The Cookie Takedown

Matt Timms is a savior and saint of the excessive eating culture (i.e. my culture). He runs a series of food takedowns at the Bell House in Gowanus.

Some of these events I'm not interested in, like "the meatball takdown" or "the bacon takedown." But some of them I am SUPER-interested in, like "the ice cream takedown."

Mainly, I am interested in whatever takedowns involve chocolate.

Sunday was the annual cookie takedown. Thirty amateur chefs baked hundreds of cookies, and everyone who attended ate and voted on each of the thirty varieties. I went with my friend and co-cookie lover, Reed. We started our afternoon with Lactaid pills and ended it with Pepto Bismol.

Here is one half of the cookies I ate:

Here is what Reed called "the winners' circle"; a.k.a. our favorites:

Included in the winners' circle were the following:

1) Fluffer Nutter Mouth Ballz, by Diana Yang: A peanut butter cookie with chocolate and marshmallow topping.

2) French macarons, by Susan Palmer (a.k.a. the girl in the little red kitchen). These macarcons ultimately won both the audience choice award and the judges' choice award. Their texture was perfect.

3) Frankencookie, by Gordon Lingly: Included one layer of peanut butter cookie, one layer of chocolate chip cookie, and one layer of brownie.

4) Fluffer Nutjob, by Katie Clark (a.k.a. Loven Brooklyn: My favorite kind of kitchen-sink cookie, which included pretzels, chocolate chips, and marchmallows.

5) S'more Guilt, by Jessie Krux and Caitlin Viggiano: A cookie that was basically marshmallow and chocolate chip cookie dough. As I was eating it, I was like, "Was this even baked through?" "Will I get salmonella poisoning?" and, "Who cares?"

Here is a different plate of cookies that I ate:

Some people could not finish all their cookies, so they just left them there. They obviously did not think ahead and bring along a Ziploc bag for storing extra cookies. (I have some practice with takedowns.):

Here are some of the chefs showing off their wares. Bear in mind that I took these photos after hundreds of eaters had ravaged their tables-- this is what was left over.

BOTTOM LINE: One of the greatest days of the cookie-eating year. I highly recommend that you buy a ticket when next December rolls around. Oh, and bring a Ziploc bag.