As should be evident, I love cookies. I like them for breakfast, after lunch or with coffee before oral arguments. Since moving to town two years ago, I have been looking for the perfect cookie. The cookie should be: fresh (preferably baked on-site), chewy if appropriate to the cookie type, cheap, and unassuming. Nothing is worse than a cookie that takes itself too seriously.
A summary of the search:
Espresso Royale - Plus: Camp. Minus: Expensive and never chewy.
Einstein Bros - Plus: Chewy. Minus: Pretentious, produced and shipped in bulk.
Potbelly's - Plus: Chewy, taste pretty good. Minus: Still a chain. Baking site unclear.
Sunroom - Plus: Sold from the same counter as other food which is delicious. Minus: Hard and gross. Especially the orange ones dipped in chocolate.
Electric Earth - Plus: A wide variety of interesting and crazy people always nearby--will share cookies. Minus: Suspiciously healthy tasting.
Kitchen Hearth - Plus: Ok. Minus: Too big and too sweet. Bigness leads to awkward crunchy:chewy ratio.
Steep N Brew - Plus: Sometimes really good peanut butters. Minus: Sugary, and hit or miss. Everything else is gross.
One sunny autumn day, an unlikely hero entered the scene. Fuddruckers. You may think of it as an overpriced, vegetarian-unfriendly hamburger chain, and it is, but none of those drawbacks seem to affect their kitschy cookie-making skillz. Try, for example:
Chocolate-drizzled macaroons: Baked to a golden brown but still chewy on the inside.
Chocolate chunk cookies: Not chips, but dark chunks of chocolate in a rich, chewy cookie that is never quite circular.
Sugar cookies: My favorite. They could easily have been made by your youngest cousin from an old and foolproof family recipe. And then he frosted them. Not iced, frosted.
Best of all, you can get three cookies for just over a dollar.
Earlier this summer, I was making an afternoon coffee run and decided to stop by Fuddruckers. Blissful with anticipation, I pulled on the door. It wouldn't open. Frowning, I pulled harder. A homeless man at the bus stop starting laughing maniacally, like the clown who had been standing next to Pee Wee's bike when it was stolen. "Wahahaha! You got punked! Hahahaha!"
Alas, my dollar once a week had failed to keep Fuddruckers afloat. This is such a sad story I can't stand to reread it to check for proper hyphenation of adjectives. Let me know if you find a delicious cookie within walking distance of my office.
3 comments:
Wha!!?? The Fudd has already failed? That was record time!
Perchance State St. landlords should start considering lowering their rent, on the off chance that might help them retain some tenants...
Naw, that's just crazy talk.
Michelangelo's has the best baked goods on State Street. Their cookies are delicious, as are their macaroons, cake slices, etc.
I could take or leave the cookies at the Sunroom, but their pumpkin chocolate muffins on the other hand . . .
Potbellys' cookies could be worse, could be better. They seem to me as if they are baked on site from dough shipped in from elsewhere, and the ones they serve on any given day may be a day or two old. However, they usually give me a free one every time they screw up my sandwich, so I'm not complaining.
Electic Earth - OOh, I love the Electric Earth. I've been doing a lot of studying for the bar over there. I would go there more often if it was closer to my house or to school, or if you could park there for more than two hours on weekdays without getting a ticket. Grrrrrr. Still the best coffeeshop in Madison, however.
Ant's writing suddenly becomes so eloquent when the topic turns to baked goods. If only those silver fingers didn't somehow bungle up every opinion he ever wrote!
Post a Comment