Cookies and Milk | Cooking Stories | Cooking With My Friends

Cookies and Milk

The world would be a boring place if everyone ate only shortbread cookies (though Ann would be happily wealthy).

Today, I bought a 6-pack of an old time classic - the molasses cookie. After a morning appointment, I dashed into a local natural foods shop I had always admired from the outside, but never had time to peruse. I was craving sweet carbs.

About $4.99 later, I emerged with a 2-pint container of Monument Farms Dairy chocolate milk and a package of locally baked molasses cookies.

Monument Farms Dairy a 700 cow farm located in Weybridge, Vermont, down by Middlebury. They supply milk to many of the smaller mom-and-pop stores. Best thing about Monument Farms - their milk is bST-free. What's bST you ask? It's the acronym for bovine somatotropin, a hormone given to dairy cows to make them produce more milk. Proponents say bST is naturally occurring and perfectly safe, others, like me, would prefer not to ingest foods treated with hormones. Frankly, I don't believe much of what the FDA tells me, but that's fodder for a whole different rant that could keep me going for days.

Back to my bST-free chocolate milk. I don't drink milk often, but when I do, I want whole milk. I don't drink milk often enough that full fat will scar me for life. If it doesn't taste good to me, why bother. I'll pass on the low-fat cheese and low-carb candy bars too. Ick.

Monument Farms Dairy chocolate milk is like drinking an icy, thick chocolate milkshake. It's smooth, not too chocolaty, and heavy enough that about a cup makes me feel suitably indulged and pleasantly full. Partnered with soft, fresh baked molasses cookies that were made with unbleached flour and about 3 inches in diameter, it was a perfect morning pick-me-up. I was attracted to the molasses cookies because they were slightly irregularly shaped and because they weren't those gargantuan, tasteless, M&M-studded cookies you see at all the convenience stores these days.

A pricey snack? Perhaps. $4.99 might be considered a lot for some small cookies and milk. However...I am always willing to pay a little more for small amounts of perfect, locally-made, quality food than less for large quantities of so-so snacks. I'll buy all my clothes and furniture at thrift shops, I'll drive a beater car, but I will NEVER compromise on food and drink. Priorities.

Cookies and milk are the ultimate kid snack that never lose their appeal. Maybe that's why Vermont Shortbread Company is doing well...all these aging baby boomers who love cookies and milk are buying. Cookies and milk transport us to happy times. Cookies and milk remind me of uninhibited childhood wonder.

Care to share a cookies and milk story of your own?