Taste
I recently had the following conversation:
Me: it's girl scout cookie time!
He: yuck
Me: you must be joking
He: they aren't very good cookies.
Me: you are a cookie snob
Further conversation revealed that by "they aren't very good cookies" this Crazy Person who I am somehow still friendly with meant they they are not "quality" cookies. Quality. Not that they taste like paste or that they give you the runs but that they are not made of quality ingredients mixed by a 3,000-year-old recipe with some fancy-schmancy space-aged equipment and packaged individually in gold leaf envelopes and stamped with some made-up Italian name by a monk cloistered away in the Andes. They're Girl Scout Cookies for crying out loud. They're not supposed to be quality. They are meant to be eaten rapidly and in great quantities and not to be nibbled at and discussed over tea.
Dear friend, We The People (meaning everyone) do not like GS cookies because they are good quality; we like them because they are yummy in the tummy. And, perhaps even more importantly, we like them because they are a limited-time offer and everyone knows that if there's a limited-time offer to be had, you can't afford not to take advantage of it, even if it's a limited-time-offer dog bite with free rabies or limited-time-offer two-for-one gonorhhea. I am a media marketing whore.
But, Quality. Don't talk to me about quality. I know all about it. There are many things in this world to be appreciated for their quality. Fine art. A fine film. Really really good cheese. But there is also a rightful place for things thrown together haphazardly by unskilled workers for the fleeting pleasure of the ignorant masses. Like Varsity Blues. Like bathroom graffiti. Like an orange brick of Safeway-brand mild cheddar.
You will never hear me say that a McDonald's Filet o' Fish is a quality seafood product to be served with a glass of your finest white when the Queen of England comes to dinner. But what you will hear me say about McDonald's Filet o' Fish is "Filet o' Yum!" If I say I want a McD's FoF, don't try to sell me on a homemade fish sandwich made with fresh free-range halibut on a diamond-encrusted bun. It may be delicious, but it's not what I want. Both are fish sandwiches, but they are two completely different foods to me. Did you ever see Martha Stewart make homemade marshmallow peeps? The very thought made me want to marshmallow puke on the marshmallow rug. Same goes for GS cookies. If I want a GS cookie, I want a GS cookie. It's not about quality. It's not about eating just any old cookie. It's about the way the Thin Mint dissolves on my tongue as the chocolate coating melts away and the cookie part gets soft with saliva. It's about the OCD euphoria of biting just so between the chocolate stripes into the sticky-flakey cocoanutty caramel of the delightfully schizophrenic Samoa. It's about sucking on that little knob of peanut butter squished through the center of the Do-Si-Do...Oh, wait. I don't like Do-Si-Dos. They taste like paste.
I was going to type a lengthy disertation on exactly why I whole-heartedly agree with you about the love of GS Cookies, but my thin mints are calling. I've consumed 4 boxes of GS cookies faster than I've typed this comment, and I won't be truly happy until I have consumed every last one of the little buggers.
...salmon with a calamata olive/mustard butter on top...cheap ol' white rice with a little butter...broccoli steamed just so with melted cheese on top...a glass of store brand sparkling water mixed 10:1 with lemonade and plenty of ice...
...and Girl Scout Thin Mints, dipped in half-melted mint-chocolate chip ice cream...
Now I'm hungry.
I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my 1 box of thin mints, 2 boxes of Samoas, 1 box of tagalongs and bemoaning the fact that I didn't just spend my entire tax refund on GS cookies!!! (thank god for Keebler grasshopper cookies which taste *almost* as good as thin mints)
All hail the ever-revered THIN MINT!
Amen, sister.
Oh, it's so sad to be living in a country where I can no longer buy GS cookies.
Sniff. I guess baklava will just have to suffice.
Quality of food means a lot less the hungrier you are. Thin Mints would look like haute cuisine if that's all there was to nosh.
Oh, and stay away from diamond-encrusted buns. They can get stuck in your teeth.
I have just this morning finished my GS Animal cookie whatever they are (sad clown) and am now turning my destructive chompers to that old standby, Thin Mint. But it must - it MUST - come from the freezer!
I think it's all about the tradition... and the belly ache that comes from eating GS cookies, 1 box in 1 sitting. Devil may care about the calories! They're GS cookies, damnit!
I have a minty aftertaste in my mouth... and chocolate squiged in my teeth. Life is good.
(loved the comment about the marshmellow peeps, which my friend Sue is delighted to report that "Peeps are now available for EVERY HOLIDAY including July 4th!")
i'm with you on that one
You know what's better than Thin Mints? FROZEN Thin Mints.
oh yeah, definitely frozen.
And sometimes crushed up on vanilla ice cream.
:-)