Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today (Nov. 24)is the beginning of International Student Week at Southwest University Beibei. We were asked to make "typical American food" to hand out as food samples on this opening day. But, what is typical American food? (Most of what I like best has come from other countries.) And, we needed to provide 200 to 500 samples, so whatever we made needed to be small.

We considered tiny hamburgers, but couldn't locate a grill. We considered S'mores, but couldn't find marshmallows. So, we decided on chocolate chip cookies. (Can you tell that Jim played a role in this decision?)

Now, you need to know that almost no Chinese home has an oven. Our apartment does not. Neither do most restaurants have an oven, as few menu items are baked. Luckily, the restaurant for foreigners on campus has one, and we were able to reserve it for Sunday afternoon.

As a rule, the Chinese eat very few baked goods, especially items with sugar in them. We knew we had quite a task just to find the ingredients. In Beibei, we found white and brown sugar, nuts, and flour. We went to Chongqing (an hour away) and found butter and chocolate. But, in neither place could we find two very important ingredients: baking soda and vanilla extract. Once again, luck was on our side and a neighbor of ours who is an American married to a Chinese woman had both. The soda was in the familiar Arm and Hammer box, only it was dated 2006. The vanilla was his own brew: two vanilla beans soaked for several months in a local alcohol called bijou.

So, Sunday afternoon, we baked. One of our Chinese friends came to watch cookies made for the very first time. She asked twice, "Would most Americans know how to bake cookies?" We felt pretty confident answering "yes."

Here are a few pictures. Our chocolate chip cookies (made with chopped up chocolate bars) turned out very flat. Our mini-Monster cookies based on Sue Knauss' recipe turned out just right. Our friend pronounced them "delicious!" (Connie)