Istanbul’s got a lot. Great history, amazing tourist stuff
(which I can’t do right now), the Bosporus, fantastic food, lots of hills,
traffic, street dogs … the list goes on and on.
One thing it doesn’t have is chocolate chip cookies. There’s
plenty of sweet stuff, don’t get me wrong. And it’s good stuff: baklava, dondurma,
asure, tavukgogsu and beyond.
But sometimes you miss plain old chocolate chip cookies.
Yeah, there are some cookies in Istanbul. When I take the metro, there’s some
ad that shows constantly of this chocolate-and-vanilla cookie that has a drippy
chocolate center. It looks good, but it’s not a chocolate chip cookie. My
favorite cookie here is this awesome thing that is basically a round Twix bar.
It’s so much like a Twix bar that it also comes shaped like a bar, and also in
mini-cookie form. It’s fantastic, a great treat and I love to have one after
dinner, straight out of the freezer.
But it’s not a chocolate chip cookie. It’s an American
thing, and I miss it.
Yes, like any good baker, I have a pack of chocolate chips
on hand. It’d be un-American if I didn’t. And of course, it’s a bag of Nestle
chocolate chips, complete with the Toll House recipe on it.
Reading Wikipedia, and I suppose I knew this somewhere in my
brain, chocolate chip cookies were invented by chefs at the Toll House Inn in
Whitman, Mass. That’s why there’s the recipe on all Nestle chocolate chip
packs, although you should really double the vanilla (and use real vanilla) for
amazing cookies.
There are just no amazing chocolate chip cookies in Turkey.
There are American foods you can get here, but the only American brand cookie I
can find is Oreo. Don’t get me wrong, Oreos are great, but they do not contain
chocolate chips. Chocolate chips are
necessary for a truly American cookie.
Last week, I baked cookies for a couple of upcoming parties.
As I said I have the one bag of chocolate chips, but these cookies were to be
for parties, meaning I would not be eating the bulk of them. So I wasn’t
willing to sacrifice my one bag of chocolate chips to make cookies this time
around. I went with sugar cookies. It’s a reliable recipe, and probably some
interesting chemistry lesson: how does sugar, flour, butter-flavor Crisco, an
egg, a little baking soda and some vanilla (not in the recipe, but, again, real
vanilla makes EVERYTHING better) manage to taste so good?
But it’d be better with chocolate chips.
So, when I did the store run to Ankara yesterday –the
monthly run to re-stock the consulate’s little American goods store – and found
myself smack in the middle of an all-American grocery store, I went a little
nuts when I found Chips Ahoy! cookies on clearance.
On the run, I stock on the few items I can’t find here but
miss. I can live without them, but, hey, given the opportunity, why not, right?
So I had three cases of root beer and four jars of alfredo sauce (in both
cases, enough to last to the end of my tour), plus a bag of Cheetoes, Whoppers,
Moon Pies, and Breyers mint chocolate chip ice cream. I buy healthy in
Istanbul. The American run is decidedly not healthy.
When I saw the Chips Ahoy, I immediately grabbed a bag.
(Incidentally, I HATE their repackaging. They used to have two little sleeves
of cookies in each bag, but now it’s all plastic and “resealable,” which never
works, and is a bigger waste of natural resources than anything.) They had
maybe seven. They were $1.25. I’ve no idea why they were marked down.
I tossed one into my cart, then pulled out another, which
amused the health food/guru who’d accompanied me. Then I figured what the heck
and added a third pack.
Now, back in Istanbul, I regret not throwing in those other
four packs. Chips Ahoy for $1.25!
I’m going to be so sick, but it’s going to be worth it.
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