Skip to main content

Shaving the Yak*

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am planning to make chocolate chip cookies for Christmas here in Paris. Very American, chocolatey, how can I go wrong? "And," I think, "I have always made everything from scratch, so I will have no problems getting my ingredients." I even think I have put in some safeguards and bought some items in NYC, just to be sure. Baking soda? Check. Baking powder? check. The oven is celsius, but armed with a browser and Google, I'm good to go, right?Here are the ingredients: flour (all purpose), baking soda, salt, unsalted butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, egg yolk milk vanilla extract, chocolate chips.

My first inkling that things may not be as easy was the chocolate chips. I was planning on buying them, but Helmut told me the chips can easily be found in Paris ("of course they are.") and he was right. BUT... they are tiny. If I used these, they would melt, and would turn the cookie into a chocolate cookie. Not exactly what I was going for. Even this I discounted, because I can always buy a large bar of chocolate and cut it up. So, good to go.

BUT. Do you know that brown sugar does not exist in Paris? Oh, sure, you can probably buy it in an "American" store, but, really, do I want to do that? Well, maybe. They do have a brown sugar, but it is the granulated, slightly-off-white stuff sometimes referred to as "raw." Does not have that slightly moist texture. I am running from one store to the next looking for it. Now, in Paris, there are really only about four different food stores: the Monoprix, the FranPrix, Dia and Lidl. The last two are a very small percentage (and the Lidl is a German store, so...). But just like the US, each one starts to look like the other in its merchandise. So, no brown sugar. Hmmm.

BUT, do you know you can use molasses and white sugar to make brown sugar? Yep, just a tablespoon of molasses in a cup of sugar. Stir it around with a fork and voila! Brown sugar. Helmut assures me I can get molasses (mélasse) here. At the grocery store. So, I begin again. I now go to the same stores, looking this time for mélasse. Nope, nope and nope. Hmmm. 

Now this has become my quest. I find a "specialty" store (on Google Maps, my friend and guide here in Paris) and head there, stopping in at every Monoprix and FranPrix along the way. After a 30 minute walk I arrive. It is a baking specialty store (which is good), but it seems to specialise in cake pans and muffin papers. Ugh. Wrong type of specialty. So, I go to the counter and say in French, "I think I may be in the wrong store, but perhaps you can help me. Do you have mélasse or know where I can find it here in Paris?" The woman there answers me in English (with an American accent), yes, she knows about molasses. It is sold here in natural food stores, but also there is an American/English specialty food store around the corner, Epicerie Anglaise. They will probably have it.

And in fact, they do. It was kind of fun to be greeted by familiar food stuffs: molasses, Kyro syrup, Bosco. So I quickly buy my molasses. Ritorna Vincitor! Sort of. Remember that my objective is to make cookies. So, back home, make the brown sugar, and ready to rock. Again.

At least I think.

Post mortem: This is concluded in the post Cookies... the final act

*For those who don't know, "Shaving the Yak" refers to the endless chain of tasks you have to do to get an original task done. For instance, you want to walk the dog, but he smells too bad, so you decide to wash him, but you don't have any shampoo so you go out to buy the shampoo but find out you need gas but you don't have your credit card so you go to the bank to get cash with your debit card, but the card says you have to see a teller because there is possible fraud and you have to fill out some forms and they will send you a new card....

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cookies... the final act

So, I got a lot of interest in the cookie story (go to  Shaving the Yak  to read that post) and wanted to know how they turned out. So, here are some lessons I learned. The Oven Just because you can do mathematical calculations, doesn't mean you can change cooking instructions from fahrenheit to celsius easily. The recipe calls for a 375F oven. So, I pull out my trusty web browser and type "375 fahrenheit to celsius." Trusty Google tells me it is 190.556 celsius. Fair enough. But the oven goes in 25 degree increments. So, my first try is to set the oven to 200 and reduce the cooking time. This one cookie (I am smart enough to try them one at a time) is a charred briquet glued to the cookie sheet. OK, so, I try 175 degrees and keep the cooking time about the same. This time, a brown briquet glued to the cookie sheet. Hrmph. Obviously I need to keep reducing the temperature, but also I need to address the sticking problem. I tried greasing the sheet the way my mother did...
2 comments
Read more

Chronomically challenged

Parisians are ALWAYS late. I think New Yorkers run the gamut, but Parisians are late. They always have a good reason: traffic, the weather, kept at work, the Métro, the dog, the kids, garbage truck. But late. I am in a period of adjusting to this. My tendency is to be on-time. I call it the German in me. Helmut, who was born in Germany, is Parisian now and so I am alone in this bit of frustration. For the most part, people are 15 to 30 minutes late but for some it can be a bit extreme. For instance, meeting my friend Laure means scheduling a 1/2 hour (at least) for this arrival time. I want to emphasize, this is my issue, not Paris'. BUT There are extreme cases. One time Helmut and I were supposed to meet someone for dinner at (let's say) 8 (16h). She called and was going to be late. About an hour and a half after our original meeting time, we left for dinner. She knew where we would be, so she could meet us. At this point I had my doubts if she was going to come at all....
3 comments
Read more

Les Mots Anglais (those crazy English words)

Unlike many languages, French has a "learned body on matters pertaining to the French language," (from Wikipedia) called the Académie française or the French Academy. In the 60s and 70s, they were very strong and definitely was not letting those foreign words creep into their language. No sir. Well, something has happened. Maybe they are all dead (and no one checked), but French is becoming rampant with English words. I always get a laugh when I hear a new one.  One of the reasons French can be difficult is because one of the basic objectives of the language is to sound good. Unlike English and German, sounding good is all part of the show. There are things called liaisons that link the end of one word with the beginning of the next, to make it sound better. For instance, the word for "man" is homme (sounds like "home" without the h). Make it plural and it becomes les hommes  (pronounced "lay z 'ome"). The Z sound is there because it s...
Post a Comment
Read more