cookies don’t exist in china

they don’t! at least, the idea of a soft, chewy cookie seems to be a particularly american thing. i guess they’d be less attractive in china because they don’t keep well – although cookies nowadays have so many preservatives in them that they would probably last longer than you would think.

while i was waiting around on my way back to the states, i did a lot of daydreaming about food, and what i would cook when i got back. and what i really wanted to have was a really nicely roasted chicken, with herb butter stuffed underneath the skin, which would be rubbed with salt and sugar to make it crackly (yes! a lesson successfully picked up from my mother!). i wanted to roast it, eat it with my roommates. then i would pull apart the chicken, eating the crackly, salty-sweet skin, putting the meat aside for soup. and then i would saute the bones in thyme, onions, and carrots, and then add water, and make a lovely soup. i used to not like soup, but i love chicken soup now because of all of the labor that goes into it – it somehow redeems it. and i’ve labored over these chicken soups: one time i made the broth, then caramelized two pounds of carrots, added the broth back, and boiled the flavor out of the carrots (the carrots, to those worried about waste, did not go straight to the trash: i tossed them in the blender with some pasta sauce, something i highly recommend). the last time i made the broth, we boiled it down until it was silky smooth and slightly unctuous – how could that not seduce the most finicky eater?

wait, this was about cookies. i was at work today when i decided i wanted to make cookies: chewy, soft, almost candy-like cookies. with stuff in them. carrie mentioned that we had limes, so off i went to star to grab things to put in them. what i really wanted was white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts (unoriginal, i know, but so good), but i couldn’t find macadamia nuts, so i settled without them. i was consoled by the large amounts of ice cream on sale – if we have any rule at cutcat, it’s that we always buy ice cream when it’s on sale… when i got home, i neglected to see the eggs on the left side of the fridge, since we always put them on the right before i left for the summer. (seriously, everyone – when i got back to the kitchen everything was in disarray! this is what happens when the anal-retentive-around-the-kitchen person leaves! disaster and mayhem! well, worry not – in a few days it will all be lovely and organized again; i already bleached the sink.) so off i went to harvest – harvest and star are probably equidistant, but star is psychologically farther away because you have to cross mass ave to get there. i got some limes – carrie’s had gone moldy – and headed off to get eggs when i was struck by a wonderful thought: cherries. dried cherries in bulk. so i got a pouch of dried cherries and was on my way.

i basically used a chocolate chip cookie recipe but added lime juice and lime zest. and…i have to say that i was a little disappointed. what i had a yen for was a seriously unhealthy cookie – so full of butter and sugar that it reached that candy-like cookie consistency. what i made was a nice cookie – it had great flavor, but lacked the correct texture. even the macadamia nuts would have made it better – and it could only have been macadamia nuts, because they’re the only nuts of that kind (ie, not walnuts or pecans, which are too soft) that are soft enough for cookies but also remain somewhat crisp. accordingly, i can’t help but be disappointed. all that anticipation, for nothing!