Christmas Cookie Chemistry

Safely back in Hoi An, we are ready to tackle the holiday season. The kids are incredulous that there are only four days left until Christmas.  It's funny how you can kind of forget about it when you aren't surrounded by carols on the radio, shopping malls with Santa Clauses and snow.  So, naturally, it's our job to make it feel like Christmas in the next four days. 

Our tree is up and decorated.  The stockings (striped socks) are hung on the banister with care in hopes that Buddha Clause soon will be there.  So we figured why not throw a holiday party to get in the spirit? A Christmas cookie party it will be.  So we whipped up an invite and emailed it to "connected"  Hoi An friends.  Then we hopped on the bikes in a comical effort to invite some of our Vietnamese friends.  We printed out an invitation which everyone thought was just a card, and then we explained over and over that they were invited to our house - yes, our home - for a celebration.  Once they got the idea, then we had the challenge of explaining where we live. 

We have no address.  We speak hardly any Vietnamese.  I can draw a map, but the only road with a name is 5 minutes from our house.  The directions in English sound like, "Take a left at the light near the market into the rice paddy.  Continue straight until you get to the right turn that's kind of a main sidewalkish thing where you can see a curved tin roof over a duck house (or something) on the stream.  Don't take the first right next to the big pink house (50% of the houses are pink).  Continue straight to the four-way intersection near the house selling potted plants (95% of our neighbors sell potted plants).  Turn left and continue to the tall, skinny grey house on the right (they're all tall and skinny).  If you come to the bridge with the guys fishing, you've gone too far."  Now try to explain that to someone who does not speak English.  The only two words I can say in Vietnamese in these directions are "pink" and "grey."  Chances are they'll all be looking for a pink house somewhere near the market and never make it to the party.  Ah well...we have tried.  Perhaps with a little Christmas magic...or the Vietnamese grapevine (ATPF alert: They're having a party.  Of course we all know where they live (they are the only funny ones in the paddy)) a few of them will make it to the festivities.

Now having committed ourselves to this venture, we had to actually think about baking some Christmas cookies.  Thankfully Cambodia had provided us with some baking basics (and Skippy peanut butter!).  Most tourists return from Cambodia with luggage weighed down by the massive amounts of silver they have acquired.  Not the ATPF; nope, we were hauling tubs of oatmeal, pounds of sugar and flour, peanut butter, brownie mix and hot chocolate.  Who knew that Cambodia would be such a treasure trove of baking supplies.

So this evening we set to work on some serious baking efforts.  This was a little scary because each time we attempt to bake something here, it's a new adventure.  We don't have measuring utensils, so we guesstimate amounts of ingredients.  Our oven has no temperature control or thermometer, so we usually just crank it to full blast and, when things start getting too crispy, we turn it down.  The humidity alters every recipe.  Butter softens into goo in an instant.  The powdered sugar smells like smoked ham.  And then there are the ants...everywhere.  Any ingredient left sitting on the counter for more than six seconds will literally be carried away by an army of ants.  To avoid extra ant protein in every bite, I have taken on the defensive baking tactic of stirring with one hand and holding a bottle of Windex in the other.  When I spy a line of ants headed my way, I give them a quick squirt of death and carry on with my stirring.  After I have finished adding ingredients, I will pause to clean up the line of casualties before beginning a new batch.

Cooling freshly baked cookies is a constant challenge.  The only place the ants have yet to penetrate is the refrigerator. However you can't put cookies straight from the oven into the fridge.  We try to set the cooling tray of cookies on some type of pedestal (stacked chairs for instance) to temporarily confuse the ants and allow the cookies a few minutes to cool undisturbed.  As soon as they are touchable,we wrap them up and send them to safety in the fridge.  We learned the hard way that the oven was not safe from the varmints when we left a covered pan of brownies in the oven overnight and awoke to find hundreds of ants enjoying a chocolate feast the next day.

Chinese Chocolate

The boys helping with thumbprints

So with a mixture of some tasty ingredients from Cambodia and some less desirable substitutes from Vietnam, we baked up a storm.  The peanut butter kiss cookies have a distinctly coconut flavor (no doubt the imitation chocolate kisses we used).  The Russian tea cakes are tasty despite the off-putting smoked ham smell of the powdered sugar.  The raspberry thumbprint cookies took twice as much flour as the recipe suggested due to the humidity and butter issues, but they too seem fine.  Tomorrow we tackle another five recipes.  With a little luck we'll pull this thing off and have a merry little party.

I sense lady luck is on our side.  When we fired up the oven this afternoon, there was no fire. We were completely out of gas.  With a call to the number on the tank and a two word conversation (Them: Hello John: Gas  Them: Ya), five minutes later a guy on a bike pulled up with a fresh propane tank for us.  Done.  I'm sensing good cookie karma.  It's the most wonderful time of the year!