Are cognac and brandy interchangeable?  Am I the best wife in the world?

Not sure on the first, but I hope so.  And obviously not on the second, but occasionally I have moments of greatness. 

When J returned from his 9 days of fun in Argentina, he brought home: 2 yellow boxes of Havanna alfajores and 3 jars of dulce de leche. 

J had tasted the alfajores at the Havanna store and thought they were delicious.  Hence the two boxes.  I’d tasted them once at a Peruvian restaurant and had thought they were tasty, so I was excited too.  But once we bit into one of these mass-produced sweets, my first thought was not ‘yum’.  It was….’mmmh, Moon Pie.’ 

And if you’ve ever eaten one of those stale ‘chocolate’ covered disks with dubious filling, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  To emphasize our passive disgust, we started calling them alpha(w)hores, which at least made us giggle as we stuffed ourselves. 

Nevertheless we chewed our way through the first box and gave away the second box.  Ate our way through one jar of dulce de leche and gave away the second. 

And then one large jar remained.  And I knew once it was opened Jason would not rest until it was empty.  So I decided to make alfajores. 

But the recipe I found called for cognac.  And all I had was brandy.  The end result is pretty tasty.  Not in my top five cookie recipe category, but an excellent vehicle for ’sweet milk’ or whatever dulce de leche really means.