Comfort Food Abroad: Lola’s Cookies

As enjoyable as it is to live in another country and indulge in the local cuisine — especially if you live in a country renowned for its gastronomic delights — there will be times when all you want is some good ol’ fashioned comfort food. In Comfort Food Abroad, I hope to highlight where expats can find those little slices of home while living overseas. First up: Lola’s Cookies in Paris, France.

Let me start by saying that I am completely indifferent about Valentine’s Day. I don’t love it, I don’t hate it; it’s just another day in February to me. If you want to buy flowers and go to a fancy restaurant, have fun! If you want to drink yourself silly because you’re sad about being alone, by all means go ahead — just go stand somewhere else.

In my mind, there’s only one reason to acknowledge Valentine’s Day: It’s a holiday about chocolate. (And being nicer to people, but that doesn’t really go with the food theme I’m aiming for here.)

Let me also say that prior to coming to Paris, I did not have a sweet tooth. I was raised in a culture that doesn’t really bake, or have dessert after meals (I can hear some of you gasping through the internet). So chocolate was not my thing.

But then I moved to Paris…and I’d like to see anyone resist their sweet tooth after a couple weeks here. I discovered it’s not that I don’t like chocolate; it’s that I don’t like bad chocolate. (And my hometown pride hurts to say this, but it turns out Hershey’s is not the good stuff.)

So this Valentine’s Day, to celebrate my newfound appreciation for chocolate, I decided to treat myself to a box of Deluxe Brownies from Lola’s Cookies.

I could have just bought a box of chocolates or macarons from a shop (lord knows I love Pierre Hermé), but I chose Lola’s for two reasons:

1. I generally try to eat healthy and stay away from processed foods, and I knew by ordering from Lola’s I’d be getting brownies made with natural ingredients and no preservatives.

2. Everything is made-to-order, so I knew when Lindsey, co-founder of Lola’s Cookies, was baking my brownies, she was baking them just for me. And with my boyfriend 7,000 miles away, it was nice to know there was at least one person in Paris giving me something for Valentine’s Day…even if I was paying for it myself. (I may not care about the holiday, but I still like getting gifts!)

Plus, because they’re made-to-order, I asked Lindsey to throw in some red M&M’s for the sake of Valentine’s tradition. She happily obliged, and while you can’t see them, you can certainly taste them, and they add just that little extra hometown goodness for me (I went to college next to an M&M/Mars factory).

So how do they rank as a Comfort Food?

The brownies are as good as, if not better than, any brownie I’ve eaten in America.

—  Compared to pre-packaged brownies (like Little Debbies or Hostess), these aren’t as moist, but taste infinitely better because of the quality ingredients.
— Compared to what my college roommates used to bake from a box, Lola’s are richer and much more moist (and definitely didn’t any have burnt edges!).
— Stacked against restaurant brownies, these win out because I feel like the ingredients came together better; like one tight, cohesive chocolate dream (if that doesn’t make any sense, then you see why I’m not a food writer for a living).

Basically, these brownies are thick, rich, monsters of chocolate.

And when I say they are rich, I mean, like, Warren Buffet rich. In fact, it’d be the one downside to these brownies — I can’t handle this level of chocolate. When I opened the box, I ate a brownie and a half in one go, and almost felt sick from cocoa overload (and it was only partly due to eating them too fast).

These are not for the faint-of-chocolate-heart.

Which isn’t really a problem, to be honest. To help break up the richness, I topped some brownies with strawberries…

some with coffee ice cream….

and some with both.

Of course, they are also delicious on their own, paired with a simple glass of milk. While I couldn’t handle the richness, I think most Americans (and chocolate lovers) probably can.

At €20 for a box of nine brownies, these are definitely a treat I can only indulge in every now and again. But they made for a great Valentine’s Day gift (…to myself) and I will definitely be ordering up some more when my birthday rolls around…or when I’m having an incredibly bad day and just need some chocolate.

Lola’s Cookies
Available online at www.lolas-cookies.com

Disclosure: Lindsey is a friend of mine, but she in no way influenced this post. All opinions are my own.