Food I Eat, Part 2

Do you know about black and white cookies? I didn't, not until I moved to New York. And, like pandas, Obama, Bob Marley and me, they are excellent.

Your first black and white can be sort of surprising because you bite down expecting cookie and end up with cake. When done right, they are lovely, spongy things, almost like madeleines. The icing satisfies not one but two cravings and overlaps down the middle in a thick strip, chocolate and vanilla laid right on top of each other with a why-the-hell-not bravado.

The only problem with black and whites is that they can easily go bad. The homemade, local bakery kind get stale after a day, and the prepackaged bodega kind have the chemically aftertaste of Twinkies. The white icing can get too hard, the black icing can melt too easily. The baker can try to trick up the cake and throw in orange peel or some other impurity. There are just so many ways it can go wrong.

Luckily, I'm not alone in my quest for the perfect black and white. Jordan Cooper, of the Black and White Cookie Review, also struggles against poor black and white quality control. It was through him that I learned about The Black and White Cookie Company, a place in upstate New York that will ship you very delicious and even seasonally-themed black and whites for more money than you'd think.

Big ups Jordan. I can only hope that, someday, your respect and admiration for the mulatto baked good will be shared by all.