baking in bogotá

baking has become one of my favorite pastimes here.  i've always liked cooking, and it feels strange to have someone else always cooking for me--whenever i ask my host mom if i can help in the kitchen she's like no, no, i've got it, and you don't know what you're doing anyway.  which is true.  i'm not used to cooking from the scratchiest bit of scratch, and there's not a lot i can make from the top of my head without a recipe or directions of any kind.  but, i'm getting a little tired of my rice-and-potato diet--variety is the spice of life, but the traditional colombian diet seems to be both literally and metaphorically devoid of spice.  and the whole one-meal-a-day thing tends to leave me hungry round about nightfall when i'm just sitting down to grade my mountains of papers.  for all these reasons, i decided that i wanted to start baking more. 

of course i didn't have room for cookbooks in my suitcase, so i turned to the magic of the internet.  my mind immediately fell on my dear friend sarah rosenthal, who writes an awesome baking blog with her sisters, aptly named The Baking Sisters.  it is full of delicious recipes, pretty pictures of baked goodies, and amusing anecdotes and you should all check it out!  sarah is an amazing cook--she always brought the best treats to cast parties and her roommates were the envy of all for their constant exposure to delicious smells and free food.  one snowy shabbat a few years ago i had the pleasure of cooking with her, which was great fun, and i was wicked impressed with her skills.  but i'd always been a bit too intimidated to actually try one of her recipes.  until now--there's a first time for everything!

the first attempt was chocolate chip cookies--specifically, chocolate chip cookies for kids with no teeth.  chocolate chip cookies--sounds pretty simple and foolproof, right?  but oh, just you wait... i first read through the ingredients list, carefully translated it, and went over the list with my host mami to see if we had the ingredients.  apparently she doesn't bake much, as the only things we had were flour and eggs.  so i jumped on the bus and went in search of ingredients.

 the first challenge was that chocolate chips do not appear to exist in colombia.  i went to several different stores and searched everywhere, but they were nowhere to be found.  eventually i found some M&Ms, and figured that those were vaguely similar to chocolate chips.  but they were expensive and imported, so i grabbed two baggies, hoping that would be enough.  they also did not have real brown sugar, but this brownish kind of granulated sugar that resembled sugar in the raw and wouldn't pack at all.  it was worth a try, though.  after a long search i found baking powder and vanilla.  i also remembered that we had some "buttery spread" at home, so decided to use that instead of buying real butter, as this was getting expensive.

My tragic first attempt at chocolate chip cookies

when i returned home  i started skyping with my friend from home who was also baking the cookies.  i couldn't find the flour, though, and had to go find my host mama to locate it.  "here it is," she said, handing me a sack of cornmeal.  oh dear.  i'd forgotten that people don't really use wheat flour here--arepas and empañadas and such are all made with corn flour.  so harina is assumed to mean corn flour... i should have been more specific.  but all the stores were closed so i decided to try it anyway.  i tasted the batter.  bleh!  it was like cornbread with chocolate on it--and not the sweet kind of cornbread you get at fresh fields, a bland salty home-on-the-range cornbread.  to cover up the cornmeal flavor, i added a bunch more sugar--that weird crystallized "brown sugar."  soon it got too dry, so i had to add water and some more vanilla, just for good measure.  in the absence of a whisk or electric mixer, i stirred it around with a fork and my hands.

when i opened the bag of M&Ms, i realized i was still a cup short on chocolateyness.  so i went for my box of bribes--the little candies i use to try to get the little estudiantes to actually do their homework and such.  it occasionally works.  i had a few little pieces of white chocolate, a candy bar i'd gotten free with a set of colored pencils, some malt balls...but i was still short.  searching the cupboards, i came upon the giant brick of chocolate we use to make hot chocolate in the morning.  it is cinnamoney, none too sweet, and nearly impossible to break bits off of.  after much hacking with a giant knife i was able to get a few chunks to throw in the mix. 

we didn't have a pan, but i found this metal sheet that was part of a grill.  it wasn't especially flat, which led to problems down the road, but it was the best i could do.  also, my host mama informed me that i couldn't use the oven--apparently it doesn't work very well, i have never seen it in use, and we use it as a cupboard.  so i had to use a toaster oven.  it ended poorly.  the fake-butter and all the excess not-brown sugar sort of melted into puddles while the lumps of cornmeal with their eclectic mixes of candy slid down the sloped sides of the scrap of metal and coagulated in the corners.  when i tried to scrape them off the metal, they simply disintegrated into an unnervingly rainbow-colored pile of mush.  delicious!

my later creations have been substantially more successful.  sunday has become my baking day, because everything closes up early, and even the bus routes shut down, so there isn't much to do in the evenings.  last sunday, i tried another of sarah's chocolate chip cookie recipes.  i decided to try again at finding chocolate chips, as they are somewhat integral to the recipe.  i have been warned never to go to Exito--the colombian equivalent of target, walmart, the grocery store, an insurance company, nursery, travel agent, and food court all in one--on a sunday, as it can get quite crazy.  but this quest for chocolate chips had led me to exito on a sunday almost every sunday this month.

there's a lot of resentment towards exito in bogotá.  the arguments are similar to those leveled against walmart--that it's pushing out local businesses, taking over all the industries in an area, and no one can compete with it.  but at the same time, it gives people--especially in poorer, more remote areas--access to things they wouldn't otherwise have access to, like books and electronics.  and lots of people really depend on their inexpensive staples, like their $10 weekly staple sack--some of the cheapest calories you can find in the country, but critical for many, like my students.  i'm not sure about their labor policies, and i'm sure their products aren't exactly fair trade, but then again look at labor conditions in other parts of colombia.  but actually, one of the biggest reasons for bogoteños' resentment of exito is that it's a chain from medellín, and they feel like it's invading their part of the country.  ah regional resentment.  i guess bogotá doesn't like admitting its not the only player in the game of the colombian economy.

anyway.  i didn't know the spanish word for chocolate chips, or even if there was one. "¿se vende chocolate chips aquí?"  i asked hopefully.   the girl restocking the shelves looked at me confusedly.  i hadn't really expected that to work.  i tried again, as i had at the other stores, to explain what they were "do you sell bags of very very small pieces of chocolate, which are used for baking cookies and deserts?"  but this time, my roundabout explanation worked.  

¡oh, chips de chocolate! she said.  of course, why didn't i think of that? anyway, she led me to an unexpected back aisle where i found a few bags of mini chocolate chips, kind of shoved up between some spices.  it would do, though.  i stocked up and headed home.

My second attempt at making cookies.

while i was baking, our adorable 2-year-old neighbor, pakeri, came by to visit.  she was quite fascinated with what i was doing, so i asked her to "help me."  this led to an unfortunate incident in which 2 cups of chocolate chips were added, rather than 1/2 cup.  but you can never have too much chocolate.  she liked playing with the dough, and rolled a bunch of miniscule balls of batter (which i surreptitiously augmented).  i still didn't have a cookie sheet, though, and had to make do with an assortment of casserole dishes, the sheet of metal from the grill, a glass platter, and a ceramic bowl.  nevertheless, they turned out pretty well, especially in comparison to my first attempt.  a little hard and extremely chocolatey, but delicious nonetheless.  and they sure beat rice and potatoes in flavor.

yesterday i made some raspberry crumble bars.  i was drawn to the recipe because in the baking sister's blog they were originally made for an AJWS bake sale, and i'm a big fan of that ngo.  they were a lot easier than the cookies and smelled awesome.  it was tricky to tell when they were done, though.  the fire kept going out in the stove, and because of the ridiculously high altitude i have to bake everything longer and hotter, but i'm not sure exactly how much.  also, i still don't have measuring spoons, so i'm using actual teaspoons and table spoons, hoping they're vaguely the right size, and estimating for the fractional amounts.  it's a very inexact science, and probably will lead to dessert disaster at some point.  but ah well.

this morning i noticed a corner was missing from the bars.  my host papi came downstairs and said in english "mmm, they were rich"  i smiled at the  slightly awkward translation of the spanish word rico-- which means wealthy, great, delicious, or sweet, depending on the context--and at the fact that my creation had his seal of approval.  huzzah, this is indeed improving relations with my host family!

p.s.: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH!!!!