“My Country, ’Tis of Thee!!”

Few things inspire my vocal chords to spontaneously burst into patriotic hymn, let alone one warbled in aisle 4 of the Nashville Harris Teeter. But there I was. Thinking I was just going to pick up some ground chuck to throw on the grill, maybe a few marshmallows and graham crackers and…

(Keeps walking.
Registers what she just saw.)

“Sweet Land of Liberty!”

(Double-take.
Stops.
Walks backwards.
Picks up red package.)

In what can only be described as the overdue scandal of all time, space, and alternate universes (universi?) of parallel dimensions, Chewy Chips Ahoy and Oreo-crème have finally come upfront about the not-so-backstage affair that everyone already knew (and secretly hoped) was going on. Well, if these cookies have anything to do with it, it looks like a good day for an affair!

Straight out of the package, the cookie masquerades as any other Chewy might, sporting the tux-and-tails of a squishy, brown-tinted dough with mini milk chocolate chips scattered all about. Filled with flour, corn syrup, and artificial caramel color, that dough has that special plain simplicity that, when combined with that special eau du preservatives, keeps the chew of these cookies soft, cakey, and pliant, allowing it to serve as the prime canvas for the grainy, supersweet, dairy chocolate chips. Sound like any other Chewy Chips Ahoy? You bet. But, like a good pair of cuff links or the internal processor of C-3PO, it’s the hidden details that make the difference.

Behold the stratosphere of Oreo Crème!

The interior of these cookies elicits a state of fear and awe not dissimilar to the sensation of running into Judge Judy on the streets of Paris. The anxiety of the forthcoming sugar coma combined with the craving for the crumbly, semi-solid mass that is Oreo filling is overwhelming. Sure, the frosting’s spread a little thinner than a Double Stuf and maybe it’s a little creamier texture-wise, but just take another look:

Indeed, the Oreo filling is crammed in such a little cookie and operating at its peak performance, holding the familiar heightened sweetness I know so well. And when that creamy hyper-sweetness combines with chocolatey chippers and cakey dough? Such beauty. Such conflict. Such contrast. And, as Judge Judy’s taught us all, there’s a certain respect to be had for the laws of contrast.

I’ve been dwelling on the side of despondency lately. Godzilla was a bust. My socks never get dry at the Laundromat. Many of the Jelly Belly flavors don’t taste good together. So much deep sorrow. How to hold it together?

These Oreo Crème-filled Chips Ahoy. That’s how. These cookies single-handedly amended my deep sorrow better than Hello Kitty Band-Aids on a papercut. Think of what they do to a cup of coffee, a carton of milk, that dripping bowl of ice cream, reminding me that summer is [kinda] here.

Is it freshly baked? Can the cookie be twisted and separated like an Oreo? Does it come with a side of frosting to dip your Oreo-filled cookie in more Oreo filling?? No, no, and no, but that’s not what this cookie’s meant to be. It’s meant to be a sliver of Oreo-crème inside a Chewy Chips Ahoy, and boy does it make me happy.

If you think you like Chewy cookies, you should get these. If you think you don’t like Chewy cookies, you should get these. They’re good. Not mind-blowing, but definitely good. Taste them. Upon consumption, you shall realize there’s nothing to be despondent about. There’s even something worth singing a patriotic hymn in aisle 7 about.

(Nutrition Facts – 2 cookies – 150 calories, 60 calories from fat, 7 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 115 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 13 grams of sugar, and less than 1 gram of protein.)

Item: Nabisco Oreo Creme Filled Chewy Chips Ahoy Cookies
Purchased Price: $3.00
Size: 9.6 oz.
Purchased at: Harris Teeter
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Soft, cakey chew. Mini milk chocolatey chippers. Hyper sweetness from frosting. Hello Kitty Band-Aids. Makes you happy. C-3PO. Running into Judge Judy on the streets of Paris.
Cons: Frosting inside is a bit thin. Cannot twist and separate cookie from frosting. Not fresh out of the oven. Doesn’t come with a dipping tray of Oreo frosting. Papercuts. Not knowing the plural form of “universe.” Socks never getting dry at the Laundromat.

1941: a time of crisis. A time of panic. A time when there was a shortage of All Good Things (flour, butter, sugar, joy). This resulted in a dusty cookie landscape worthy of a B-grade cult horror film. Bakeries left abandoned. Milk glasses untouched. Girl Scout cookies restricted to two boxes per buyer. TWO BOXES.

This all got me thinking: what if this were to happen today? What would I do? How would I survive? Would I be forced to resort to my savage pre-historic instincts? To wrestle, all deranged and googly-eyed, elbowing my way through crowds just to have my pick between Trefoils, Samoas, and Tagalongs???

Struck by a sudden, infinite panic of cookie loss (and without a noble Girl Scout in sight), I sped to my local Target, where I promptly swiped not one but all FOUR new Chips Ahoy! flavors. Basking in my flour/sugar variety, I pulled from the stash the sole cookie that would fill the empty dinosaur in my heart. The dinosaur that craves chocolate and coffee.

A very hungry dinosaur.

Straight from the plastic container, these cookies already promise the quelling of said hunger. A single waft from a freshly opened pack and you enter a wonderland filled with sensory bombardment. Circles! Chips! Dips and dots of chocolate-coffee stuff! Yes, I imagine the smell of these cookies could wipe away the Melancholies from my sad, sad neighbor who never cuts her grass.

But then I tried the dough.

You know that moment in Willy Wonka where Gene Wilder bites his crispy flower cup and sings a sorrowful little ditty? That’s exactly how I felt upon tasting these: the smell of everything I hoped for, now deflated, shuffled in the mix of a poof of very bland dough. It was not brown sugary. Not regular sugary. Not even artificially-sweetened, fake-sugared sugary. Nay, this dough tasted like air. Albeit, slightly soft, soft, chewy, chewy air, but air nonetheless.

Thankfully, there are a few good chips scattered about. The milk chocolate bits are fudgy and milky sweet, adding little pops of hyper-sugary sweetness. Rarer were the mocha chips, which resembled more of a hyper-milked, hotel-room coffee and veered toward overpowering in their Hampton Inn coffee flavor. It was like hoping for a Furi steel blade and getting an off-brand butter knife.

So, yes, I would’ve dug a sharper coffee note and maybe even a crispier, shortbread cookie, but, at the end of the day, these piddly preferences don’t make these morsels any less easy to eat. Indeed, I could eat these on a train. On a plane. On a boat. With a billy goat.

Or as they were destined to be served.

I call this “Untitled Cookie Tower #2.”

While somewhat “meh” on their own, these cookies delivered on their most standard promise: to be chewy, gluten-filled two-bite mocha-chipped mini cakes. I’m not quite sure why the dough demands to be so hum-drum, why there aren’t more chips or darker coffee flavors, or how a cookie inspired by a beverage qualifies it as a Ice Cream Creation, but what’s in a name? At the end of the day, my inner dinosaur is satisfied. Perhaps not frolicking in the daisies, but satisfied. That’ll do, Chips Ahoy, that’ll do.

(Nutrition Facts – 2 cookies – 140 calories, 60 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 85 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 12 grams of sugars, and less than 1 gram of protein.)

Item: Chewy Chips Ahoy! Mocha Chunk Ice Cream Creations
Purchased Price: $2.54
Size: 9.5 oz.
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Soft, soft, chewy, chewy. Tasty chocolate-y chips. Pops of coffee-caramel-ish chips. Smell cures the Melancholies. Reason to create “Untitled Cookie Tower #2.”
Cons: Overall feeling is “Meh.” Bland dough. Weak coffee flavor. The Unofficial 1941 Cookie Crisis. Sad neighbors who never cut their grass. Watching Gene Wilder crunch his coffee cup and get all hum-drum. Angry, unfed tyrannosaurus rex of the soul.

Purchased Price: $2.98
Size: 9.5 oz.
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Divine minty chocolate flavor that’s familiar if you enjoy Andes Crème de Menthe. Wonderful minty chocolate aroma that makes me want to see if any of my Facebook friends have a daughter selling Girl Scout Cookies. The cookies look like they’re rocks from the planet Vrizledor, thanks to the mint green chips and chocolate cookie. The photo below may not make it seem like it, but (almost) every cookie was crammed with mint chips. Crammed with chocolate chips.
Cons: Still prefer Thin Mints over these to satisfy my mint and chocolate cookie cravings, but these will suffice when it’s not Girl Scout Cookie season. They’re not as interesting as the Chips Ahoy Root Beer Float Ice Cream Creations.

Nutrition Facts: 2 cookies – 140 calories, 50 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 2 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 95 milligrams of sodium, 55 milligrams of potassium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.

Purchased Price: $2.98
Size: 9.5 oz.
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Not horrible, not great, just decent. Love that they’re crunchier than regular Chips Ahoy! cookies, thanks to the dulce de leche-flavored chips. Crammed with dulce de leche chips. Being able to say “dulce de leche” without my tongue getting twisted.
Cons: I’m not sure I would consider its flavor to be a definite dulce de leche; it leans more towards a buttery cookie with a light touch of caramel. I wouldn’t consider dulce de leche to be an ice cream creation; perhaps this flavor should’ve been called “Caramel Milkshake.” Just two cookies provide 1/4 of your daily saturated fat intake. Seems like a very tame flavor choice when compared with the root beer float flavor. Won’t buy them again.

Nutrition Facts: 2 cookies – 160 calories, 80 calories from fat, 9 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 2.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 25 milligrams of potassium, 19 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 10 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.

Dear Nabisco and Parent Company Mondelez International,

We here at the Mayo Clinic have been furthering medical science and treating patients for the past 150 years. Our progress through research and education are unparalleled, and our hospital and medical specialties have been consistently lauded and ranked amongst the best healthcare organizations by third party publications. Which is why we are proposing a residency for the scientist who came up with the “Chewy Chips Ahoy! Ice Cream Creations Root Beer Float.” Now, this is a strange request, you may be saying to yourself. Please, first let us tell you what we think of the cookie.

We think it’s wonderful. When the seal is torn off the light blue packaging, a root beer breeze wafts from the tray. It serves as a time machine to the first time in our childhood we had a root beer (or at least the first time we had a root beer-flavored Jelly Belly). The nostalgia extends to the actual taste too, as it resembles something that of a softer, sweeter root beer, such as Mug. There is even a little tingle in the throat as you have obviously harnessed some sort of earthy extract to poke at our uvulas.

The star is the root beer flavor, but the white-colored, vanilla-tasting chips do a great job of being cool and mild, balancing the overall flavor out as well as completing the experience that is “root beer float.” And what look like regular chocolate chips are actually root beer-flavored chips. They add a nice dimension to the texture and burst of root beer taste when each fake chocolate chip pocket is breached. The flavors and texture are probably more balanced and consistent than an actual root beer float, which can be just mouthfuls of either only ice cream or only soda and overall a wet affair.

The cookie texture you have down—you guys are obviously pros and have been perfecting the chewiness for going on thirty years now since the introduction of Chewy Chips Ahoy! cookies. We know it’s a trick, but they’re as soft as warm cookies straight out of the oven. It’s insane. There are a few qualms we have, such as testing our resolve with making such an easy-to-eat cookie. (Question: Why was the doctor jittery and restless? Answer: She didn’t have any patience/patients!). But also, while the root beer flavor is exquisite, it doesn’t come with the carbonation or the mouth feel of a real root beer, and our brains keep telling us this is not real. It makes the experience a bit chemically, but we think that is out of your hands, Nabisco.

The distribution of chips is also a bit uneven. While no cookie in the bag was bad (yes we ate the whole bag—with some tea in the break room), some cookies are chock full of the sweet morsels and the experience between an average one and an above average one is discernible. Lastly, get rid of the packaging. The bright, electric blue doesn’t make us hungry for cookies. Stick with earth tones please. (Question: Why was the doctor jittery and restless? Answer: She just worked a double shift and a guy died!)

Whoever came up with this idea and executed it was an outside thinker. He or she looked to the future while being informed by the past and that kind of thing is exactly what we want on Team Healthcare, so we would love to offer him or her a position on our team.

“But cookies aren’t saving lives,” you say. Well to that we respond, did you think a ragtag team of oil drillers couldn’t save our planet from an oncoming asteroid? Stop being so closed-minded, because I don’t want to miss a thang. “It wasn’t even one person,” you say, “It was a team of marketing people and a food scientist.” Nabisco, we are the Mayo Clinic. We can do things. Have you ever seen that movie the Fly? We can smush your team of marketers and one food scientist into a single mutant monstrosity that collects one paycheck from us. Don’t worry about it.

Just send everyone involved with this project over. And while you’re at it, send over a box of Triscuits. Send ten. Or we’ll release the airborne genital warts. “Airborne genital warts?” you ask. You know what? You’re going down, Nabisco. Consider this a warning shot. The Mayo Clinic now officially backs cookie mogul the Girl Scouts. (Question: Why was the doctor jittery and restless? Answer: She just stole some Ritalin to self-medicate but hasn’t taken it yet.)

Cordially yours,

The Mayo Clinic

Rochester, Minnesota

(Nutrition Facts – 140 calories, 60 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 95 milligrams of sodium, 20 milligrams of potassium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and less than 1 gram of protein.)

Item: Nabisco Chewy Chips Ahoy! Root Beer Float Ice Cream Creations
Purchased Price: $2.99 (on sale)
Size: 9.5 oz.
Purchased at: D’Agostinos
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Chewy. Root beer-y. Easy to eat—less wet, sticky than actual root beer float. Chips give good balance to cookie. Goes wonderfully with tea or coffee.
Cons: Ate a whole bag in two sittings. (Liar) One sitting. Some cookies are better than others. Could be chemically off putting to some. /p>