The Newest Girl Scout Cookie Is Terrible
+ A semi-definitive ranking of the rest of the GSC line-up.
Dear Friends,
Happy Friday and welcome back to The Crunchwrap!
This is a short week, so we’ve got a shorter Crunchwrap. But what it lacks in length it makes up for in utter foolishness.
First Crunch
My household was eager to try the newest Girl Scout cookie offering (Adventurefuls), so we ordered them along with our old standbys—Thin Mints for the freezer and Tagalongs for the first 48 hours after the cookies arrive.
Listen, I know the Girl Scouts have a noble mission and they don’t bake the cookies themselves, but these new Adventurefuls—described in web/box copy as an indulgent brownie-inspired cookie with caramel-flavored crème and a hint of sea salt—are terrible. Dry, chalky, underwhelming. I don’t care for them!
Over at The Washington Post, Emily Heil wrote about the new cookie’s fixture within the ongoing supply-chain mess, which has kept unlucky households in the Mid-Atlantic region from issuing scorching hot cookie takes like mine:
“As you know our nation is experiencing supply chain issues related to the pandemic,” read the message from the product program team at the [Girl Scout] Nation’s Capitol region…The organization apparently will be able to fulfill Adventurefuls orders that customers had placed with individual scouts, but said there were not enough boxes on hand to meet the orders for the booths that many troops operate outside grocery and other retail stores, or to stock “cupboards” where troops can refresh their supplies.
And frankly, America is better for it! Feh.
For what it’s worth, Heil, who managed to secure a box, offered a slightly different take on Adventurefuls, calling them “a flavor worth seeking out” and “much crispier than we had expected, given that their muse was a brownie.”
Look, you don’t have to be wearing a trefoil hat to read between the lines here; this is the faintest possible praise! No one wants to be the bearer of bad cookie reviews, especially when sold by adorable empowered children (like the one who sold us ours), but here at The Crunchwrap, we don’t shy away from courting enormous controversy.
Accordingly, here is our semi-definitive ranking of the Girl Scouts Cookieverse:
For those of you boiling up with rage, please know that I did catch some flak both online and offline for not adequately bending my knee before the mighty Samoa cookie. Following this rankings release, I received a piece of hate mail from a Samoa partisan, asking to explain myself.
Here’s my reasoning: While I enjoy and respect Samoas, the speed at which they go stale and the fact that you can only eat a few of them each sitting FOR ME bumps them below Tagalongs and Thin Mints, which are reliably delicious enough to be housed by the row or sleeve.
Here was his response:
“I'm sorry, Mr. Proust, but we rank on crushability here, so while your one book is delightful, we're going to go ahead with Dan Brown after all.” Listen to yourself, man. Although I will admit that the staleness is a problem. But when you open the box, and eat the two -- three max -- cookies you can possibly consume before contemplating the abyss, there's nothing like it. So you may end up in a long-term relationship with Thin Mints, but you know it's your Samoan beauty you're thinking about late at night when you're all alone.
Food for thought, I guess. If you haven’t deleted this email already and have feelings about it, please reply with your thoughts on this Most Vital Cookie Debate.
Video Break
Gary Chambers, Jr., who is running for Louisiana’s Senate seat, released an ad this week about the abiding damage of marijuana prohibition in America. As political ads go, it’s smart, memorable, and absolutely worth your time:
Snack of the Week: Not Adventurefuls
Nu, what else?
This on the life and career of André Leon Talley will gut and inspire you.
This review/consideration from Laura Marsh about the world’s most famous spy novelist: “[T]he young writer liked ‘John le Carré’—simple, elegant, a little French. But his publishers urged him to try a name that sounded more hard-hitting, with an American flavor: ‘Hank Brown’ or ‘Chunk Smith.’”
Melinda Fakuade on the irritating development that Mars has decided to inject more emotional nuance into its M&M characters.
That’s it for this week’s Crunchwrap! Stay safe out there.
Love,
Adam