There are a lot of difficult things about moving away from the country where you claim citizenship and have lived your entire life to the exclusion of every other country, and every other culture, and every other language--take a breath--to a country where you can't even gesture correctly. One of those difficulties is figuring out how to make chocolate chip cookies.
Here's a poorly photographed account of that struggle:
The first obstacle is figuring out how to preheat the oven. This Siemens oven has 10,000 settings illustrated by crude drawings, like an IKEA assembly booklet, and is measured in Celsius rather than Fahrenheit. The metric system is much more logical than what we use in America...unless you're an American. If you're an American, it is the worst. I use this handy conversion chart to tell me what to do with the oven. I guess you could do the math on your own, if you feel so inclined. Here you go, show off: (°F - 32) x 5/9 = °C
![]() |
In case you were wondering, 375f is approx. 190c |
Once my own kitchen gear is shipped, I will probably slip back into the standard system, except when I have to use European butter. Grams? Come on. Until that happens, I'm using this lifesaving website to convert stuff.
![]() |
100ml cup. How is this easier? Also, please note military time on microwave. I'm so tired of math. |
![]() |
I miss my mixer. My arm misses my mixer. |
![]() |
Please, Oven Gods, Please, Please |
![]() |
Don't be deceived. They were really terrible. |
![]() |
Invest in one of these done-sniffing dogs. They tell you if stuff's done. The more done something is, the more they want it. Just kidding, they always want it. They are useless. |
The sixth phase is when your cookies burn, and you wish you were in America.
I like weighing out recipes using oz and grams. I always have better results. BUT that oven would do me in. I do remember eggs being different there. Sort of like when you get them super local and super fresh here (in Arizona). The egg yolks are dark orange and very sticky and thick. Do they refrigerate them in stores there? In France and the Netherlands we noticed they did not. They were sort of just stacked, not refrigerated.
ReplyDeleteI've seen some refrigerated and some not. Carrefour (the French grocery chain here), keeps theirs in the bread aisle. Some still have chicken poop on them. Very authentic.
ReplyDeleteThat's how we judge whether they're authentic here too, haha. If we get them from someone in a neighborhood farm as opposed to the grocery store, we're slightly suspicious if they're not dirty looking.
ReplyDelete