My mother is a baker. I will never get sick of saying that. Some people may love saying their mother is an accomplished lawyer, doctor, accountant, etc. I, however, am so incredibly proud to have a baker as a mother.
Pretty much everyone's mother bakes, but can yours make a bouquet of flowers out of icing? Does she have maraschino cherries on hand at all times? Did you grow up not knowing that Chips Ahoy cookies even existed until you were forced to eat that at a friend's house? I doubt it. My mother went to baking school and she taught me everything I know about baking. Which is why I would like call bullshit on a couple of baking myths.
If you eat cookie dough or cake batter you will get salmonella poisoning from the raw eggs
That is ridiculous. That is something some woman who tripled her chin eating cookie dough made up so other women would live in fear of partaking in one of the most joyous parts of baking - licking the spoon clean. I'm not saying you should make a habit of eating raw eggs or choose cookie dough as a meal (though I have), but there is absolutely no reason you cannot eat raw cookie dough and cake batter. I have been anxiously awaiting the beaters from my mother's KitchenAid mixer since I was a small (abeilt incredibly pudgy) child. I eat at least a half dozen cookies in raw dough every time I make a batch. If you can handle the calories, you can handle the eggs.
You must be 100% exact with all baking measurements or your baked good will explode and/or taste like dirt
Okay, I'll be honest, baking is much more exact than cooking. You don't see a whole lot of "dash of this" or "add salt to taste" in baking recipes. However, people act as if without measuring cups, bakeries would shut down, birthday parties would be cancelled due to lack of cake and everyone would just have to eat Oreos for the rest of their sad, treat-less lives. Let me tell you a secret- I bake without measuring cups all the time. And you know what? My mom approves. Do you know how many times I have misplaced the cursed 3/4 cup measuring cup? Or the whole damn ring of cups, which is meant to be convenient but really just results in the loss of all the tools instead of just one? I have eyed many a measurement and I have never had anything explode or disappoint the hungry audience. Of course, my mom taught me how to do that and I definitely kept her on speed dial for these occasions, but the point is- it can be done.
You cannot bake without the proper tools
While you are going to need some basics, you definitely do not need top of the line stuff. I was spoiled with my mom's fancy baking tools, the ever-present 10 pound bag of flour, the freezer full of butter and above all, her KitchenAid Mixer (insert photo of me hugging that beautiful piece of machinery here). However, I grew up, moved out and had to work with what I had. In college, I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies with some dollar store measuring cups, 1 wooden spoon, a cereal bowl and a Halloween punch bowl. They were delicious.
I also conquered Cookie Day 2010 in my tiny Argentine kitchen. I made 300 cookies in a kitchen no bigger than a closet (seriously, see my Apartment Tour video). I mixed those babies by hand. Here's a list of the tools I used:
1 shallow but wide salad bowl
2 deep but narrow plastic bowls, both of which cracked during the mixing process
2 soup spoons
1 teaspoon
1 plastic pitcher with vague measurement markings
2 flimsy baking sheets
This was the result:
300+ Cookies. 1 Day. Limited supplies.
So, in conclusion, I call bullshit on the aforementioned baking myths. My mama taught me well. However, there is one thing she was never able to teach me and that is how to properly decorate with icing.
Sorry Mom, some things aren't hereditary and cannot be taught.
Anyone else love to bake? Or perhaps just love to eat the tasty treats other people make?
This might be the longest blog post ever dedicated to cookies.
Every year for my 23 years of life my mother and I have done All Day Cookie Day for Christmas, which eventually morphed into All Day Cookie Weekend. It started before I was born; my mother, the baker, guiding two of her best friends, Kathy and Peggy in a cookie making extravaganza. As soon as I had the ability to help, I was a part of it. I started small with jobs such as adding sprinkles, stirring melting chocolate and scooping dough onto baking sheets. My absolute favorite job was using this ancient nut grinder with a little jack-in-the-box style handle. I distinctly remember the year Kathy thought it would save time to buy pre-crushed pecans. I stood in front of the counter, next to the stool I always climbed on top of to reach the action. I held the nut grinder in both hands, unable to understand what had happened to my job. Once I came to the realization that I would not need my beloved nut grinder, I cried. I cried and cried until my mom found some whole pecans in the cabinet and let me believe the grinding of those pecans were crucial to the entire operation.
As the years went on Kathy disappeared from the tradition and eventually Peggy did as well. Cookie Day and then Cookie Weekend became solely my mother and I's. My family is small, broken and overall disappointing. We have almost no traditions, no celebrations and barely keep in contact. Cookie Day has been a constant in my life, the one thing that meant Christmas was coming. Cookie Day has changed a bit over the years; the loss of Kathy and Peggy, the dropping from 7 variations of cookies to 6 (Sorry, Peanut Butter- you are too potent and cause too many issues with allergies and packaging), the extension of a single day to a weekend and a few other minor details. However, Cookie Day has held onto a lot of things as well.
My mother and I always plan for the first or second weekend of December, depending on when she is off work. I drop everything and go home on Friday night so we can wake up bright and early on Saturday morning with a cup of hot chocolate or coffee. We set out a game plan, set up stations in the kitchen and divide duties. Christmas music must be playing for the baking to commence. "All I Want For Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey must play a minimum of 5 times each day, dancing and singing included. Back in the day, my mom recorded a cassette tape with multiple appearances of the song. Luckily, we now have CDs to make that requirement a little easier to reach. Chinese food must be ordered for lunch because we cannot be bothered with cooking anything, the dish of choice is Orange Chicken with lots of Crab Rangoon. There is not real set time spent on baking, but the days are usually about 12 hours each. We make several batches of 6 different varieties of cookies: Chocolate Chip, Snickerdoodle, Sugar, Butter with Chocolate or Cherries, Mint Chocolate, Oatmeal and Mexican Wedding. We also make spiced pecans and almonds but these are mostly for us and a few very special people as the nuts are much pricier and more time consuming. These are usually made while we take on the daunting task of packing all the cookies into tins because another condition of Cookie Day is that we give almost all the cookies away.
This year, Christmas is all kinds of wrong. I am in South America where it is 85+ degrees every day which means no snow, no hot chocolate, and no sense in wishing for a white Christmas. Christmas spirit is seriously lacking here, which is truly depressing for a Christmas fanatic like myself. I won't be home for Christmas, which actually it's not all that bad. As I said before, my family doesn't celebrate much so I spent the last 4 Christmases with my ex's family; being home would only make me miss them more. So, it's not missing Christmas I am sad about, it's missing Cookie Day.
My mom and I both debated canceling it all together but we both decided Cookie Day must live on and we would both do our own Mini Cookie Days. Today was mine. I had a lot of obstacles. My mom has all the best baking supplies and ingredients on hand. Here in Argentina I don't even have the lovely gifts my mom has given me over the years. I have a tiny oven with no temperature control, just a little flame. I had to hunt down baking sheets, figure out how to ask for "cream of tartar" in Spanish and then find a place that sold it. I went on several failed expeditions to find chocolate. I also had to work around the ridiculous rules about buying a maximum of 2 kilos of sugar at a time or a few packs of butter. However, it all came together and I have photos to prove it.
I started the day with Chocolate Chip. Unfortunately, brown sugar is much darker here so they look burnt but I promise they are perfectly baked and delicious. I was even able to find a bakery supply store that sold actual chocolate chips, something I was sure didn't even exist here. I was planning on buying a block of chocolate and chopping it up. When the lady saw me clearing her shelves of the impossibly small bags she offered to sell me a kilo for cheaper. Thank you, nice bakery store lady.
After Chocolate Chip I moved onto Snickerdoodles. These are tricky because they are super thin and thus very sensitive to temperature. It took a few test tries with some adjustment of time and the little flame in the oven but I got them to be be perfect.
Lastly, Sugar Cookies. I mostly made these for the sake of the Christmas coloured sprinkles because, let's face it, all cookies are sugar cookies. Sugar cookies are tasty but they are more for show than anything else. I decided to make a very special gift for my mama:
Long story short, there is a book called "Love You Forever" that my mother and I have history with. She gave me a copy when I was 10 and my parents got divorced. She wrote in the front cover about how proud she was to be my mom, etc etc. She stole it from me and wrote in the back cover when I moved here. I'm going to try to have a photo taken with me in it so I can send it to her as part of her Christmas present so no telling! Luckily, she has no idea how to properly use the internet so she'll never see this.
I even ordered Chinese for lunch. However, the Chinese place was out of chicken and Wan Tans (the closest thing to Crab Rangoon). What the hell? The spring roll and tofu and vegetable dish was still tasty though.
It was a bittersweet day. I definitely felt like Christmas was more real after my first tray of Chocolate Chip came out of the oven. Of course, I felt pangs of sadness every so often because Cookie Day without my mom just isn't right.
I'm glad I did it though! Even though now my table is overrun with cookies and no one is left in the city to give them to.
I apologize for my hiatus. I have been incredibly busy as of late but I have missed my blog! To make up for my time being MIA I am writing a nice long update with crazy amounts of photos.
I had a little haircut party in my apartment. My friend Nina is a hairstylist and came over to dye Jenny's hair and cut mine and Phil's. We all look excellent!
I celebrated Thanksgiving in Argentina. As it is 85+ degrees every day we skipped the turkey and opted for a potluck that in no way involved any traditional food other than the apple pie. There were only 2 US citizens present so no one seemed to mind.
However, I couldn't give up on Thanksgiving completely so I took on the daunting task of making a pumpkin pie from scratch. Argentina lacks canned pumpkin puree, premade pie crusts and spices like nutmeg and ginger are not as easy to find as in the States. The pumpkins here are also not the familiar orange ones from home. This baking adventure was so time consuming I worked on this pie on 3 separate days. I photographed most of the process so I can walk you through it.
This is the pumpkin I had to deal with. No jack o lantern making possibilities here, just lots of jokes related to the incredibly phallic appearance.
I don't have a proper knife so I cut through the pumpkin with a steak knife (not easy or safe) and boiled the chunks.
Once the cubes were boiled I had to cut off the skin and squeeze the water out by hand and then leave in a colander to drain before I could mash it up to make the puree.
This is where I should have a photo of me rolling out the dough and baking the crust but I actually made the dough at someone else's house. My lovely boss Janet let me use her kitchen and supplies for that part.
I then mixed the pumpkin puree with eggs and sugar and poured it into my partially baked crust.
After making the pie filling I made a streusel topping with flour, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. Nutmeg in Spanish is "nuez moscada" in case you ever need to know, as I did not.
45 minutes of baking and this was the end result. I was nervous to try it, but is is delicious. Success!
It's hot and not at all Christmasy here, but I have really amped up the Christmas music listening and I also bought a tiny little tree for 18 pesos and flashing lights for 10. I was too broke to spring for decorations. I might make some for the tree and my apartment if I have the time and energy this week. Jenny is leaving soon (another "Sick of Goodbyes" post is forthcoming) so she wrote me a Christmas card that I promised not to read until Christmas day. It lives under my tree for now.
I received 2 long awaited packages from my mother. She bought me lots of summer clothes because so many of mine were lost in the move and also sent the few pieces that survived it. The two boxes also had Reeses, 2 jars of peanut butter, drawings and a card from my 7 year old cousin Jodi and a ridiculously long letter from my Mama. I won't lie to you, I cried at the sight of my mother's handwriting. We both are devastated that for the first time in my 23 years of life I will not be home for All Day Cookie Weekend. I love my mommy and I miss her dearly. The letter was the best part of the package.
This week was my last week as an Au Pair for the Ressia family. I'm still very much in contact with the family and will continue to see them and even do some paid work for them but we ended official au pair gig. I was pretty sad to say goodbye but I know I'll see them soon.
This weekend was very eventful. On Friday I went to Jorge's fancy office end of the year party. A bus took us about an hour outside the city to a club. We arrived and there was a man in a suit playing the violin. Jorge and I almost collasped in giggles when the man raised his bow and began to play "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Absolutely ridiculous. After some classical music with the violin they switched to random 90s dance music including "What is Love?" and other favourites. After that a Merengue band from the Dominican Republic performed. So strange but I had a good time.
On Saturday I woke up early just to take on the pie making challenge and then babysat for most of the day. After that I went to the BuenaOnda Moonlight Yoga event, which I always enjoy. It's an hour and a half long yoga class at night followed by a homemade vegetarian meal. Afterwards Jenny and I went out for drinks. We ordered a couple shots called "Ball of Fire" and I swear the bartender looked like a chemist. It took no less than 5 minutes to make the concoction and the finishing touch involved putting the shots on an iphone for the light and he poured the vodka in and tiny rainbow coloured balls of some other alcohol danced their way to the top. I wish I had a photo of those crazy shots!
Today Jenny and I woke up early, considering that we went to bed around 4:30 and met up with Jorge. It's Jenny's last weekend so we went to Parque de la Costa, a theme park about an hour train ride away from Buenos Aires. The weather was great and the lines weren't too long so we had a great time, as you can see in this ridiculous photo. (Jenny and I are on the far left)
After all that awesomeness, I am exhausted but I was determined to finish this blog before passing out tonight. I will not wait this long between updates next time!
Also, because I'm obsessed with Christmas and especially my Cookie Day tradition with my mom, I'm curious- what Christmas traditions do you have that you would be sad to live without?
Hace un freakin montรณn since my last update. I've been busy (Re-ocupada!) again. The family returned from vacation so I have been working lots of long days to make up the time. However, I am really growing to love this family so the actual working has not been too bad. The family was actually chosen as "Family of the Month" for the Au Pairs. We had to take a ton of photos, here is a semi-posed one. We really were looking at a book and talking but we also knew photos were being taken. I'm telling Jose about the 5 great lakes, which is why I am holding up 5 fingers. Ana was not back from Spain yet when this photo was taken. She came back a couple days later and brought me a gorgeous Santa Teresa bracelet (that's my Saint!) from Avila, Spain. I hugged her and I don't think she realizes how much I love her and this bracelet!
It was Jose's 13th birthday on Thursday. I spent most of Wednesday baking a huge, super chocolately cake. Jose loves chocolate and needed to feed 40 people. I had to go to the store for extra supplies. I based my recipe on a simple chocolate cake recipe, then added extra grated chocolate, dulce de leche and homemade chocolate frosting. I know you wish you could eat a piece of this. I also made a chocolate banana cake for the maid, Estel, the next day because it was her birthday. I love baking for other people and I do a lot of baking for this family because they are fascinated by my ability to bake at my age. I also taught Joan how to make chocolate chip cookies last weekend. He was obsessed with them. His mom loved me and begged me to come back and teach her how to bake. I like that moms like me now as opposed to banning their kids from hanging out with me. For our last batch of cookies Joan and I made a Super Galleta in the shape of a flower. This says "El Flor de Rease y Joan"
I've been adding a lot of new students from Profesores Nativos, which is another reason my schedule is so all over the place. I think I'll be losing a student who I wasn't a huge fan of anyway. He was interviewing for some exchange program in the US and expected me to have in depth information about every city in the entire United States. He also argued with me about whether or not Washington DC is close to NYC.
So, everyone that knows me knows that I hate old people. I have had several run ins with little old ladies since I have been here, mostly just the slow walkers and time wasters in grocery stores, but I recently encountered 2 especially obnoxious old people. While out running, an old man yelled at me for running. Yep, he was angry I was running. Apparently he was offended by that. The old lady run in was much worse. Buenos Aires is a dog loving city, it is very common to see dog walkers with 10+ dogs. However, no one in this city picks up after their dogs so you constantly have to watch where you walk so you don't get a shoe full of dog crap. I carry bags to clean up after Padfoot because I am used to it and I feel like it might give me good karma and help me not step in shit every time I go outside. Anyway, the other day I took Padfoot out and forgot the bags. When he pooped and I had nothing to clean it up with I just shrugged and figured, oh well, I live in Buenos Aires. All of a sudden a little old lady runs out of a fruit stand yelling at me to clean it up. I told her I usually carry bags but I didn't have any, but I was right outside my apartment so I planned to go get one. Of course I had not planned on this but this lady was being a super bitch and I had a point to prove. I yelled back at her telling her to calm herself and stop being so rude. (Yeah, I yell back at old ladies, get over it). When I came back downstairs and cleaned up the mess this lady was STILL there, and decides to patronize me even more by giving me a thumbs up and then trying to give me a piece of old lady candy as a reward. I glared at her and said "I don't want your stupid candy I'm not a child".
When telling this story to Jorge, right after discussing my issues with horses, I said "Horses and old people are the same with me, they both sense that I hate them so they just freak out when I'm around them". I think that is pretty true.
Last weekend I didn't sleep much, as usual. I went to a bar with Jenny and Rosie on Friday. It was supposed to be an event for a bunch of Au Pairs but as usual only we showed up. It was kind of lame. Saturday I went to Amerika, a club that has open bar on Saturdays. It started out okay but they played a lot of Mexican music, which is awkward to dance to. Joan got really drunk and I had him and Rosie stay the night at my place. Sunday was a sleepy day but Rosie and I did manage to make it to the San Telmo market. It is huge and awesome but I didn't buy much. It gets super sketch after dark and since we got there late we didn't have a lot of time to look around. I talked to some merchants about some custom stuff I'd like to get as gifts though so it was a good trip.
Last week was exhausting but it ended well. On Friday I went out to San Isidro for lunch with the family and basically immediately got back on a bus to the city center where I live. The family has a 15 year old girl named Lucy from the United States staying with them for a week. Gracia (the mom) wanted me to show Lucy around and have Juan (the 15 year old from the family) meet us there after he finished school. I am determined to help Lucy with her Spanish as much as possible in her 2 weeks. She has only had 2 years so she understands very little and the family gives up on her too easily because they all speak better English. We rode the bus, which was uncommonly crowded, I taught her how to deal with the whole payment situation on her own. She messed up, of course, we all do the first time, but I was proud she tried. We went to the Jardรญn Botรกnico then to that delicious Waffles and Crepes place from my last entry. I also made her order for herself, which scared her but she did fine. She asked me to write down some verb tenses for her in a notebook and asked me why she could understand me when I talked to her in Spanish but she couldn't understand me when I spoke to the family. I told her it was because I have a "teacher voice" because I was a Spanish teacher/tutor, but that in real life I speak incredibly fast. After waffles we walked around a bit and eventually made it to Plaza Serrano. That area is actually where a ton of bars are but there are also cute shops, alleys (like the one in the photo, with Lucy taking a photo) and of course, a little market. I gave Lucy a crash course on dealing with street merchants and made her deal with the merchants herself for 2 purchases. I stood by to make sure they didn't rip her off but she did it. After wards she was so excited, she it felt great and she had never felt more confident in her Spanish. I told her I would talk Gracia into letting me take her to a market in San Isidro next week and also see if I could manage 1 more city trip before she left. She said "Eres lo mejor" then, like a true good student, corrected herself, "LA mejor" (You are the best, the first one being wrong because "lo" would be for a male)
Juan arrived and of course he didn't stay at the agreed upon meeting place so Lucy and I ran around looking for him as I called his phone and tried to direct him to a proper meeting place. I kept thinking, please don't tell your mom this happened, she'll never let me take you here again! We found him and then headed to El Ateneo which is one of coolest bookstores of all time. It was an old theater that they renovated to be a book/dvd/music store with a cafe. It has 4 levels, the 4th is just a photography gallery. It is gorgeous and I could spend all day there. Unfortunately, Juan arrived super late so we couldn't stay long because I had to put them on a bus home. On the way back to the bus we encountered some tango steps painted on the sidewalk and Lucy and Juan practiced a bit. Sadly, those photos are on Lucy's camera. The whole day was really fun and I got to feel like the cool older sister. It made me miss Katie Dolan a lot. Shopping with her right before I left was so bittersweet. I miss the Dolan (well, actually Morton- the mom's side) a lot. Working with a family helps me with that.
Friday night I saw Inception with Jenny and Rosie. It was awesome! I want to see it again already. We saw a show at 1:10am, because this is Argentina and movies show as late as 2am. Saturday I woke up and went running then walked through the Bosques de Palermo with Jorge and Bri. It was a lot of running/walking for my tired legs. Jorge wanted to test out his new camera, which is awesome. He took a lot of photos. After that we killed time at my place before heading to Siga la Vaca with a huge group of people I didn't know. I was invited by Michael, one of Jorge's coworkers I met last year. It was delicious, I am always a big fan of my own bottle of wine with unlimited water, french fries, salad, cheese and bread. The unlimited meat is the real pull for most people, obviously not for me. I stayed with some people I just met after Jorge and Rosie left. They talked me into getting a drink with them. It was not really that fun but it was worth a shot.
All right, I am exhausted. Hopefully my next post will not have to cover such a long period of time.
