Growing up, I wanted to live in the Keebler Elf Treehouse, but I wanted to snack on any and all varieties of Pepperidge Farm cookies--the only store-bought cookie my mother would bring home. The product's absence of artificial ingredients was a draw for my mother in the days before supermarket aisles were lined with natural and organic options.
The Milano was my go-to cookie, the perfect shape and length for dipping into a glass of milk, the wafer melting to perfection, revealing the dark chocolate center. I never ate just one. In fact, I would eat the entire set, lined in elegant, fluted paper wrappers.
Though Pepperidge Farm was the house cookie, that didn't stop me, as a teenager, from indulging in the sweet stuff offered on the outside--the supermarket where I worked, and the cookie jars and cupboards of friends. At one time, at my unhealthiest, I ate entire sleeves of Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies and downed Whoppers Malted Milk Balls for breakfast! It's easy to understand why one of my favorite songs on the radio program, Dr. Demento, was "Junkfood Junkie".
Though my friends and family see me as a healthy and organic sort, that sweet cookie monster is always lurking beneath the surface. My tastes run almost exclusively now towards the homemade, but from time to time I still crave a Keebler's Fudge Stripe or a Chip's Ahoy or an Oreo (at one time my absolute favorite), and that jingle is always ready on my lips. . ."do you know exactly how to eat an
Oreo. . .
Visions of sugar cookies dance in my head, and my Kitchen-Aid mixer is beckoning me into the kitchen. I plan to pick up Dorie Greenspan's new cookie book this week and take myself on a freewheeling and fantastic journey of cookie baking. Until then, I have a batch of my own cocoa shortbread cookies in the freezer, and I'll be taking my coffee break around 3. . .