The Chocolate Chip Cookie Project: Part I
I don’t think I’ve ever had a good chocolate chip cookie in Europe. Not even a decent one. They just… don’t get it. Somehow, Europeans have not yet discovered the wonder of a baked good that is sturdy enough to hold in your hand, but soft and chewy when you bite into it, with a pleasing dose of chocolate. Sure, they have their own fantastic treats… but still, they’re missing out. Poor Europeans.
Still, I do see some chocolate chip cookies on the market here, so I decided to try some. Just out of curiosity. Just to see where the best chocolate chip cookie attempts in Estonia are to be found (spoiler alert: I think I’ve already decided that the answer is, “In my own kitchen.” But we’ll get to that later).
Subject #1: PiM’s Cookies
The picture on the package is actually quite appealing—the cookie looks wide, with a craggy texture and shiny chocolate chips. And the packaging itself, with its blue-and-white color scheme, feels sort of classic, like the chocolate chip cookie itself. A promising start.
I can only hope that this picture conveys how disappointing the cookies inside are, compared to the image on the package. Instead of being wide and flat, it’s sort of small and dome-shaped. In the picture, it looks like there are plenty of chocolate chips, but they’re pretty small.
The outside is a toasty brown and the inside is white, and the texture is dry and crumbly. In the picture, it looks almost cake-like, but that’s actually just a mass of dry crumbliness. I left the package open for a day, and after the cookies softened up a bit from the humidity in the air, I actually thought they were a bit better. At least texture-wise. Taste-wise, they were still bland, with the chocolate chips barely registering for me. Um… these cookies are not good. Why would anybody buy these? I bought these a while ago, so I can’t remember where they are manufactured, but I can find out (by looking at a package in the store, as I will certainly not be buying them again).
Unettomat yöt (Sleepless nights)
This was my best friend this week: warm milk before bedtime. I’d been having trouble sleeping for a few weeks already, and somebody told me, “Drink some warm milk. It works, seriously.” I’d never tried that before, because, well, difficulty sleeping is not normal for me. Who knows what was causing it—perhaps it was getting used to being alone again after the holidays, maybe it was stress. Whatever it was, I figured I’d give the milk a shot.
First there was one failed attempt (the milk in my fridge had gone bad, and for some reason I chose to taste it before I smelled it—blech. Does anything taste worse than rancid dairy?). The next night, outfitted with fresh, 2.5% milk, I tried again. I added a bit of hot cocoa mix (I know that technically makes it hot chocolate, but I didn’t add as much as I usually would because I didn’t want so much sugar right before bed). I felt somewhat childish drinking warm milk before bed, but amazingly, it worked. I fell asleep more easily and was able to sleep through the night. Granted, I had also picked up an herbal sleep aid at the pharmacy that day, and was trying that as well. So I don’t know if it was the herbal stuff, or the milk, or the combination of the two, but I could sleep again! (And thank goodness—this week at work was crazy).
Hopefully soon I’ll be able to sleep again without any aids. But at least now I know that if I ever have a restless night, warm milk is a good, comforting solution.
(PS—one of the photos has my current reading in the background: The United States of Arugula, by David Kamp. I haven’t gotten too far yet, but it’s really fun to read. It was a Christmas present from a friend back at home in the States, and was sent to me along with some Penzey’s spices—thank you!! 
)
(PPS—the title of the post is in Finnish, not Estonian. Just in case you care.)
A taste of “vana Tallinn”
The “vana Tallinn” in the title doesn’t refer to the herbal Estonian liqueur that’s marketed to tourists. It refers instead to Club Tallinn (in Tartu in the winter, in Pärnu in the summer), which has in the past year or so undergone renovation and switched to new management. I haven’t been to the redone club, but I hear the change is dramatic. People especially miss the old Retro Groove Nights, which used to be held on Wednesdays (it appears the club still has the theme night, it’s just… different). Wednesday was when I used to go when I lived in Tartu—it was never too crowded, and the DJs played fun songs from the 80s, 90s and the current decade. Not your usual club music, but stuff you recognized, that was fun to sing and dance to (think “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, “The Final Countdown”, etc.).
Anyway, this past Friday, Club Tallinn’s neighbor Trehv aimed to recreate some of the vana Tallinn (old Tallinn) vibes. I was disappointed by the fact that the DJs didn’t play the “retro grooves” I was expecting. However, the bar was offering some special cocktails that apparently used to be popular at Club Tallinn. There were two of them, so J and I each took one. Mine was the kurgijook (cucumber cocktail), made with vodka, ginger ale, and a couple of cucumber spears, and J took the other one—I don’t remember if it had a name, but it was Vana Tallinn liqueur mixed with sparkling wine.
Champagne cocktail on the left, cucumber drink on the right
Mine was actually great—ginger ale is already refreshing, and the hint of cucumber-y flavor imparted by the spears made it taste even more crisp and fresh. When I finished, I ate the cucumbers too, and they hadn’t picked up any weird flavors from the drink. The other cocktail wasn’t so great, but that’s because I don’t like the taste of Vana Tallinn itself. If you did, you’d probably like the drink. A couple of the bartenders came by with warnings that the drink would take you down like a vikat (scythe), since the liqueur and the bubbly are a lethal combination.
Overall the night wasn’t so great, but the kurgijook? I’d drink it again.
Gnocchi with blue cheese sauce
My love for blue cheese sauce began in 2003, a few days after I’d started my semester in Perugia, Italy. Our kitchen was still fairly bare, so my roommate and I opted for dinner at a ristorante, and I ordered the gnocchi in gorgonzola sauce (I didn’t have much experience with gnocchi at that point either). And OH MY GOD… it was so good. So simple, but so enchanting. Happiness on a plate. Shortly thereafter, I found a recipe for it in an English-language Italian cookbook in the library at my study-abroad school, the Umbra Institute. Yay! The book states that it’s not a traditional sauce, which probably explains why it’s not the kind of thing you find at every single Italian restaurant (unlike spaghetti bolognese or something).
It’s simple but still somehow impressive. I’ve made it for my isa for Father’s Day, and when I was living in Tartu and met a guy who was obsessed with blue cheese, I just had to make it for him too.
The accompaniment of smoked salmon is an idea stolen from the now-defunct ZumZum, which used to reside on Küüni street in Tartu (it’s been replaced by a place called… Place. Seriously). Anyway, I once ordered their blue cheese pasta for a late-night dinner, and despite the fact that their sauce wasn’t flavorful enough, the surprising smoked salmon paired with it deliciously. Somehow the smooth saltiness of the fish and the rich tanginess of the sauce just work.
I’d been wanting to make it again for a while, but since it is so indulgent, I felt I needed a reason to make it (not to mention a dinner partner to help me eat it). Last weekend I was fortunate enough to find myself in the company of the most blue-cheese-loving and appreciative audience to my cooking, so it seemed like the perfect time. So I cooked. We ate. It was delicious.
The recipe is so incredibly simple—just a few ingredients and a short cooking time—but it’s not the kind of thing you can make every day because it’s extremely rich. The recipe specifies gorgonzola, but I’ve made it with all kinds of blue cheeses. You just want to make sure you have a cheese with decent flavor, since it is the main ingredient in the sauce. It goes well with small, textured pasta (penne, farfalle, orrechiette), but I like it best with potato gnocchi.
Blue cheese sauce for pasta (adapted from a book called The Food of Italy; I don’t know the author)
For four servings, melt 15 g (1/2 oz) butter in a saucepan, add 250 g (8 oz) gorgonzola or other blue cheese and crush with a fork. Add 200 ml (7 fl oz) cream or milk and stir until well blended, adding pepper and a touch of nutmeg. Serve mixed well with pasta.
Food year resolutions
When my family was visiting, we went out to eat a lot. They were on vacation, and I’m always willing to go out when somebody else is paying . (I did make one home-cooked meal for my mother before the holiday rush started, and of course we made a group effort to prepare Christmas dinner. But after that, we were done with the kitchen 
).
We went to all kinds of lovely places in Tallinn—African Kitchen, Bestseller, Cafe VS, Clazz…
But I don’t really want to write about any of these in detail now, because I didn’t take any pictures. Not one. I’m still not used to whipping out my camera to document my food. I want to make it a habit, and also to get over my fear of people noticing/staring/thinking I’m incredibly odd for staging a photo shoot before I allow myself to eat. Yeah, I’m not a big fan of drawing attention to myself. But I hope that, if the people I eat with the most get used to it and don’t mind, it won’t feel so odd anymore, and the awkwardness of photographing food in public will wear off. I hope. So, that’s my big food-related New Year’s resolution: to get used to taking pictures of my food and to ignore people who think it’s weird.
I’d also like to start keeping a wine journal. I am so fascinated by and in love with wine, and it frustrates me to realize I don’t have much of a palate. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make an effort to analyze and document what I’m experiencing, what I like and what I don’t, what might go well with certain foods. In time, I hope to become more perceptive. I also need to find out where one can attend a wine-tasting in Tallinn…
And, naturally, there are certain foods I’d like to try my hand at creating. The two that come to mind first are bread and risotto. And I’d like to make homemade pasta again, though I’ve done that before. Oh, and I want to try to make more Estonian foods… It’s hard to come up with a master list, since every day I see things that inspire me to create them. So let it be a running list, and this is where it starts.
