YAAY! School is out for the summer. I’m finished at Oasis, and my over-stimulated kids will be home from school in about 30 minutes to party! party! and leave crumbs everywhere. I spent the morning picking up their dossiers and sending homemade chocolate chip cookies on pretty plates as teacher’s gifts.
According to Ilsa, I’m “famous” at the school for my cookies. I have to say the French love chocolate chip cookies. Every time I have made them, people have raved. I imagine it being like when Americans first discovered pommes frites, aka French fries, or possibly pain perdu, aka French toast. My recipe is too simple to bother posting—it’s just the Betty Crocker version from the late 80s cookbook, plus 1 t. vanilla which that recipe inexplicably leaves out, plus I use real butter and European baking chocolate cut into chunks, since I can’t get chips. (Darn!) Elliot likes to make them too and give them to his teachers, and apparently we have become known at the school. When the kids bring them for snack, they are mobbed in the playground. Finally, my 15 minutes have arrived.
If you give one of my children a cookie, s/he’s going to leave crumbs, and those crumbs will attract bugs. But that’s okay; I can deal with bugs.
How long have you been in Africa? Take this easy quiz to find out.
You open a new bag of flour, and discover it is crawling with little bugs. Do you:
a. Shriek and run away, and make someone else dispose of it?
b. Wrap it up in a new plastic bag and take it to the OUTSIDE trash can?
c. Sift the bugs out and use it.
Note: this quiz does not test preparedness for Africa, or predisposition to living here. It only rates how long you have actually been here. (Gwen (http://borneochica.blogspot.com/) doesn’t count; she grew up in Indonesia) And while this may make sure that none of you visit me, none of you are visiting me anyway.
You’ve probably already guessed that this happened to me when I went to make the cookies.
Sometime during our first 6 months in Africa, I found bugs crawling through our rice, and I did a combination a. and b. And now, 6 years later? It was c, all the way. I just sifted it. Because I knew that bugs are gross but not harmful, and also that I had to make the cookies and the big shops were closed, and the small local shops would have even worse flour (mouse turds, anyone?). So I sifted away and we’re all fine.
The cookies are great, too.
11 comments
June 29, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Wacky Mommy
Just run the recipe, wouldja? Minus the bugs and poop.
June 29, 2007 at 10:15 pm
jean
Yes, the recipe is a must.
I knew the answer would be “c”, but I hoped I was wrong.
June 30, 2007 at 12:45 am
Kelly @ Love Well
Stories like this are the reason I love reading your blog. My husband traveled to Indonesia last year to do some tsunami relief, and he kept me entertained for a month with stories of his trip. (After he recovered from the malaria, that is.)
And I agree — do share the recipe! It’s always fun to compare with the standard Toll House version.
June 30, 2007 at 3:25 am
Gwen
Ha! I still am sort of surprised that my flour is always bug free here in the good old USA. Sometimes I sift just for that stroll down memory lane …..
June 30, 2007 at 8:16 am
Kit
This is when I realise that though Cape Town is in Africa, is isn’t quite in ‘AFRICA!’ I would still do b.
That chocolate chip cookie recipe would go down well here too.
July 1, 2007 at 2:56 am
LIB
Your title reminds me of a story: A couple of Sundays ago, Randy, our pastor, was talking about his kids getting out of school. He said, “If I would have thought of it ahead of time, I would have blasted ‘School’s Out’ when the kids got home. Who does that song?”
The guys at the sound desk must have downloaded the song during the sermon, cuz (unbeknownst to Randy) after the service we had ‘School’s Out’ over the loud speakers.
July 2, 2007 at 9:50 am
meredith
I figured it would be C, you gotta do what you gotta do 🙂
July 2, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Antique Mommy
That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That goes for bugs in the flour and living with a colicy baby. Probably doesn’t apply to mouse turds.
July 3, 2007 at 1:59 pm
twithhoney
Would it help if I sent you the old Boy Scout popcorn tins to store the flour in? I’m always looking for ways to recycle these instead of having them lie around the attic.
July 3, 2007 at 4:33 pm
ali la loca
I also sift my rice and dry beans / lentils when necessary.
Bugs in pantry goods have not been a reason for me to freak out for at least the last 1.5 years.
July 4, 2007 at 3:20 pm
planetnomad
twithhoney, thanks. But the problem is that it comes from the store with bugs. I actually do keep my flour in Tupperware containers.