When I say we, I mean the royal “We”; actually, Kallie baked while I watched and we talked. I was pretty excited – we were doing GINGERBREAD COOKIES. I was sure they wouldn’t be as good as my mom’s, but still American gingerbread cookies?!?! We had one ingredient problem – Kallie had been trying to buy molasses for a few weeks, but the store had been out. Philippe went out to buy it for us since it was supposed to be in. He returned victorious or so he thought. It is true; he had molasses. Pomegranate Molasses. Kallie and I forged on; how different could pomegranate molasses be anyway? WAY DIFFERENT. We each tasted the dough and Kallie almost did a spit take and I got it stuck to the roof of my mouth and ended up laughing so hard I was crying. I didn’t think it was THAT bad, but it sure wasn’t gingerbread.
Kallie then preceded to throw in lots more ginger, cloves, flour, and any other ingredient she thought would mitigate the taste, including dumping a lot of vanilla in. Then, we put it in the fridge to chill. Later, we cut them into cookies and baked them, but not after tasting the dough again and still having the same reactions… As baked cookies, they were alright if you didn’t think they were gingerbread cookies. I looked up what the uses of “pomegranate molasses” are – largely it is used to glaze meat and occasionally, one might use a touch of it in cooking (not the cup of it we put in the cookies…). At Kallie and Phillipe’s New Year’s Eve Party, we had a guess the special ingredient game. No one guessed it and the cookies definitely had a spicy burning sensation to them.
While Kallie and Phillipe finished getting their place ready for the party, I took a nap on the couch. After an hour, a wet nose touched mine and woke me up… and then it was Guitar Hero time… The party was all set up!
The party was a lot of fun. There was me, four couples, a baby, and Jango. All 5 of us girls had at one point or another been English Assistants. Three of them, had married French men and the 4th girl was living in France with her American husband. I don’t know what everyone’s stories are, but it was an interesting group. There was a lot of talk about kiddos since the one year old baby was there, Kallie is expecting in the next 3 months, and one of the other girls is also pregnant. It was a relaxing party – we munched on appetizers and snacks all evening while chatting in a mixture of French and English – everyone spoke both languages which made the conversations particularly interesting to an outside ear I’m sure! The party lasted until a little after 1am… and I fell into my futon bed just before 2am. Dead tired.
The New Year started around 11 in the morning and started very slowly. We had a slow breakfast and then chatted for an hour or so. Eventually we had lunch and then I headed off to Paris to catch my train back to Freyming-Merlebach. I had a wonderful time with Kallie and Phillipe and am looking forward to maybe visiting again!
Did I mention that Jango is awesome?
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