Gorge Yourself on Trollope and Thin Mints

+




= PURE BLISS


At first I was outraged when Martin told me he had bought girl scout cookies--BUT NO THIN MINTS. For me, the girl scouts and thin mints are synonymous. What did he mean, samoas? How could you buy a box from the girl scouts and not buy thin mints? I seethed impatiently as Martin explained. Coconut? Chocolate? I felt increasingly optimistic. They'd be crunchy, of course--I pictured Swedish biscuits. My wrath subsided to a warm bed of cocoa-coated embers.

"Bring home the samoas!" I commanded haughtily.

Later that same day, uniformed girl scouts smiled responsibly at me from the box as I ripped it open and pulled out the plastic tray. Right-ho. I'd not eaten much that day, maybe a pbj and an apple, and I was hungry. It was "secret-nibbly" time: I give the girls a healthy snack like apple slices while I slink around in the shadows, clandestinely shoving dark chocolate into my mouth.

So. Samoas, here we go. The cookies were chewy rings of coconut-stuff with ribbons of chocolate on top.

At first I was disappointed. Having expected an exquisite crunch, my palate encountered a rather waxy, plastic texture instead. But by the second, and the third, I was willing to overlook mere trifles. By dinner I had devoured many, many samoas.

After the girls were tucked in bed, I settled down with a the last half of BBC Trollope-based He Knew He Was Right and a cup of tea. And did I mention--the last half of the samoas. I was, in a reckless, collegiate-like way, determined to consume the rest of the box. I chomped along strongly for a while. The cookies sustained me most of the way through the melodramatic shlock of this Trollope gem.

My tea cup was cold. It was late. But then, there were more cookies, and there were bonus features. The biography on Anthony Trollope proved highly entertaining-- far more interesting, in fact, than the movie itself. What a gem of an old Victorian Trollope was!

I love the way Anthony Trollope wrote, (pocket watch before him), precisely 3000 words per 3 hours, before work, every day. He was beaten constantly as a student and endured a miserable family, but he overcame this Dickinsonian beginning by hard work. He married a good, well-scheduled Victorian woman who tirelessly produced tasty dinners for him every evening and transcribed all his scribbles. Old Trollope also entertained a secret passion for a bold American woman, and so was a bit of a bastardi for all his straight-laced, Victorian ways. But let's not forget that he left many, many, many, many books behind, and even better, instituted the red postal box that is now a standard feature in every proper English town.

What better combination than a cup of tea, a box of scout cookies, and Trollope? But I couldn't finish all the samoas. Too much of a good thing was making me queasy. Like prolific Trollope, like too many girl scout cookies, some things are just better in moderation.

Opa! For a hilarious take on samoas and culture, check out (click on npr) Marc Acito's commentary on npr.

Sources: Photo of Trollope: www.wikipedia.com______G.S. Cookies: http://www.girlscouts.org/program/gs_cookies/cookie_history/