Lofthouse cookies

All right, since I have been utterly incapable of doing anything remotely constructive or productive in the 3 hours since I got home from work, I guess I'll sit down and wax lyrical about Lofthouse cookies.

Dammit Brooke, it's been 2 days since those freaking things passed my lips, and I'm STILL thinking about them. Yes, you go right ahead and laugh. What devilry possessed you to bring those into work? No, no, you don't need to say it: I know the siren song all too well. The song that accompanies the sight of clear plastic packages containing neat stacks of modern food industry magic in the grocery store. The song that accompanies the ever-so-brief wafting of chemically manufactured butter extract scent. The song that disguises itself behind haunting childhood memories of grandma's baking. This, people, is the power of Lofthouse cookies. I suspect there is a genetic component in there somewhere: either you are a Lofthouse lover, or you are like my husband, and shrug, saying 'they never did much for me'. If you are a Lofthouse lover, one bite and you are transported.

For the Germans out there, what I'm talking about is a mass-produced store-bought cookie. An American abomination of baking, overloaded with sugar, frosted and sprinkled with colors that simply do not exist in nature. Lots and lots of food scientists' favorite chemicals on the ingredients list.

What's the appeal? They're sooooooooooooooooooooo soft. Teddy bear soft. Bunny fur soft. Biscuit soft. Cakey without being crumbly. I just don't know how they do it. I could eat an entire package, trying to deconstruct and analyze these things. Floury bottoms, but not a trace of brown or crusty edges anywhere. And the frosting...there's the other half of the magic. Creamy, without being greasy. Sweet, with just a hint of artificial coloring bitterness. And that buttery scent and flavor that real butter simply doesn't provide. Probably from the same extract they put into microwave popcorn. A compound with propionic or butyric acid, I'm betting. Something about the smell of these things somehow takes me back to Grandma Kueffner's kitchen when she was at the height of her cake baking career. The house was redolent of cake batter, baking cakes, royal icing and sweet Grandma goodness.

Now I've eaten some damn fine food in my time. I've taken up to 9 hours to complete layer cakes that tested all my baking skills. I've dined at some swank restaurants. I plan to dine at many more before earthly journey is through. I devour gourmet food magazines. I wholeheartedly believe in a healthy, high-fiber diet of foods as close to their pure,natural state as possible. But the Lofthouse cookie speaks to my pedestrian food roots. It resonates with the 70's childhood diet of high fat and sugar in the hazy distant time before anyone had even heard the terms 'cholesterol', 'HDL' or 'LDL'.

Maybe I'll make myself a fantastic 9-hour layer cake for my birthday next month. Or...maybe I'll buy a package of Lofthouse cookies, pour a huge glass of milk, and prop my feet up on the coffee table, and trip out.