some cookie observations

1. I just made a double batch of cookie dough without eating a single speck of sugar, dough, or chocolate chips. This is a major achievement.

2. The cookie dough is for a bake sale at church this weekend, for which the young mothers of the parish are supposed to bake because the retired ladies are...too busy?? That is the story, anyway. I'm hoping to shamelessly exploit my employee status to temporarily hijack the new professional convection oven at church because it can surely bake four or five dozen cookies at once - a huge improvement over our oven at home, which does not even fit a full-size American cookie sheet. If this works, it will be quite the cookie coup.

3. We ordered seven bags of chocolate chips last week because Caroline wanted me to bake cookies for her class so they could sell them at recess (once a week for five weeks) to raise money for their class trip. Note that homemade baked goods are fine here, and no one has ever heard of food allergies...because as I believe I've mentioned we live 40 years in the past. But anyway - the poor kids made the mistake of having their first recess-snack-sale on parent's day, and predictably some parents complained, so now they aren't allowed to sell sugary snacks. Undaunted, they are going to sell popcorn and fruit kebabs next week. And I have a healthy stock of chocolate chips left over...

4. Why oh WHY does one have to import chocolate chips into Switzerland? They make the best chocolate in the world here, surely one of the chocolate manufacturers could afford one measly chocolate-chip-making machine?

5. Because home baking is a totally different venture here...I find this fascinating. The goal of cookie baking is to make your cookies exactly the same as everyone else's cookies. A Mailänderli, for example, is a sugar cookie (presumably with some connection to Milan? I can't be bothered to look this up right now) cut out with one or two small cookie cutters (ideally heart- and star-shaped) and glazed lightly for a shiny top. Looks are absolutely important, taste is somewhat secondary. You do not get creative with the recipe because if you change the ingredients it's not a Mailänderli any more. The American way - whipping up a batch of cookie dough and adding nuts or raisins or oatmeal or whatever you have handy, then plopping it down by teaspoonfuls onto a cookie sheet so they come out looking like cow pies...what IS that? don't you people have any RULES?

6. Seriously. I've learned to chill my cookie dough first and roll it into balls so the cookies come out round and uniform and do not look so embarrassing next to the precision-engineered creations of my friends and colleagues. (For the curious, here are some more Swiss cookie creations from Betty Bossi, the Swiss answer to Betty Crocker.)

7. But it has to be said - even when I don't go to the extra effort, my cookies disappear. Because chocolate chip cookies speak a universal language.