Phoebe for making her spend two days trying to figure out the cookie recipe, David Schwimmer can be seen covering up his nose and mouth briefly to control his laughter. This is because in several bloopers, Courteney Cox messed up the line "What about friends of your grandmother's? Wouldn't they have the recipe?", causing her, Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow to break character and laugh. It is highly possible that Ross may find it funny as well, laughing at the absurdity of the situation.
    • In another blooper seen only on the Blu-ray boxset, Kudrow failed to maintain her composure after saying her line "My grandmother said she got the recipe from her grandmother, Nestle Toulouse."

Goofs[]

  •  While trying out different recipes, at one point Monica's holding a cookie in her hand. It's a whole cookie, but when the angle changes, suddenly a chunk is missing.
  •  When going to the hot tub with Jack, Chandler hangs his robe with the interior label showing outwards, when he turns around, the robe is now in a different position as the label is no longer showing.
  • Phoebe claims her grandmother made her swear on her deathbed to never let her cookie recipe out of the family. However, in "The One With Joey's Bag", Phoebe says her grandmother died very suddenly at the grocery store and her last words to her were that they would meet together at the checkout counter.
  •  When Rachel first takes Joey sailing, in the final shot she's steering the rudder with one finger. This is impossible as the force on the rudder would break her finger. In the next scene, they don't wear life-jackets which are to be worn if they were to fall overboard in order to prevent themselves from drowning.
  •  When Monica and Phoebe are trying to reverse-engineer Phoebe's grandmother's cookie recipe, Monica smugly claims that she can taste nutmeg. The Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe does not contain nutmeg; though Phoebe's grandmother may have experimented with varying levels of nutmeg in her version.

External links[]

Episode Navigation[]

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Preceded by
"The One With Rachel's Book"
Series Seven Episodes Followed by
"The One With Rachel's Assistant"
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