Knowing that the French have no real affinity for baseball, I nevertheless wondered if one could find a batting cage in Paris or anywhere in France. I doubt it. But I did a search and found that the Japan Expo Paris had a batting cage in 2010 to exhibit "Japanese athletics". I don't know if it is a normal part of what they exhibit but still struck me as interesting.

In keeping with the baseball theme, here is another soundtrack song… will not mean much of anything to anyone who did not follow Seattle Mariners baseball. The Mariners' legendary announcer, Dave Niehaus, died in 2010 after being the Mariners' only announcer for the entire history of the team. It was rather sad for most fans, myself included, and this song captures a little tiny bit of Seattle baseball history while "eulogizing" Niehaus.

On an unrelated note, most of my baking last week was old standard recipes but I did try one new one. I attempted to make a brownie cookie, which I have done before, but I never achieved quite what I wanted before. This time it seems that the cookies turned out quite brownie-like (best result so far). Sorry no pictures.

Brownie cookies
Ingredients
About 2 cups of chopped bittersweet chocolate (I used what I had on hand, 70% cacao chocolate, not quite 2 cups of it)
1/2 cups of butter
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Melt the chocolate together with butter in a double boiler or in a heatproof bowl over boiling water. Cool.

While chocolate mixture is cooling, beat eggs and vanilla together until frothy. Slowly add the sugar and beat until the mixture ribbons. Add the cooled chocolate mixture. Stir well.

Sift dry ingredients together, and then mix in the chocolate mixture. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the whole thing until well-chilled (I left mine in the freezer for about an hour, but it does not have to take that long).

Preheat oven to 350F. Make small balls from the chilled dough and place on parchment-lined baking trays. Bake about 12 minutes. Tops should look cracked, dry/glossy like brownies look. (Do not overbake of the insides will not have the slightly moist/gooey brownie quality you will want to achieve.)