(Sorry about the delayed blogging folks. I started an outside, in addition to my inside, job and I think I will either lose my mind or find it.)
On to the good stuff…
This picture is completely unrelated but I had to share it with you! This is Traveling Man and he lives in downtown Dallas. He usually isn’t so “jolly” but I dressed up him and his little bird friend to get us in the Christmas spirit. My, but it’s cold outside!
I guess winter made up its mind to make an entrance and its just in time for Christmas. My mind naturally giddy up’s to soups, sweaters and… cookies and milk this time of year! I thought I might take you on a favorite cookie “tour”.
Have you noticed the stores are full of holiday cookies? Most of these don’t even pique my interest. But, when I spy with my little eye a Tim Tam, in America, in a store, I’m gonna have to buy it. My friendship with Tim Tams started “Way back when” on my visits to see my parents in Australia. Now, I can’t say that Australia had a wealth of interesting food but they made up for that with their Tim Tam’s. Tim Tams are rectangles of chocolate covered goodness with thin chocolate cookies and chocolate cream sandwiched in between. The “goodness” part comes in… buckle up folks, you don’t want to read this unrestrained… when you suck your hot chocolate (or Milo for the Aussies) through your cookie. Wow! The cookie gets all melty and the chocolate sweetness is wonderfully intensified. Then, you have to eat it real quick before the gooey mess melts into your cup. And that, my friends, is what in the land Down Under they call a “Tim Tam Slam”.
I’m sure you’ll want to try it for yourself.
Here are the mechanics:
First, you have to find these cookies. They’re made by Pepperidge Farm and somehow get here from Australia. (I can’t concern myself with the “hows” of that.) I found mine in the Holiday goodies section of Tom Thumb. You’ll probably have to scour the store yourself to find them as both the stores I went to restock at (yes, I had to restock!) had never heard of the cookies and said they didn’t have them. But “Oh yes indeedy” they did. There is a caramel flavor and chocolate.
Second, you need a hot drink. Aussies drink a lot of Milo and tea with their “biscuits” which it seems we Americans don’t do as much. It’s why we’re so stressed and cranky. Milo is, is… well I really don’t know. It tastes similar to hot chocolate to me and can be found around these parts on occasion but a good ol’ cup of hot chocolate or coffee will do.
Third, you need to nibble off opposite corners of your cookie. Pace yourself and don’t get carried away. Just a nibble.
Then, you slightly immerse one end of your nibbled cookie into your drink and suck up your cocoa through the other nibbled end. It’s like a cookie “straw”. There’s nothing graceful about this last step. It’s a sacrifice you’re going to have to make.
… and another then, you eat your cookie real quick! It will be a blissed out, chocolaty, gooey mess.
Listen to the angels sing.
Don’t complain to me about your thighs in January.
Important news bulletin: Lovey just informed me that he saw a display of Tim Tam’s at Fry’s Electronics. “Get your coat…”
“Think what a better world it would be if we all,
the whole world, had cookies and milk about
three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down
on our blankets for a nap.”
- Robert Fulghum, 1987 at Middlebury College
Next blog: My favorite everyday cookie and Mary’s Pizzelles.
Posts
I tried the Tim Tam "straw" with milk - it really works! Scott's parents turned us onto these cookies after they went to Australia a few years ago - we love em!
ReplyDelete