Punctuated/Flickr

Girl Scout Cookies

​The Girl Scout Cookie season is just about to start, an annual event to which some of us look forward with more anticipation and excitement than Christmas. If you were not lucky enough to have a co-worker waving around Girl Scout Cookie order forms at the office last month, and you're loath to scan the entrance of every grocery store for the telltale green columns of Thin Mints, try, instead, the 21st-century solution to that 20th-century problem: the Cookie Locator App, available as a free download for your iPhone and Android-based device.

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ProfessorSalt.com

Trader Joe's Cookie Butter, before they ran out last year

​If you've never experienced the creamy, crackalicious wonder that is Trader Joe's Cookie Butter, it might be because the shipment imported late last year caught on like wildfire. It's been sold out since before the end-of-year holidays, in fact. We confirmed with the Monrovia store location nearest the company's headquarters that TJ's cookie butter is back in stock as of today.

Your local Trader Joe's store might not have it yet -- we called around and some locations weren't yet aware that the warehouse has it. If that's the case at your local TJ's, the Monrovia store manager we spoke with says each store must manually request a fresh supply from the distribution center -- apparently it won't just show up automatically.

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Guzzle & Nosh

Lakers gingerbread cookies.

​Maybe nothing would have dried the tears of Lakers fans after that 88-87 opening day loss to the Bulls, but least these gingerbread men would have soothed their bellies -- while putting some cash in the coffers of a worthwhile charity. The gingerbread cookies were part of a special holiday menu available at Staples Center only on opening day. They cost $1 each with 100% of the proceeds going to the Laker Youth Foundation. Just don't toss any of your hardened, leftover cookies at Pau Gasol.

Sad about missing out on the purple and gold gingerbread men? You can still get Lakers-themed cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery.

D. Gonzalez

Not your usual plate of Porto's: Dulce de Leche Kisses

​There are always certain points a holiday parties. The point at which someone has had just enough to drink to say something catty about the person who just happens to be standing right behind them. Then there is the point of the party when someone walks in carrying those distinctive yellow boxes. The sign that the Porto's has arrived.

Is it a box of potato balls? Those guava filled refugiados? Maybe cheese rolls? When we are bearer of those coveted bakery boxes, while we make sure to bring those pastries that Porto's Bakery is most well known for, we also include our own favorite: the dulce de leche Kiss cookie.

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Whipped Bakeshop

The Special Edition Ron Swanson Cookie Set.

​We didn't think anyone could love Ron Swanson more than we do. We were wrong. Philadelphia bakery Whipped Bakeshop created a Special Edition Ron Swanson Cookie Set featuring vanilla shortbread cookies inspired by everyone's favorite character from Parks and Recreation.

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Flickr/Wonderlane

Make sure you cook your cookies

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Last week we reported on a new study that implicated raw chocolate chip cookie dough as the cause of a large outbreak of E. coli in 2009. Researchers said it was the first time an outbreak of food poisoning caused by the dangerous Shiga toxin-producing E. coli has been traced to store-bought, ready-to-bake cookie dough. The outbreak, between March and July 2009, sickened at least 80 people across 30 states, 35 of whom had to be hospitalized.

Now new data suggests the culprit in the sickenings was not contaminated raw eggs, as many suspected, but instead the flour used in the mixtures, according to researcher Dr. Karen Neil, a medical epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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jgarbee

Gingerbread Houses At Monaco Baking

​Already convinced yourself there's no time left to make beautiful iced cookies before your self-inflicted holiday "deadline" date? Sorry to disappoint, but as we learned from Philip Moreau, owner of the wholesale cookie company Monaco Baking in Santa Fe Springs (known online as Cookie Gallery retail), it's all about how you approach the decorating side of the equation. He's gotten "speed decorating" down to a science (let's hope no reality TV execs are reading this). And damn it, those cookies look better than most that we've spent hours on.

Moreau's factory produces (very quickly) millions of hand-iced cookies and gingerbread houses each year for everyone from Williams-Sonoma to Harry & David, with Neiman Marcus couture mark-ups and Home Shopping Network discount deals in between. Talk about brilliant marketing -- everything is handmade from the same dough. Capitalist cookies at their finest, if you will. Get speed decorating tips from Moreau after the jump.

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Guzzle & Nosh

Christmas cookies: delicious but dangerous when unbaked.

​In the midst of the Christmas cookie season, it's important to remember one thing: Don't eat unbaked cookie dough. That's the upshot of a recent report published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

After a 2009 multistate outbreak of E. coli was traced to ready-to-bake commercial prepackaged cookie dough, scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took a closer look at the stuff. They reached two key conclusions: 1) manufacturers should consider reformulating their cookie doughs to make them safe as ready-to-eat products and 2) consumers need to know about the risks of consuming unbaked goods.

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Christie's

104-year-old cookie

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A 104-year-old cookie from explorer Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expedition was sold today for £1,250 (about $1949) at an auction at Christie's in London.

The cookie, made specifically for the Nimrod Expedition (1907-1909), is a Huntley & Palmers biscuit that measures 3 inches (7.7 cm.) in diameter and is fortified with milk protein. No word on how it tastes -- stale, presumably -- after all these years.

The sale price was £250 (~$390) short of the highest estimate. Perhaps, not many people want a century-old cookie.

J. Ritz

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While switching from a career in painting conservation to macaron baking isn't exactly included in Myers Briggs-based matrices, it was a natural progression for Claire Becker. And reminds the rest of us that you never know what skills will translate seamlessly to other professions.

At least this proved to be the case for Paris-to-L.A. transplant Becker, who with her husband, Bernard, founded Les Macarons Duverger, a homegrown macaron business. (Duverger is Claire's maiden name, and the company's logo is inspired by her family's coat of arms.) Having noticed a growing demand among local fans of this French confection, along with room in the market for a stellar product that's also largely organic and entirely all natural, the Beckers are slowly increasing production of their line. This is a very lucky thing for the rest of us.

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