Faire Des Cookies

There's something you should know before reading this post. The French pronunciation for cookie is "koooogie". So each time a French person says it, they sound exactly like Cookie Monster. I had to stifle my laughter each time the kids said "cookie", because it was just so darn funny. Henceforth, when you come across the word (multiple times) below, please pronounce it in your head as "kooogie". It makes it so much more entertaining.

My Wednesday afternoon class got re-scheduled to Thursday, which left me with a free afternoon. In French K-12 schools, all Wednesdays are half-days, so the kids didn't have class either (before you think that this is pretty awesome, they pay for free Wednesday afternoons by having school each Saturday morning. Yuck. I'll gladly take the American schedule). Since we were all home, we decided to faire des cookies. The package my family sent me a couple weeks ago included some ingredients that are hard to find in France, such as baking soda, brown sugar, and chocolate chips.

Geoffroy (13) and Diane (10)

I set-out to buy the other ingredients, which was easy until I got to the flour aisle. There are at least 8 different types of Flour in France. Type 45, Type 55, Type 65, bread flour, pastry flour, etc. I had read somewhere that cookies are best with a 50/50 blend of types 45 and 55, so I got both of those. The kids were so eager to make them, since the only cookies available in France are store-bought ones similar to Chips Ahoy. I was extremely nerveuse the entire time that the cookies would end up being une catastrophe, since French ingredients aren't identical to American ingredients (for example, the butter here has a much higher fat content, so I was worried the cookies might schlep right off of the baking sheet after a couple minutes in the oven). To my pleasant surprise, the recipe worked fairly well. Of course, I was a bad influence on the kids and encouraged them to eat heaping spoonfuls of cookie dough, which they absolutely loved. 

Once the delicious confections were done, we ate them warm and they raved about them. Just when they thought the cookies couldn't get any better, I suggested that they dunk them in glasses of lait. They were really confused, since French people only use milk in their cereal or as creamer- they find it super weird that we drink it (and even weirder that we drink it cold... They don't drink things cold in France). Regardless, they went bananas. Their grandparents come over to keep them company every Wednesday afternoon, so we offered some to Grand-mère and Grand-père, who proceeded to eat the cookies with a knife and fork (French people...). I just couldn't believe that none of them (grandparents included) had ever had a fresh cookie before. French pastries may be the bomb, but they're seriously missing out when it comes to cookies. Geoffroy loves to cook, so he just about died when I told him he could keep the recipe.

Geoffroy, Inès, and Diane

After we had devoured the whole batch of cookies, Diane said "You can come to my dance class tonight if you'd like". Since I was once a 10-year-old girl, I'm fluent in 10-year-old-girl-speak. Allow me to translate: "I really, really want you to come to my dance class tonight." I told her I'd love to come watch her dance. She then said "If you want, you can bring your camera" (they know I enjoy photography). Translation: "Please bring your camera and take pictures of me". Grand-mère, Grand-père, and I took Diane to her ballet class and I couldn't believe how disciplined it was. During the entire hour and a half, not one of the kids spoke out of turn, misbehaved, or talked amongst themselves when not working directly with the teacher. They must've roofied the kids before class or something to get them to behave like that. 

All-in-all, it was a great day and I can't wait to introduce them to different kinds of cookies, like sugar, oatmeal raisin, etc.

Affectueusement,

Katie