Snack Review: Dare Maple Leaf Creme Cookies

Maple! It’s not just for breakfast anymore.

I like chocolate and vanilla and fruit flavors as much as the next guy, but is that all there is? Sometimes it seems that way.

But how about maple. Those fiendishly clever Canadians. Why didn’t we think of that? I am always despairing that America is losing the international race for deliciousness to other countries. And partly it is that those other countries have wonderful flavors like green tea, black sesame, coconut… that we don’t use enough of.

I know, it’s not reasonable to expect, say, green tea flavored Twinkies. But, maple. I used to live in Massachusetts, I know we make maple in this country. What’s our excuse?

Well, until we catch up in the cookie-flavor arms race, if you see these, give them a try. They are not crazy sweet like eating maple syrup, but mild and nicely fragrant. You won’t eat many packaged cookies that smell this good. The texture of the cookie is good, not too hard, just crumbly enough. They are good dunked or not. They are also pretty, in the shape of maple leaves with nicely embossed veins. All terribly civilized, in the best possible way.

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Classic Snack Review: Chips Ahoy!

I had to try these. I owed it to Science, see.

Because when I try any other chocolate chip cookie, this is what I am comparing them to. They are my baseline chocolate chip cookie. But, after writing the review of the Whole Foods cookies, I realized that I hadn’t had these since they changed to no trans fats.

The thing is, I just didn’t want to know. I had been traumatized by the no trans fat Oreos and decided to just live in my memories.

But now for you, gentle reader, I had to make the sacrifice.

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Snack Review: Late July Organic Dark Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

I admit it: like the guy in the Monty Python skit, I came here for an argument.

All I wanted were some cookies. But I was at Whole Foods, where even cookies are a political statement. Everything about this box of cookies annoys me. I hate the fake old-fashioned design of the logo. I think there has never been a stupider name for a company than Late July. I am suspicious about the “2g whole grains per serving” claim on a cookie – and I don’t eat cookies to get my antioxidants, either. And finally, the “Dark chocolate - intense and decadent” thing – well, you’re obviously spoiling for a fight, Late July people.

As I said about Crummy Brothers Organic Chocolate Chip Cookies , there is one sense in which I always have high hopes for all natural baked goods. While there is something annoying about a label that trumpets a list of NON-ingredients that takes up the whole side of the box – no trans fats, no hydrogenated oils, no corn syrup, etc, etc – it is also the case that those are all Nos that are true of my own home baked goods. So why shouldn’t the product be perfectly delicious?

Sigh. And yet, they always seem to manage to mess it up somehow.

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Snack Review: Whole Foods Gigantic Cookie Sandwiches

Those of you who, like me, are ancient kids of the early ’90s, may remember a toy called the Dr. Dreadful Laboratory. The commercial featured a wild-haired scientist-type touting goodies that “look gross but taste great!” Why anyone would take slimy, cockroach-shaped gummis from a mad scientist is beyond me – yet, I ended up begging my mom for one of the good doctor’s gummi labs. While concocting the candy was fun enough, I found most of it tasted only marginally better than it looked.

What dredged this memory from the annals of my subconscious was my discovery a few days ago of a sort of reverse-Dr. Dreadful Laboratory. At Whole Foods, undoubted champion in the battle of the overpriced grocery stores, I came across a slew of gigantic store-made cookie sandwiches. They looked great, but tasted gross!

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