Tuesday, October 02, 2007


This recipe stuff isn't as easy as it looks. I got several emails which all could be boiled down to the following text: "Dear Beth, I love you to pieces, but you are the world's worst recipe blogger. How MUCH cream? What QUANTITY of strawberies. Jeez! Sincerely, XXX" Right. That would be about four cups of whipped cream. If you are doing real cream, add sugar to taste after you have stirred in your berries. As for the berries, I'd say about a pound.
Actually, from this recipe, the ininitiated might think that we live far diffrently than we do. You may imagine me cheerfully gliding through a large supermarket, loading up on frozen strawberries and Dream Whip. No so. It is impossible to buy frozen fruit or vegetables here. My strawberries were all purchased by me during strawberry season (January-February) and promptly frozen. The Dream Whip was brought in my suitcase from the US. Occasionally you can find a whipped topping mix in one of the local shops here. But it is from Turkey and it looks scary. Whipping cream is more easily had, but tends to be very expensive, as it is flown in from France. The sprinkles are also brought from the USA, as none are to be found locally.
The cookies are found in local stores at a reasonable price. And the boxes are in general, extremely entertaining. I particlarly enjoy the Brossard brand box, as shown in the pic. What relation these French cookies bear to two small children riding on a speeding zebra, I know not. If you look closely, the little girl looks decidely miserable and terrified. It is a very strange and edgy box. At the bottom it reads (in French) "Guaranteed made with fresh eggs". In fact, it says that on all the boudoir cookie boxes. Are they implying that other types of cookies are made with rotten eggs? Or that in the past they USED to make their cookies with bad eggs, but they stopped that and now we can all munch away with a renewed peace of mind?

1 comment:

Jeanne Smits said...

"Fresh eggs" : as opposed to dehydrated eggs, I think.

Bon appétit !