What could have taken up a whole week when those honeymoon photos are just dying to be seen? Try a combination of attending a dawn wedding; spending six hours in line for tickets to ‘Macbeth’ (Shakespeare in the Park — Liev Shreiber great, Jennifer Ehle — what’s all the fuss about?); must-seeing ‘The Devil Wears Prada‘ (highly entertaining) and satisfying a sudden desire for one of my mom’s signature cookies.
The latter actually involved multiple days of preparation and planning. All starting with a mid-week call to my mom for the recipe for the famous and mouthwatering “crunchy cookies.” A few shopping trips later and I was flummoxed. Firstly, go to the baking section of an American grocery store and you wil find… boxes of pre-mixed cake mix and few actual ingredients for making things really from scratch. (I’m sure the range expands according to which grocery store and its geographical location.) By contrast, go to a South African supermarket and you’ll find a healthy amount of shelf space dedicated to various kinds of baking ingredients.
But the one ingredient I simply couldn’t track down? Glace cherries. It took three trips and tracking down the store manager to determine that the closest equivalent — maraschino cherries — could be located in, duh, the sizeable ice cream topping section. (Who would have thought? Fruit, dried fruit, baking supplies, tinned fruit, jams and preserves… I tried them all… but not ice cream toppings. Actually, I had no idea that 10 feet wide of eight shelves high could be filled with nothing but ice cream topping supplies!)
With the final ingredient literally in hand, I happily popped on my red apron and baked up a batch. They fulfilled that homesick need with every smell and bite. And I have a new and dedicated convert to this cookie: Jay :0)
Lest you think with all this cookie talk that I’ve forgotten the purpose of this post — batch two of honeymoon through the lens, fear not. Simply click here for installment number two.
Technorati tags: Honeymoon Caribbean St Lucia Anse Chastanet Baking Cookie Shakespeare in the Park Macbeth The Public Theatre Movie The Devil Wears Prada
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