Snack Review: Colossal Cookies from Bristol Farms

After my last stomach-churning encounter with oversize cookies from an overpriced market, I promised myself I’d abstain from such indulgences. I was forced to eat my silent words a few days ago, when a bevy of mountainous, delicious-looking cookies entered my line of sight at Bristol Farms. Trapped within their deadly line of influence, I had no choice but to obey their siren song. I drew steadily closer to the bakery counter, wanting to resist but unable to break the spell.

Entrancing though these cookies were, I needed to perform a litmus test before falling victim to another disgusting-snack swindle. Tentatively, I cupped one of the cookies in my hand. It was as heavy as it appeared, being of a texture that was simultaneously rock-like and slightly yielding. I held the sample specimen, a Pike’s Peak of chocolate chip delight, to my nose, and was rewarded with the scents of genuine butter, brown sugar, and chocolate. This cookie passed muster, as did the other three varieties (Oatmeal Raisin, Peanut Butter/Chocolate Swirl, and Colossal Toffee Crunch). Whole Foods nasty-cookie legacy be darned; I was sold.

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Snack Review: Annie’s Chocolate Bunny Grahams

When grappling with major life decisions, I want comfort food. Starch, chocolate, gravy, whole chickens – they are my saviors in times of personal crisis.

And, although anti-terrorism specialists and cancer patients might argue that entering one’s senior year in college is hardly earth-shattering, I beg to differ. Senior year is cause for MAJOR concern, people. There are 2 semesters, two measly semesters, between me and the real world (which totally exists, despite John Mayer’s insistence to the contrary).

This world expects me to change it; to make it better, faster, stronger, fairer. Or, at the very least, not to mess it up more than it already is. That’s a lot to ask, don’t you think?

Which is why I’ve retreated to the safe, chocolaty arms of Annie’s Bunny Grahams. Because if I’ve learned one thing during the past 3 years, it’s this: society can make me act like a grown-up, but it sure can’t make me eat like one.

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Asian Snack Review: Marble Pocky

A few evenings ago, I found myself in my friendly neighborhood Japanese supermarket. I’d assigned myself the vague mission of finding interesting J-snacks to review. I was having difficulty narrowing my selection, though, and found it far easier to lose myself in the barrage of sights, sounds and smells not often encountered at typical American markets.

Halfway through the cookie aisle, I was struck by a sight so familiar and so obvious that I nearly slapped myself for not already having reviewed it. At once, a slew of happy memories of teenage Otakudom washed over me, resulting in what can only be described as a full-body smile. I can’t say for certain, constrained as I was to my own body, but I’ve little doubt that onlookers witnessed my temporary transformation into a bouncing “chibi” caricature. Ah, but what snack could inspire such an intense reaction in a normally polite and unremarkable 24-year-old woman? None other than Pocky.

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Asian Snack Review: Kinoko no Yama and Crunky Biscuits

One evening recently I was overcome with a craving for a chocolate chip cookie. There were none in the house, but I remembered I had a stash of snacks from the Japanese market that I’d hidden away so as not to eat all of them at once. There were two kinds of cookies that combined chocolate with non-chocolate cookie, so I decided it was time to give them a try.

Kinoko no Yama are very cute. The name means mountain mushrooms, and I don’t know about the mountain part, but they do look like mushrooms. I am sure they would be great for decorating a cake in a woodland theme with mushrooms and - toads, maybe?

But as far as eating…. Since the cap of the mushroom is solid milk chocolate with a little cookie-stick stuck in it, the chocolate would have to be really great and.… OK, I am crazy about nearly everything Japanese. But when you think of a great chocolate-making country, you think of Switzerland or Belgium, not Japan. Unfortunately, there is a reason for this. I like the idea of these cookies, but the chocolate is just not good enough to make them worthwhile.

But, never fear: I had another possibility:

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Snack Review: Whole Foods 365 Organic Chocolate Chip Cookies

You may wonder why I keep buying cookies at Whole Foods, given my past experience. Which is at best indifferent (think Crummy Brothers Chocolate Chip Cookies) and at worst, infuriating (Late July, I’m looking at you).

The fact is that I live basically right across the street from a Whole Foods. Whereas the Safeway is five blocks away. And given the total lack of meal planning in my household I am in the Whole Foods most days of the week. And given that I crave a snack every day of the week… well, you see the inevitable result.

I am determined, therefore, to find something that will work to fulfill my chocolate-chip cravings without walking all the way to another supermarket. My chocolate-chip craving is usually looking for either a completely homemade cookie, or for Chips Ahoy, which is the brand I have been eating all my life. The in-store bakery has something that will do for the homemade thing. But what about that all-American craving for a cookie made in a huge factory by an enormous corporate conglomerate?

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