Simple Pleasures

For as long as I have lived in the UK, I have avoided baking chocolate chip cookies. I've baked cakes and pies and other types of cookies and even learned to bake scones and Yorkshire pudding, but I have never baked chocolate chip cookies... for one very good reason. Chocolate chip cookies require shortening, and until yesterday I had no idea what the UK equivalent was. Finally, in an effort not to have Crumpet miss out on one of childhood's simplest pleasures (after all, she is half American, and the chocolate chip cookie is an American childhood staple, much like the peanut butter and jelly sandwich), I Googled my quandary (honestly, what did we do before Google?) and found out that Trex is about as close to Crisco as you can get here. So I sent The Other Half on a mission to Sainsburys. The result? Yummy scrummy... even though I had to substitute "milk chocolate chips" for the semi-sweet chocolate chips the recipe called for. At least it's a start, and I can now sate my nostalgic cravings.