A carnival of technology

I bake cookies sometimes. It seems kind of goofy on the surface—I’m worried sometimes about being too fat, and I can’t think of any situation where I’ve decided that a cookie is the key to my well-being—but I find baking an oddly relaxing experience, and chicks dig it. I don’t know crap about baking. I’m not going to be creating any new delightful pastries any time soon. Maybe it’s the mechanical actions of following a recipe that appeals to me. At any rate, I bake cookies sometimes, and the people at work who eat my leftovers seem to enjoy them a lot. Maybe there’s something about that homemade touch that makes things especially delicious in the face of mediocre skill. Maybe everyone’s just being polite.

This weekend I searched the interwebs for a new recipe, and I stumbled across one for madeleines. Madeleines are really more of a cake than a cookie, but they’re eaten like cookies, so that’s close enough for me. The only reason I even know what they are is from my knowledge of that seven-volume Proust novel I’ve read. I’m not really sure what to think of basing my culinary decisions off of literature. I’ve made Hemingway’s bloody marys before, which produced a wonderful combination of restorative and intoxicant, but I don’t think that this was a result of Hemingway’s skill as a writer so much as Hemingway’s skill as a drunk. With the madeleines I’m not even working with an author’s recommendations but rather choosing a recipe simply based on its coincidence with an idea I’ve never experienced. I’ve probably made better founded decisions.

The first difficulty in my new cookie/cake venture was that I needed a madeleine pan. To me the best kitchen tools serve very general purposes. Pots and spoons and knives and bowls all suit a task rather than a food. The cutting board I use for chopping onions is the same I’d use for cutting up a chicken. I cut a lot of things, so I use my cutting board for a lot of things. Moving down the spectrum of generality there are things like a garlic press, a tool that seems redundant given a knife and some patience, but one that can still fit a variety of meals if not a variety of purposes. Waffle irons also live near this stratum, though I can comfortably accept them since they make waffles possible, not easy, and waffles are delicious. At the bottom rungs are tools like melon ballers and cherry mashers, which I think no person should own. I do not own a waffle iron. I do have a garlic press, and now I have a pan that can bake small, scallop-shaped cakes and nothing else. I haven’t really come to terms with this.

The recipe I came across described madeleines with a lemon flavor, and it accomplished this by adding two teaspoons of grated lemon zest to the batter. Until today I had no damn clue what lemon zest was. I had vague memories of seeing “zest” in the grocery store, but after failing to find it in my shopping, I decided to ask the Internet. I had assumed that zest was some kind of brand name for some sort of flavoring, and maybe McCormick or whoever just didn’t pay enough for shelf space at this particular Publix. It turns out that zest is the outer peel of citrus, giving foods the peel’s flavor without the bitterness of that white junk underneath. Is this some kind of specialized knowledge, or did I just sleep through the class on ways to use citrus? Zest seems like such a ridiculous word. “Zest” should appear in advertisements for cleaning products, not cookie recipes. I don’t trust it. The Internet also told me about a special tool, a zester, which can be used to peel that outer shell off of a fruit. I did not buy a zester. I did just fine with a cheese grater.

The madeleines came out pretty nice once I figured out how much to fill the shell-shaped holes on my goofy new pan. I guess now all I need is some tea and some temps perdu.