How a seemingly simple gesture turned into a multi-day challenge.
This week was Marina's last week in the house before she went to Buenos Aires :(
It was also Mayela's last week at work...
So, a great opportunity to bake cookies! I bought all of the ingredients and got excited, but there were many additional complications that I did not anticipate:
1. Chileans have cookie sheets/baking pans. I went to the grocery store and they were nowhere to be found. The clerk at the store offered me a glass lasagna dish. I asked if I could borrow one from some coworkers, and none of them had one... it was a struggle
2. The ingredients aren't exactly the same, and they're more expensive. Baking cookies in the States is a relatively cheap, but heartfelt gift. However, here, the ingredients weren't as readily available and were of different grades. The sugars weren't as refined as I am used to, so they led to a grainy texture and cookies that spread.
3. Uncooked and overcooked cookies. Jenny's oven has been broken since I arrived seven weeks ago. That said, she had a handy man come in to fix it a week back, and apparently it still sucks. Also, both nights that I tried to bake, Jenny wasn't there and I had no clue how to operate the oven and very little desire to burn the house down.
The first batch was for Marina, and I just left it as cookie dough. It never got cooked.
The second batch... well, I was slightly inebriated when I made the dough (we'll get back to that) and I couldn't bake that night, so I settled for the toaster oven at work. Toaster ovens are evil, just like printers. They don't bake the same as regular ovens and I use them only as a last resort. So, in trying to bake cookies, I had to run up and down between the office (where I had articles pulled up on baking with toaster ovens) and the kitchen for approximately 2 hours. The first batch burnt. it was just a sad waste of 10 cookies - I should have just done one to test. But I learned from my mistakes and was able to bake the rest just fine (they results weren't anything close to what I was used to with this recipe, but they were still cookies).
Back to the inebriated part
So, for Marina's last week, all of the girls in the house went out for dinner to a nearby bar and restaurant. I took a bike there after work (this area of Santiago is pretty bike-able). Daquiris were 2 for 1, and they were strong. I have never really been drunk, but 10% of the way through my second one, I really started to feel it. It's sad that it only took two daquiris to get more drunk than I've ever been XD I was in great company though, and we had a good time. The food was good too, it was a splurge night.
We had a post-dinner grocery store run where nutella, potato chips and doritos were purchased. Then I returned home to attempt to bake - by this point I was no longer drunk - but also wasn't completely back to normal. But the dough got made, so it was all good in the end.
The next day was Mayela's last day, so some coworkers brought in their one year old babies to wish her goodbye. Having babies in the office was so fun! We went to the park with them for lunch and it was so sweet.
