Kangaroo and Cookies

This Santa just finished his ring act in Cirque du Soliel
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If you are looking for a town with bright lights, carolers, jingle bells and aesthetic Christmas cheer, keep driving- Nogent le Rotrou is not the place to go in search of the holiday warm and fuzzies. Granted, they made their feeble attempt by draping strangely shaped lights down the main streets off of Place St. Pol, (strangely resembling half-moustaches) and erecting five mangled, unlighted trees decorated with only tinsel bows in the main square. It was as if when France was passing out decorations to all the towns, poor Nogent got stuck in traffic, and therefore had to rummage at the bottom of the box and piece together the leftovers. Yes, call me biased, as I do come from a country where we like shiny, loud, and gaudy things- just look at the rich, middle-aged women in Texas, but I did expect something a bit more picturesque. Some stores did a lovely job, while others caught your attention with the oddities they displayed, one example being a rotating Santa and Mrs. Claus snogging feverishly. Mommy, what is Santa doing?! I personally wouldn’t want to explain. There were a few houses around town that strung their windows with lights and garland, or plastered stickers on their windows, but most just settled for hanging the Santa-on-a-rope…made in China for all your French needs.

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Yes, Santa-on-a-Rope, was very popular throughout France this year, (not to be confused with soap-on-a-rope, although a similar concept, and no, the Santa was not actually made of soap although that would be an interesting idea that would probably sell well here next Christmas). Townspeople said a loud NO to the traditional lights and reindeer approach, and opted for three-foot Santas, attached to a rope, assumedly climbing up the side of their roof to deliver packages to the good little girls and boys. As a child, I always thought it was a bit odd that a strange man would be entering my house undetected, but since he was magic it was ok; he was allowed. But now, Santa seems to come with the latest and greatest breaking and entering equipment, and slinks into the window of your fifth floor flat with a hook and grapple, nylon rope, and white gloves. Sounds a bit like MI3 meets the Grinch (ever notice the word Grinch rhymes with French? Ooooo clever, was Dr. Seuss English?!).

The rainy day Christmas market, look at all the people!
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The worst part is not actually the idea of the mythical man shimmying up a rope and popping into a window, although it does seem less dignified somehow, but what the winter wind and weather does to the Santa. Basically, these swinging Santas were not built to withstand gale force French winds, and therefore often end up tangled, mangled and generally resembling someone hung by the neck until… well, you know the rest. I even saw one Santa whose rope had failed him miserably, and he had found himself in a tree with one leg and a head,and his beard and torso still attached to the side of the roof from whence the rest of him came. It was a sad spectacle - a decorative Santa downtrodden and quartered two weeks from Christmas, when all he really wanted was to fly back to China.

Heads in a bag, don't ask, it's France
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But, notwithstanding the pathetic plastic Santas on a string, I found ways to pull Christmas cheer into my life this season. As mentioned, the French do not outwardly express their level of seasonal joy, but they do have very nice parties that all but make up for the everyday fluff. I was invited to one such evening with the teachers from the collége where I live- as I see them more often than some of the other teachers I actually work with. It was a simple and classy dinner at a quaint restaurant in the country. We paid in advance for a four-course preset menu (which is definitely the way forward in life, and I will not know what to do with a measly one course, one hour dinner when I return to reality). I was also incredibly thrilled to find out the main course included a pavé de Kangaroo with fois gras sauce. Yes, you read correctly, a kangaroo steak with a sauce made from exploded goose liver. Exciting! Most people would recoil at the thought, but fois gras is excellent, and call me an animalist, but I don’t see much difference between a kangaroo and a cow, well minus the fact they jump instead of meander, have a pouch instead of udders, and well, they are two different animals altogether - they do both make a tasty dinner. The kangaroo was dryer and tougher than steak, but I would definitely classify it as a red meat. It had an odd kind of gamey taste that wasn’t unpleasant but wasn’t anything like what I had had before, and no, it did not taste like chicken. I am quite proud of my kangaroo experience, because although it was originally not one of my goals in life to ingest a slab of kangaroo thigh- it never crossed my mind you could, actually, it tops my list of strangest things eaten thus far. Now, on to snails!

Small lament for such a sad Santa
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Speaking of strangest things ever eaten, I have to admit the second on my list at the moment is not octopus or alligator or raw scallop eyeballs (yes I have eaten all three, and not necessarily enjoyed the latter, but I am a strong believer in not being allowed to truly hate something unless you have tried it), but this years Christmas cookies, created by yours truly. Yes, I baked them. Yes, they were not just a disaster, but a fiasco, and I will never try to save money by opting not to call my mother for a recipe again. I wanted to make traditional sugar cookies with icing. It should have been a task a chimpanzee could have succeeded in doing with its eyes closed, (may have been a bit furry, but you get the point) but France is lacking two important things: pre-made cookie dough, and frosting in a can- a travesty upon the human race... how do they possibly survive? I turned to my faithful friend, the internet, and searched for a sugar cookie recipe on what I thought were reputable sights. I wanted the cookies to be soft rather than the traditional crunchy and found what seemed to be perfect. I hate that word ‘seemed’, always leads to disaster and should be expunged from the English language, along with the word ‘loaf’… that one is just weird.

Nogent at Night
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After buying all the ingredients, I admit, there was a bit of confusion on some of the translations, then mixing and mixing and mixing until my arm throbbed and came dangerously close to falling off because of a lack of an electric mixer, and finally obtaining a lovely golden batter, I threw them in the oven to bake. Immediately they started to rise… and rise… and rise… and rise… and began to resemble small mountains of fluffyness that were more breadesque than cookiesque. I whipped them out of the oven, and threw them on a rack to cool, eyeing them suspiciously. After they cooled I picked up one and took a nibble. To my horror, they were not only the texture of cornbread, they were salty. SALTY! I tasted the batter again, and it seemed to be in order, so I tried another batch, adding a generous amount of sprinkles, hoping to divert attention, like a magician, from the horrible taste. Sprinkles didn’t help. So I thought, well, maybe if I make the icing, they will taste much better with the icing- you could put icing on a brick and it would taste good- at least maybe they will take on a sweet and sour sort of theme. So I followed the instructions to make the icing, and the icing came out looking more like grey congealed glue than anything edible. I poured it over the cookies, and it immediately coagulated and slid happily off the side, moistening the top and collecting disgustingly around the sides, resembling something that was not produced in a pan. I can’t, even in good humor, tell you how horrible it looked, and my only thought was that French people can’t eat these!! I will be shunned forever! Shuuun the horrible cookie cooker!! SHUNNNN!! Kicked out of France! They will never believe I can actually cook decently if I can’t handle the simplest of cookies!

Nogent in all its Christmas glory
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So in a desperate attempt to keep from being deported, I searched for what went wrong… and there it was staring at me, a combination of bad recipe meets lost in translation… The recipe, (because I had asked for soft cookies thinking they would just cut the cooking time down so they were more doughy) asked for three, I repeat three, teaspoons of baking powder. Most 30 person cakes don’t even call for that much. Well the words ‘baking powder’ was badly translated, by my helper who was actually French, to be ‘baking soda.’ So I had proceeded to put three tablespoons of baking soda into my cookies. Hence the salty taste. So I think, ok, I will be clever and counteract the salt with more sugar! And I dumped an ungodly amount of sugar into the batter. This time, when I made the cookies, they did not rise, they just spread like the plague over the cookie sheet and dripped down into the bottom my friend’s oven. They turned out resembling a poor man’s crepe and tasting sweet with a bitter aftertaste. At that point I slyly dumped 15 euro worth of batter down the disposal and tried to hide my horrible cookies under the cookies my friends had successfully made so I could at least say I did something and hoped fervently no one would come to a premature death by accidentally trying one.

Shocking! The SCANDAL!
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Well, I am happy to say that we are all alive and well, and that I have learned my lesson: Stick to what you know when trying to impress other cultures, so at least if it turns out badly you can tell them that is how it is supposed to be! Or, when all else fails… go to the bakery!!