Bad Cookie Marriages

Some people just can't leave well enough alone. Oatmeal cookies are wonderful. So are chocolate chip cookies. But someone came along many years ago and decided to marry the two cookies. Presto: oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies.

Oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies aren't bad, but they aren't nearly as good as each of those cookies by themselves.

And I've encountered other cookie combos that make no sense to me. I bit into a cookie on a tray at my workplace the other day, thinking it was an oatmeal cookie. No such luck. It was an oatmeal-peanut butter cookie. Ugh. Boy, was that terrible.

I love homemade butterscotch icebox cookies, but now I see that someone has created an oatmeal-combo recipe for them.

Do you like molasses cookies? They happen to be my favorite. But even they're being tampered with. Someone has created a recipe for peanut butter-molasses cookies. That sounds positively revolting.

There's even a banana-oatmeal-chocolate chip recipe lurking out there. Are they kidding me?

Food for the Festivities

The December holidays are hard to separate from the foods and confections they've inspired through the years. And so I offer you the following:

* The Los Angeles Times insists that it just wouldn't be a Hanukkah party without fried foods.

* This article from the Washington Post provides a host of Christmas cookie recipes, from German chocolate cookies to blue cheese-walnut cookies.

* If you really want to go traditional, check out these recipes for plum pudding.

This Cookie Crumbles

In the past few years, a few diet gurus have gained traction by pushing a new weight-loss concept based around eating cookies.

One of those diets, Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet, has been around since the 1970s. His website touts a "secret amino acid protein blend" as the vehicle for weight loss.

This recent N.Y. Times article examined these diets and their claims. The theory behind these diets is that high-protein foods curb hunger. Yet, according to the Times, none of these cookie diets is supported by a clinical study. No surprise there.