it would seem that i’ve become a jaded gourmet/foodie/insane lover of all food (have you noticed how there’s no good, unpretentious way to describe yourself as someone who simply loves food?). last night i made chocolate chip cookies to bring to the office, and they aren’t even particularly attractive – they didn’t rise correctly and i don’t really know why (humidity, bad baking soda, dough not chilled enough, racks not at the right level, etc). it's truly a mystery to me as to why everyone keeps telling me thank you, even though chocolate chip cookies are perhaps one of the easiest things to make in the world. there is no special recipe (although the one i usually use, by nick malgieri, does have slightly different proportions) - just the one on the back of the bag. somehow i have never made it into that superstar level of chocolate chip cookies - the one where the chocolate chip cookies from la provence in concord reside (the butterscotch cookies are even better, fyi). however, i did make an important discovery : i don't like my chocolate chips with vanilla in them. i prefer to have them be purely sugar and butter, slightly caramelized. anyway, i do understand the lure of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies, having been treated to them often enough, and having treated others often enough, during my lmf years. but at lmf we are rather blase about them : you want cookies, ok! we'll just whip some up in a jiffy... the first thing that came to mind for a couple of friends a month ago for what i might make for them was chocolate chip cookies. i love chocolate chip cookies as much as the next person, but there are so many other things in the world that are just as good, if not better (for example, nanaimo bars...).
it was actually a bit of a chore to make the cookies, although i hadn't cooked in a while and was thus happy to cook at all. it's just miserable to cook in any kind of humidity, which was plentiful last night. i came home after the beach and was kind of tired, and not really in the mood to make cookies, but i had said i was going to make them, and i wasn't about to go back on my word (this situation - being tired but verbally bound to make something - is a familiar one. unfortunately, the experience of baking in the humidity here was somehow worse than baking in the humidity at 44 columbia last year. i think i just like to feed people, which really makes me feel all matronly and motherly - not really something i want to feel at my age. ugh. at any rate, the experience i'm aiming for is the one i had when mika made me nanaimo bars for my birthday, two months belatedly - it was possibly one of the most pleasant surprises in my life, especially because it was totally unexpected. while i had told some people i was going to make cookies, i had talked about it so much without actually doing anything that i think people doubted my sincerity, and thus it was a surprise in spite of that.
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