My relationship with the Whistler’s Own Bakeshop is a love-hate one.
Who doesn’t love a Ménage à Trois? Now get your head out of the gutter. This threesome brings intertwines dark, milk and white chocolate into one hippie cookie with organic flour and free run eggs and such. That’s right. This cookie’s ingredients can be read by a seven year old and you’ll be gobbling these chewy, crisp little rounds of heaven like one as well.
You can get these locally made cookies in both large and small. Large sold individually for $2-$3ish or small sold in a package for $5.99.
Now I come to the hate part of this bakery. These cookies are so, so good, that more often than not, Nesters runs out of the package variety (because one, even a large one, is never enough).
I came in specifically one day for the organic chocolate chip. I don’t know if many would constitute your favourite chocolate shop shutting down as a traumatic event, but for me, I was searching out comfort to numb the knowing that the chocolatier, my love of my life, would be no more.
So Whistler’s Own Bakeshop was my rebound, but really it deserves more than that, and I have a feeling that this late night fling of cookies and tea might turn into something more.
But as I reached the dessert table at Nesters, there wasn’t a cookie package in sight. As I spun around searching out some unsuspecting stock boy to preach the perils of depriving a chocolate-crazed woman from her favourite cookie, it hit me.
I could hear the choir and angels blowing their flutes as a light from above shone down like the second coming. There in the glow of fluorescent lights was the Supreme Being — Whistler’s Own Bakeshop artisan cookie dough!
All was right with the world again. I could have Whistler’s Own Bakeshop cookies whenever I liked now. I could eat them piping hot with chocolate melting all over my fingers, and best of all, I could impress friends with my great “baking skills” — as long as I remembered to put the oven timer on.
Other cookies to look forward to include the gluten-free chocolate pecan, wheat-free gotcha, Darwin — A Product of Natural Selection, and the Carpalpedalspasm Chocolate Gingersnap.
Whistler baker extraordinaire Claudine also bakes bars, breads and muffins found around other local joints including Behind the Grind, Blenz, Creekside Market, Esquires, IGA, Pasta Lupino, and more.
Why have a muffin when you can have cake? Same, same, but different really. Same goes for bars and cookies. While the bar might seem like the healthier alternative, all of that honey, dried fruit and sometimes chocolate stacks up just the same on your thighs, so why not go for the sweeter choice?
Alpine Bakery and Catering got me singing a different tune as a frantic food run with wallet forgotten at home and only a handful of change dug out from behind my car seats and under floor mats left me with $1.75 for lunch.
My eyes darted left and right at the bakery case and the counter figuring out what would stick to my ribs to get me through the next four hours and cost the equivalent of a one-way trip into Whistler Village.
I picked up the energy bar. Seemed like a likely suspect — energy written right into the name and it felt heavy in my hand, so I hoped it would do the same in my stomach.
I have no idea what they put in those things, but it solved my hunger and change problem and, dare I say it, it tasted as good as I might assess eating cookie dough (haven’t died from eating those raw eggs yet). Love these bars and they come in two sizes. One small one, or two small ones, depending on what your conscious will allow.
Dining for a cause
More than 2,500 restaurants from Whistler to White Rock participate each year in Dining Out For Life, which raises funds for AIDS charities. Participating restaurants donate 25 per cent of food receipts on a single day to two charities. That day is Thursday, March 29.
Friends for Life and A Loving Spoonful are the two charities aiding people who are suffering or have come into contact with AIDS.
More than $2 million is raised each year for these great causes from all over North America thanks to Dining Out For Life.
Restaurants participating in Whistler and Squamish include BBK's Pub, Ciao Thyme Bistro, Elements Urban Tapas Parlour, Hy's Steakhouse Whistler, Kypriaki Norte, La Rúa Restaurante (Whistler) and North Beach Lounge & Grill (Squamish).
For more information, visit diningoutforlife.com.
