Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Alpha Whore Cookies

I once went up to the summer capital a few years ago with only one agenda in mind.
There was supposedly this convent that made these unbelievably yummy gourmet food products on a limited basis during certain times on certain days. They were so well-known that even in the lean tourist months, you'd still have to line up for your orders, and even then, you could only buy a maximum of 2 jars/packs per item because some people tend to hoard the good stuff and they would run out of things to sell even before selling time was over. If you were unlucky enough like my aunt who went up there twice already and would come back empty-handed, because the nuns decided NOT to make that particular product on that particular day.

Now, i don't really care about their other products. I am enslaved by taste to only one. And so far, there has been no other contender that can come close to that kind of taste. What i'm talking about is Good Shepherd's Alfajor Cookies (hence the title of this entry, just pardon my tacky wordplay). It consists of two small circular slabs of crumbly floury stuff which sandwiches this rich caramel filling that is testament to the fact that quantity and quality are excellent when they come hand in hand. Take all that and cover it with confectionary sugar and you've got the product that will be on my mind for the entire 5 hours it takes to get there to buy it. Every bite actually melts and crumbles delectably in your mouth, leaving you in want for more than half a dozen pieces in one sitting. (sinful? perhaps. pleasurable? yes oh yes!) And it only costs less than two dollars a bottle!

A veritable second placer would be the in-house brand of Wal-mart called Sam's choice 39% More Chocolate Chip Cookies. it costs $1.70 for a nice big enough pack that'll last you maybe a week (if your thrifty). The people who make it actually swear that they pack more choclate chips in one cookie than any other brand and i think they're right. you cannot bite into these cookies without coming out with at least 3 or 4 pieces of half-melted chocolate chips. They said that 39% was the most they could add because if you put in any more than that, the cookie will come out too soft or too crumbly already. Think of it more as Chocolate chips with cookie bits rather than the other way around. Sadly, it probably won't be available locally anytime soon because it expires too easily (shelf life is a month or so, I think)

I remember Alfajor cookies lately not just because I am going up to the mountains again sometime soon this summer, but because it will always remind me of someone i shared it with in the past. :)

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