Oh, FranceBlog, will you never ever end? Apparently not, as long as I keep finding more pictures that I forgot I had.
This actually isn’t so much my liveblog from France, but Ian’s cookie-log, or, “clog,” as the kids are calling them these days, mostly from before I arrived. He would go down to the corner bodega-type thing, buy a box of cookies, then come home, taste them, and keep a log of his impressions. He didn’t have a lot of friends in Paris. (I suspect but am not sure that this was at least half-inspired by the Best Cookies In The World, Tam-Tams, which I had tried at work and loved so much that any attempt I made to save one for him and bring it home failed miserably and I just devoured them all myself. They’re Australian, I think.)
ANYWAY. Disclaimer: most pictures are re-creations, as, like I said before, I was not there for the original clogging. So! Ian’s France Clog:
—————————-
Date: 11-05-07
Name: Cafe Creme
Description: Coffee flavored custard in individual glass packages
Price: 3 Euro
Acquired: Hyper-Casino
Review: I was really surprised at how rich a coffee taste they were able to get into these things. I can’t say that I love them, but they’re quite good for what they are. They come in these cute little glass packages, too. I’m sure Jessica would go crazy for them; there’s some craft project lurking around that needs glass custard cups.
(Editor’s note, with photo taken 12/23/07: Damn straight there is! And yes, that’s right, I brought home six heavy empty fragile class containers from France. Eff you, you effers.)
—————————-
Date: 11-09-07
Name: PiM’s L’Original
Description: Soft cake-like bottom with a layer of chocolate mousse on top, all coated with a hard layer of dark chocolate.
Price: 2 Euro
Acquired: Bodega down the block
Review: I wasn’t too optimistic about these, as I’m not usually a huge fan of the whole mousse / ganache scene. I must say, though, that the balance between the cake, the mousse, and the dark chocolate coating is quite good and makes for a damned fine cookie. I don’t recommend dipping them in tea, though, as the cake absorbs too much of the tea and becomes useless. I suppose that is something good to be said about the cake. It’s so spongy and fresh that it essentially dissolves in tea: yummo.
Editor’s note: What truth in advertising, too! I’ve never seen a photo on a piece of packaging look so truly like the actual product!
—————————-
Date: 11-11-07
Name: Delischuss, Chocolat Suisse
Description: Chocolate bottom with layer of crushed hazelnut on top, followed by another layer of chocolate and another layer of hazelnut.
Price 2 Euro
Acquired: Hyper-Casino
Review: If these were easier to get out of the package, I would have eaten them all the first night I bought them. What can I say? I’m a sucker for hazelnut.
—————————-
Date: 11-12-07
Name: Tom & Pilou Gouters
Description: Chocolate wafers with layer of white cream in the middle
Price 2 Euro
Acquired: Hyper-Casino
Review: I really only bought these because I was trying to buy a new type of cookie everyday, and I thought they vaguely resembled some Australian cookie called a Timtam that Jessica raved about. They’re basically not that great; they taste like a cheap cookie readily available in any American grocery store. No significant improvement is observed when it is dipped in milk.
Editor’s note: Tim-Tams!!!!! Also, how adorable is Ian when he sounds like a scientist? “No significant improvement is observed when it is dipped in milk.” Mmmm, yes, note THAT one down for posterity! And you know he was totally serious when he wrote that, too. My boyfriend is so cute I could eat him.
——————————
Date: 11-14-07
Name: DeliChoc
Description: Hard wafer with dark chocolate on top
Price: 2 Euro
Acquired: Bodega down the block
Review: I bought these for two reasons. One, the name DeliChoc makes me think of chalk you buy at a deli, and that’s silly. Two, the package says in this goofy logo “mega intense.” Now, wonderful, spectacular, rich, delicious: these are words I would use to describe a cookie. Intense? Ehm… not really. Mega-intense? Good lord, am I going to wake up on the floor an hour later with a grin on my face after eating one of these?
Editor’s note: Yes, apparently. See photo below:
How good could it be? Answer: mega-intense!
These really are fucking delicious, and the chocolate is this really powerful, nay intense!, dark chocolate. The wafer/cookie thing is quite hard, and when you chew the whole thing up, it mixes with the chocolate in this very nice way that makes the chocolate seem like it has tiny little bits of things in it (eh, you know, like when it has hazelnut bits in it).
———————————-
Date: 11-15-07
Name: Pepito chocolat noir
Description: Simple wafer cover in dark chocolate
Price: 2 Euro
Acquired: Metroprix
Review: Good lord, if I’ve ever seen a racist package. The Mexican on the cover is both lazy and consumed by chocolate-lust. Not that great: too dry and the chocolate isn’t dark enough.
—————————————-
Date: 11-21-07
Name: Kinder Country
Description: Various cereals in cream surrounded by chocolate.
Price: .5 Euro
Acquired: Bodega down the block
Review: This tastes like eating a crunch bar dipped in condensed milk. It’s far too sweet and the cream crap overwhelms the chocolate, which is milk chocolate anyway. Blugh. Also, the cereal isn’t completely crunchy, and there are bits of like oatmeal and crap in there. Perhaps the “country” part of this is because someone spilled melted chocolate into a grain elevator and decided to sell it at the county fair. Or maybe this is not actually a candy confection but something you give to a horse trying to kick heroin. Never eat this crap again.
Editor’s note: Look how this is ACTUALLY a “log.” He includes “notes to self!” God, he’s a nerd.
—————————-
Date: 11-22-07
Name: GU Chocolate Pud: Banoffees
Description: Banana, chocolate cream pie in individual glass dish.
Price: 3 Euro
Acquired: Monoprix
Review: As far as desserts you buy at the grocery store go, this thing is unfuckingbelievable. It’s a very nice pie to begin with, but then it’s covered in a really spectacular dark chocolate. The cookie bottom is not at all soggy; it’s as if it was recently prepared. I was all prepared to make a funny log entry about how the name of this thing is GU with an umlaut and make subsequent jokes about all the goo I’m eating, but to hell with that. This stuff was brilliant.
Editor’s note: AGREED! GU is deeeeeelicious!
—————————-
Date: 11-29-07
Name: Pepperidge Farms Brussels Distinctive Chocolate Cookie
Description: Two cookie wafers sandwiched with chocolate in the middle
Price: Free from airplane ride
Acquired: Continental Airlines Flight 56 from Newark to Paris
Review: The chocolate is flaccid and boring. The cookies are stale and tasteless. There is no point in eating these, even if you are high, I suspect. These are the sort of things you find in the back of your grandmother’s cupboard, you know, the sort of thing that has been there for nearly three years and tastes about the same as it did on the day she opened it. Continental Airlines has taken “bad airline food” to new heights with the selection of this for their in-flight desserts. What’s the deal with airline food anyway? Have you ever noticed…?
—————————-
Date: 11-30-07
Name: LU Coqueline Trois Chatons
Description: Oyster-shaped cake things with chocolate interiors
Price: 3 Euro
Acquired: Gas station up the street
Review: So first of all, there are four of them in a package. Why is it called “the THREE cats?” The chocolate was decent, like with most French chocolate things, but the outside tasted like a stale Twinkie. It was a fair example of one of those things that was supposed to resemble something else but didn’t. The “oyster-shaped” cookies just resembled ribbed spheres. No significant improvement when dunked in milk and/or tea. Avoid future consumption.
—————————-
Date: 11-29-07
Name: Jessica
Description: Unwelcome interloper from the states
Price: N/A
Acquired: Charles de Gaulle Aeroport
Review: This bitch showed up and made fun of my hat! That shit is not cool. Discontinue hanging out with.
Recent Comments