Delphina's: Perfecto Pecan Sandy

My questing for a good cookie lead me to the San Juan Islands and good cookie I did find. In fact, this is the best cookie yet.

I found her at the local Farmer's Market in Friday Harbor amongst croissants and a greedy contigent of island cookie monsters. I believe the stand said "Delphina's Bakery." What a hit this place must be. The line is long everyone is loading up with enough pastries to weather a winter storm let alone the next week. The woman in front of me buys five cookies snatching up the last of the double chocolate chips that I had been eyeing. So instead I must go with a pecan sandy. Dishing the cookie into the bag, the man tells me this is a "Christmas Cookie". After a bite, I think if that is true, then it needs to be Christmas every day. This cookie is amazingly tasty- light in texture, a delicate nuttyness, and it just perfectly melts in the mouth. While, it is a long distance to travel for a cookie, part of me believes the pilgrimage is worth it. Heck, you get to see Orcas along the way.

Pearl Bakery: Pretty Peanut Butter

Pearl Bakery is the first featured true bakery with all the ambiance of one. High ceilings, a spotlessness, lots of breads and baked temptations lined up on cookie sheets, and a friendly staff eager to help fill you with caffeine and sugar. It comes as no surprise their cookies are gorgeous. This one was quite the knock out- see for yourself:


Need we define what makes this one a real beauty? OK.
1. A stellar shade of blonde. You know what you are getting, no disguises. PeanutBUTTER.
2. A natural shape. No perfectly engineered and stamped out cookie. Circular with some juts and jives.
3. Depth. A sweet foreshadowing of a delicious chewy texture.
4. Simple adornment. The fork press pattern weaves into the natural crumble of baking. Sugar crystals decorate the top edge.


This cookie is way to pretty to taste that good, right? Sadly, it is so. While is delicately sweet, it doesn't scream peanut butter to my taste buds. I love Pearl Bakery Cookies. This may not my favorite, but you can tell it was made with love. The chocolate chip is tastier and has a nice orange zing tucked away against the morsels. Go with that one.

Moral of the story: sometimes you gotta try 'em all to find the good ones.

Morningstar: Quarterpounder or Chocolate Chip?

This must be the cookie equivalent of the quarterpounder. Look up “huge” in the dictionary, and this is what you find.

Morningstar is a tasty little lunch stop in the thick of downtown. The sandwiches are quite delish- mostly turkeys with different shades of cream cheese. (I'm a fan of the "Sophie's extra special). In fact they are so yumbo, you eat the whole thing before seeing the cookie. This spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E to my sense of self control, ie. lack there of.

OK, so this cookie is not the gut bomb of the Eugene Monster but it tastes a little too much like the Pillsbury “you bake” cookies to be at the top of my cookie list. And the chips are nowhere near the fudgy yum factor of Elephant's. My apologies. They probably make these guys by scratch onsite with Nestle's Tollhouse morsels. But I think in the future I will stick to the sandwiches.

I am off to run very far, or at least several times around the block to snap some photos. Check this out for now:

http://www.morningstarcafe.com/

Elephant's Deli: where have all the cowboy's gone?

Every good yuppie loves Elephant's Deli. In the world of the product related lunch and learns, if the sale's rep mentions Elephant's they have full license to make the pitch, even if it's on low voltage lightbulb's. Everything about this place is snazzy. Backlit refrigeration bins with plastic wrapped sandwiches and salads; a lunch counter where panini are prepped, and every version of fancy bottled water you can imagine. Heck, they even sell the gourmet chocolate covered peanuts that come from my grandmother's rural Virginia town, population 300. This little bit of hometown America convinces me that they must have good cookies.

Elephant's cookies, arranged neatly on parchment and lacy doilies, catch your eye when you first walk into the door. They are all the exact same size and shape, as if delicately engineered. Given the preciseness of it all, when I happen across the cowboy cookie, and I can't say no. Maybe it's the mystique, an idea of a ruggedness or a masculinity, or just the irony. In any case, this cookie is handsome and just the right size. I take a big bite. Mother's don't let their babies grow up to be cowboy's... Unless they are this one. Definitely a bit boring. It does have a nice chewiness and a good oat grit, but little else to bolster it into the realm of spurs and bulls. What is this cowboy? In simpler terms, it is just an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. The best part are the fudgy milk chocolate chips, of which it has ample amounts. But this is the only sparkle a girl is gonna get. Don't get me wrong, if you have the cash to spend and need a cookie, this one is dandy. The name is just misleading. Let's call it stock broker cookie.

After doing some basic research, I learn the real qualities of the Cowboy Cookie and realize mine, clearly, fell short. First, it needs nuts and lots of them. Two kinds, in fact. Pecans AND coconut. Then, throw in a bit of spice to give 'em a real kick. Now that sounds more like it. Here is how you can make a real Cowboy Cookie brought to you by no one other than the first lady of cow country, Laura Bush. Ha! http://www.wchstv.com/gmarecipes/laurabushcowboycookies.shtml