Happy Chanukah!

Happy Chanukah! The holiday is winding down and I’ve been diligently “lighting” the candles on my family’s velcro menorah (sent to me by my parents, along with some presents and dreidels) since Wednesday. Chanukah’s not a huge deal but I’ve been trying to acknowledge it, especially since I’m in a town that has upwards of 60 Jewish inhabitants. In addition to menorah-ing and presents-ing, I indulged in some Chanukah cookies (seen here). I’m already looking forward to lighting a real menorah again next year.

~ Chanukah lights, circa freshman year of college, decorating my window ~

~ Presents imported from the States ~

~ Dreidel cookies! ~

~ Makeshift menorah ~

Baking Adventures

Earlier this week, I decided to honor my family’s tradition of making Chanukah sugar cookies, plus some Thanksgiving cookies for the assistants’ Thanksgiving dinner. It seemed like a straightforward plan: sugar cookies, pretty basic, not a problem.

Until I realized I had a tiny French kitchen and very limited baking supplies to work with. I ended up using a pot as one of my mixing bowls, was almost defeated by the cups to grams conversion, and ultimately had little piles of cooling cookies covering all available surfaces.

Luckily, with the help of some Monoprix sprinkles and chocolate icing, the cookies turned out fine and were added to our Thanksgiving feast. It was pretty fun, actually, to weigh the flour and sugar and mix everything by hand – but I think I’ll wait a little while before baking anything again.

~ Scale for measuring; mixing butter and sugar by hand in a pot ~

~ Happy Chanukah! ~

~ Thanksgiving cookie and European Union cookie ~

~ The finished product ~