Humbled. Again.

While we were in Washington, D.C. for the TEDMED shebang, we needed someone to take care of Max our Cairn terrier. Our 10 year-old dear friend and neighbor E. offered to do it. He did a great job. I could tell because Max didn't want to stay here--he kept running over there. Excellent!

To thank E. I decided to bake an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies just for him. He could do whatever he wanted with them. The letter below explains what happened.

18 septembre 2014

Dear E. 

            I made and wrote out your thank-you card before I made these cookies for you. I feel that I must write a letter of explanation because they are absolutely hideous but they taste pretty good.

            One of the reasons I’m giving you the cookies just the way they are is to model for you that failure is hard, but the important thing is that I tried. I will tell you that I am a very good cook. Chocolate chip cookies are my specialty. So I was horrified to see the nuclear meltdown that came out of that oven.

            But here’s the most important thing for you to know: as I was walking to the Migros Supermarché to buy ingredients, and as I was making the dough, and as I was making the cookies I was thinking about you and what a wonderful person you are and how I hope this year is one of your best and how grateful I am that you like Max and he likes you and that you took such good care of him. I was hoping that you find your passion and enjoy your life and do well in whatever you choose to do.

            This is important because it was like saying a little Cooking Prayer of gratitude and blessings for you—for almost an entire day!

            I would like to blame this cookie disaster on the fact that I couldn’t find real brown sugar nor could I find chocolate chips but perhaps the real reason is that I was supposed to write you this letter.

            Included are photos of the different ways I tried to make these cookies right: a different pan, parchment paper on the pan and a lower temperature. I hope you are amused. Thanks again. 

He thanked me profusely.

 

The Miracle Continues

Max has reached Red Alert and is running in circles scream-barking. I fling doggy treats in his direction hoping he will shut up. My ears bleeding I stagger to the door and see my friendly UPS man has left a box on my porch.

I carry in the box and Max sensing Something of Interest immediately quiets down. He prances ahead of me into the kitchen. This is the doggy equivalent of the person who says, "Oh, can I help you with that?  Here--right this way. Yes, let me help you," and then does nothing to help.

Holy Hot Dogs! An enormous box of COOKIES from Arran-Paterson the Scottish Cookie Company! Max must have known it was treats from his homeland! I scream-bark and run in circles around the kitchen; do a couple donkey kicks off the counter and dig into the box.

This is a dream come true.

Over cake, over ice cream, over pie, over custard, over hill, over dale, I would take a cookie any day.

I find a hand-written note:
Dear Debra, 
Please enjoy!
From all at Patersons

Oh, my God! WHAT shall I get my new Scottish friends for Christmas?

To refresh your memory: this is the company to whom I sent a complaint message. See post "It's All About the Chocolate" dated, November 2nd, 2011

Here is what they sent (All spelling is just like it is on the package and by "biscuits" they mean "cookies."):

Giant Cookies: Custard Cream; Triple Choc; Bourbon Cream; Fruity Oat. Biscuits: Apple and Cinnamon; Milk Chocolate and Orange; Chocolate Chip and Stem Ginger.  Dunking Bars: Fruit Shrewsbury, Double Choc Chip, Oat and Raisin, Choc Chip and Orange, All Butter. Then there are Orang-U-Tangys, Clotted Cream Shortbread Fingers, and Cheese and Mild Chilli Oat Bites.

As noted in my November 2nd post, many of the packages boast, "No pork, alcohol or palm oil." This conjured up an image of a pig slathered with palm oil, sunning on a beach and drinking a Mai-Tai. Well, there's none of that in these products!

I'm sure Kosher Jews appreciate no pork. No alcohol suits many people. No palm oil?

Well, it turns out that by not using palm oil, they are saving the orangutangs. Vast areas of rainforests in South East Asia are being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations and it's threatening their survival.

So I guess the more Orang-U-Tangys I eat, the better for the rainforest! And the orangutangs! Not so much for my thighs.

Wow. I can't get over a big company responding to a consumer--a foreign consumer--this way. A pre-Christmas miracle.

I'll think about sharing .  .  .