Chocolate. I like chocolate. I also like cookies. I like the two together, as a whole experience.
I never ate chocolate until I met G. and now I don't know how I lived without it all those years. I am determined to make up for the 30 some odd years I didn't eat my fair share. I always have chocolate in my house. I even carry it around in my purse. I don't have a bandaid, a pen or even a tissue but a piece of bitter chocolate in my backpack-always. Wherever I go, I buy it. If I find Venchi chocolate, I go nuts. You will find their shops in most Italian airports, where I live practically. In a couple of the airports, the sales people know me! :-) I buy it all as if I were planning on the rapture to happen within a few days.
Anytime I see chocolate, I check if it is gluten free then decide how much to buy. On our many road trips between Italy and Belgium we pass through Strasbourg and pass right in front of the Musee du Chocolat. We don't often stop on our trips back-and-forth, determined to get the 10/11 hour drive over with. But recently we wanted to take advantage of the sights, so we try to stop for a bit just to check out some stuff. We have stopped at the Lorraine Memorial Cemetery in France and stop as many times as possible. It is a humbling experience and we like it that the girls could experience the effects and appreciate the fact that people who don't even know us, did such things for us. But a chocolate museum merits a glance or two, don't you think?
I used to buy Venchi chocolate just because it is so good, then I found out I can't eat gluten and by chance read that Venchi is all gluten free. I felt compelled to purchase their products to show my appreciation of their solidarity with my gluten free suffering sisters and brothers.
Any excuse to eat chocolate is a good one. Yet, I can't think of one good reason to eat kale. If I were on a deserted island (hey, a girl can dream can't she) and there was only kale to eat on the island, I'd start eating seaweed. And guys, if you know me, you know I don't eat seaweed. I think sushi would be good without that black strip of acrid mold and then heat up the rice while the fish basks in the heat of the BBQ.
So you wonder, if someone poured chocolate over kale, would I eat it? Sort of. First, I'd lick it and get all the chocolate, then toss the kale in the sea for the fishies. Then I'd eat the fishies. Ipso facto, I would have eaten chocolate covered kale, deconstructed-like.
Living between two different houses, in two different countries, I find that my "staples" in the house reach their expiry date in seemingly no time. Again and again, I find myself frantically searching for recipes that have certain ingredients to use up my expired or soon-to-expire contents. Last week it was a beer that had expired in June. I think I might get my redneck membership stripped from me for that goof. Then it was my chocolate. Recently, I had some cocoa butter about to expire. Wow! I made some fudge out of it. One morsel was rich enough for a lifetime. Mental note: Don't buy cocoa butter again.
Yesterday someone talked about having started to make chocolate chip cookies, but they realised half-way through that they had no chocolate chips in the house. That doesn't happen on my watch. There is some form of chocolate at all times where I am. Cortisone and chocolate are staple medications here-both being in my backpack for emergencies.
I've made pasta and realised I don't have a single tomato or can of tomato (in any form) in my house. Hell, I've gone to make pasta to find out I don't even have enough pasta and so the girls' dinner is a mish-mash of half a handful of penne, a few farfalle, and enough shell pasta to make the plate look full. Each, of course, with different cooking times. Nothing like a starving teenager to make you feel incompetent, huh?
More often than not, I reach for an onion or potato and wind up with the fossilised skin of an onion or a wrinkled, deflated tennis ball that is just a potato relic found by Cortes himself. I run out of milk, always. But not chocolate. Jeesh, life is hard enough. Plus, you do not want to be around me when I am off my meds for too long.
So, having found that my chocolate is about to expire, I decided to make something. I went searching for a faceless chocolate something to make. And I found this: Chocolate Kale Cookies.
The description boasts that "kale is the secret ingredient" and it vaunts that children will eat these cookies "without even knowing it (the kale) is there". Oh, that's low. Hoodwinking children... You know, I think that is considered a crime in some areas.
But really, my question is "then why put it"? I mean arsenic is tasteless, hell, it's odorless too, but you don't see me mixing it into my cookies every day now do you? No. You don't. Because it is poison!
You could get the same effect from cookies without the kale. Just leave it out in the sun for a day, then when it starts to go bad, it'll taste like kale cookies and sting like poison.
It also states that kale is a super food. Oh no you don't! Don't try that with me. I'm an adult. I know Santa Claus doesn't exist. I also knew since I was a kid that eating spinach didn't give me super muscles instantly. I know it because, if it had, I would've been able to beat up my brother all the time, which never happened. Instead, I ate spinach and then got pounced by him anyway. So don't try to tell me because I eat your cookie I get superhuman powers. I'm not fallin' for it.
Cookies are serious things too. Not a subject to be joked with like this. I took a train to Maastricht (Holland), on a hot day, on a hot train- dragged my kids with me and called it a "field trip"- just for a cookie. It's a pretty city. Terrible food, nice enough people, pretty scenery, hot in the summer, but has gluten free cookies. Now, I ask you, would a person who goes to all that trouble for a cookie really ruin one by adding a rancid green polymer to it? No. Trust me. I would never ruin a cookie by putting kale in it, I promise.
I know my tastes are different than most people. (Yeah, I found that out recently- the hard way.) But I think we can all agree that kale, just doesn't belong in a cookie. I've had an avocado in a smoothie as well as spinach and it was ok. I even had a jalapeño in a smoothie and loved it. But even if "you can't taste it" I am not going to put kale in a cookie. I will stick to my regular chocolate chip cookies thank you very much.
I send my warmest vibes to anyone who dares to make the kale cookie. I'll be there in spirit with you. But don't be surprised if Cookie Monster comes-a-knockin' with an arrest warrant. I'll start collecting for bail money.
Thanks for stopping by,
Your Buckwheat Queen
