Cookies.

After locating a plug-in oven and sweeping two supermarkets, I had a trial run tonight at making cookies for Khoon's wedding. That's one of my official roles - making the cookies. My other role is dealing with the wedding cake. Khoon presumed the Minstead cricket-match catering and my sweet tooth/teeth make me eligible for these jobs. Anyway, Khoon's Mum and next door neighbour were eager to find out what a 'cookie', Western-style is, so they watched as I made. I went for the all-American stodge cookie - lots of butter, lots of sugar, a bit gooey in the middle, quite yum - and for once they turned out right (I think because I didn't stinge on the butter as I usually do, in my country). But oh, how wrong they were: too under-cooked, yet a bit too brown on the bottom (almost burnt, they feared, I think), far far too large, too sweet, basically too much. So I made them a tenth of the size in the subsequent batches, cooked them till they were biscuit-like in crunch, and said I'd reduce the sugar load for the real deal. It was a good experience for me in trying not to take things personally. Different people like different cookies....and that's OK. And back-seat drivers are also OK.

It also made me think that if I become disillusioned so much by trying to figure out peat swamp forest conservation, it might be quite interesting to research differences in baked biscuits around the world and how size, shape, ingredients, etc. reflect deeper cultural characteristics. As exemplified, the Chinese in Malaysia like them small, hard and mild. The Americans: big, gooey and sweet. Hmmm.

For now, back to the peat.