Jacques Torres peanut butter chocolate chip cookie

Here's a fun fact about me: I work across the street from Jacques Torres.

You may recall that I've reviewed Jacques Torres' cookies before, and they were not exactly my cup of tea (or cup of chocolate?). Just crispier than my tastes lean, that's all.

But yesterday I noticed a third type of cookie on display at the Jacques Torres. "What is that new type of cookie you are now offering?" I asked the woman who worked there.

"It's a peanut butter cookie with milk and dark chocolate chips," she answered. "But it's not new. You must not have been in here for a while!"

I didn't say this, but what I was thinking was: Really, lady? I run a chocolate blog and I work across the street, and you're telling me I haven't been in here for a while?

What I actually said was, "Okay, I'll eat it."



Here were my thoughts:

1) It was way softer than Jacques Torres' normal chocolate chip cookies, thus fulfilling my dreams. No crispiness here. These are as fluffy as they appear.

2) I don't really need peanut butter in my cookies. They distract from the chocolate. But if you are into peanut butter in cookies, this is an excellent option.

3) I have no need for milk chocolate either, so those milk chocolate bits also felt like a waste of time to me.

4) But the dark chocolate pieces were THE BEST THING EVER.

BOTTOM LINE: On my next Jacques Torres visit, maybe I should just buy a dark chocolate bar and cut out the middleman.

Trader Joe's chocolate-covered peanut butter pretzels

Chocolate-covered peanut butter pretzels are the greatest thing Trader Joe's has ever done. Possibly, they are the greatest thing anyone has ever done, at least at a $3.29 price point. They are exactly the right size, exactly the right mixture of salty and sweet, exactly the right chocolate to peanut butter to pretzel ratio, and exactly the right amount of crispiness. Whenever I bite into one of these, I think to myself, "The world can't be all bad, after all."



BOTTOM LINE: An anytime snack that will fill you with optimism, joy, and peanut butter.