Milk and Cookies

Today was a relaxing Sunday for the Popps. We went to church then played outside for awhile. After lunch, the boys took a nap, so Anna and I decided to bake some chocolate chip cookies to surprise the boys.

As we were measuring and mixing the ingredients, I found it amusing where all the ingredients came from. The eggs come from Joseph, a local man who spends most of his earnings running a nearby orphanage. He sells us a dozen eggs every Tuesday for 120 shillings ($1.50). The flour and sugar we buy at the local dukas here at Tenwek. We buy the butter in Nairobi, which we go into Nairobi about every eight weeks. The most treasured ingredient in the cookie batter is the chocolate chips. Here in Kenya, it is even more treasured because the semisweet chocolate chips only come from the United States. We can't buy any chocolate chips here. Those delicious Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chips have to be hand carried or shipped here by loving family or friends.

So needless to say, chocolate chip cookies are quite the treat! Bryan and Leo woke up from their naps to the sweet smell of freshly baked cookies. We had a nice cold glass of whole milk to go with the warm cookies. Did I mention that the milk comes straight from the cow? We buy our milk twice a week from Charles. It comes unpasteurized and unfortified. Once we get the milk, we boil it for 10 minutes then refrigerate it. Although the milk tastes "fattier", it sure goes well with chocolate chip cookies!