Girl Scout Cookies: What's New?

 

It's been a looooong time since I had the chance to get ahold of any Girl Scout cookies. I'm not going to do any major digging into the changes that have happened even since I was in high school with Girl Scouts, but... I remember when these cookies were 3 bucks a box, and the boxes were definitely a fair bit bigger.

No sense in beating around the bush about price and proper valuation though. Other things I remember offhand... there are a couple bakeries that produce all the cookies, and they're thousands of miles apart, which is why some cookies have different names in different parts of the US. Out here in California, the Shortbread I knew growing up is called a Trefoil. Makes perfect sense looking at it, but still. Different suppliers, different name to protect all the companies from copyright blather. (Not that copywrites actually matter in the food world, but on the corporate side they pretend.)

I picked up a few boxes. Though apparently they're not all even boxes any more!

The order sheet was my only information, and so I went with what made some appeal to my preferences. I got a box of the iconic Thin Mints, and two other types that are wholly new to me. A gluten-free Caramel Chocolate Chip, and crispy chocolate, caramel-cored curiosities called Adventurefuls. 

Now one thing that threw me was the vastly different weights of the three varieties. 5oz, 6 1/2oz, and 9oz. That's no small discrepancy, and it's... interesting that the GF cookies are the lightest. The ingredients couldn't possibly be that much more expensive. The different packaging could account for some of the difference, but what was wrong with the classic two-channel sleeved box? That's the big thing I was wondering about when I went ahead and opened them all to have a proper look.

And then came the taste test.

The Caramel Chocolate Chip are interesting. They're very crunchy, but also extremely light. The use of oat flour as a primary gives them a texture and flavor vaguely reminiscent of a peanut butter cookie, which is a sandiness I find rather unpleasant. The caramel flavor is heavy and cloying, as one-note and artificial as it gets. You can't even taste the chocolate chips- though admittedly there aren't many. These are to Famous Amos as Oreo are to Hydrox. They tried, but it's just not quite right. Yes, even without the cachet of being the actual original in the genre, the Hydrox was a far superior cookie to Oreo. Given some of the horrorshow flavors Oreo has tried bringing to bear, it seems an apt comparison.

The Adventurefuls were a very different sort of unfortunate. "Brownie-inspired cookies with caramel-flavored creme and a hint of sea salt". Jibberish. (If a Brownie inspired this, she'll never make a proper Girl Scout, let alone the Gold Award.) It's supposed to be a chocolate 'thumbprint' style cookie, a shallow well that's filled with faux caramel, then decorated with pretty chocolate stripes. Or they would have been, had anything about the designs worked right. 

The cookies arrived half-melted, some stuck together, and the box wasn't even full! The picture is missing two but I'd only eaten one. That pretend caramel flavor overpowered almost everything here too, except for the cookie hidden underneath it all. Hard and crispy, it has the feel and texture of the Thin Mint base cookie- which is probably why the camouflage. Can't make it too obvious they're double dipping on a winner, even when it turns into a loser- which this definitely is.

Well, that was a bust- and at seven bucks a box, it was an expensive one! Mathing it out by the weights listed on the boxes, the cookies were about 16 bucks a pound. I've paid more for cookies, but they were waaaaaay better cookies. Like the local place Butter Pecan, where the cookies are actually worth that kind of price.

Sorry, girls. I'm not buying again.

An Opportunity! ...As if.

Pete Wells is stepping down as the NYT Food Critic. This pleases and intrigues me, because that's a job *I* want. The relocation, I can handle. The requirements, I blow away. The expertise, I blow out of the water. The physical strain, I have no worry over. A lifetime of athletics and a thorough understanding of culinary nutrition and exercise science have left me more than prepared for fending off high blood pressure, diabetes, and gout.

Now, given the very predictable results I've seen when I put in for similar positions (Washington Post, Eater, etc), I'm not likely to get the call. But whoever they pick is almost inevitably going to crash and burn. It's all I've seen from every single not-me choice so far throughout the last several years, and I expect that to continue.

On An Unwelcome Trend

 

You are on the internet. A place meant for knowledge, exploration, and improvement- but full of uncertainty, unfamiliarity, and unpleasantness.

Deal with it.

To see someone prefacing a picture, a film, or a piece of writing with aught like "(cw:xyz)" is to immediately be less inclined to pursue any interest I might have had- largely out of sheer indignation. In the past, I have said that knowing how a story ends doesn't spoil the journey of it for me, and that will always remain true. But to see a writer or an artist making a conscious decision to knowingly turn away potential enjoyers of their work before they can take the time to explore it for themselves? That burns. When exploring media, the discovery of the experience is so much more than words, sounds, or imagery.

Are so many so unwilling to explore outside their comforts that they need be warned of what might come? Are creators so fragile as to censor themselves before their work so much as sees the light of day? Do they feel the rise of fear in their hearts if they choose not to? 

But... what if they believe it necessary?

A fine broad-strokes example, something I have seen fade to such obscurity that it may well be lost: the craft of the film trailer, or of the dust jacket blurb. Instead of intriguing or inspiring a prospective enjoyer with the work's potential possibilities, all too often now they simply lay facts and figures out in a manner so bland, so banal, as to hamstring any opinion that might be developed of the work itself. Film trailers that spoil the big twist. Book synopses that offer names and actions sans any intent. 

What is missed above all in these flawed, misappropriated mediums and methods, is the reason to delve. To interest someone enough that they explore the depths of a story, to do the detective work that might reveal to an audience that story's very soul, and through it perhaps highlight some facet of their own.

In a time where creative expression is relentlessly stifled unless tirelessly monetized, and potential audiences are so much more willing and able to spread uninformed venom, then what might yet be done?

All I can offer is the proper thing to do: ignore the warnings placed by others, and respect the quality of your audience by offering none of your own.

Yet principles do not pay for groceries. And so ever shall I hunger.