More Cupcakes!

A few days ago, Mel emailed me to tell me a critical piece of information: the Boston Globe has updated the list of cupcake shops in Boston to try. Mel and I are extremely dedicated questers, so this means we have no choice but to try these new places. When I replied to her email I told Mel that for the sake of QUESTING:Boston, we had to ingest massive amounts of sugar. We simply could not call ourselves true questers without continuing to conduct our cupcake research.

Now, the cookie quest is not yet complete, so trying out these cupcake shops is in addition to our ongoing quest. As Mel and I are experts, we think that we can handle two quests going simultaneously. Sidenote: Now that moot court is coming to end, I will have more free time to quest, which my sweet-tooth will appreciate, but my wallet and waistline may not.

Accordingly, look forward to blog posts about the follow cupcake places.

Monumental Cupcakes at JP Art Market

Isabelle's Curly Cakes

Lulu's Sweet Shop

And because Mel and I loved the original cupcake quest so much, we may use this as an excuse to return to two of our favorite places, Sugar Cupcakes and Kickass Cupcakes.

Crema: Best Accidental Quest Ever

Today is kday's birthday, so this post is going to be partly about Crema and partly about my terrific questing partner in crime, who is currently at her moot court competition in New York.

On Sunday, kday and I decided to go quest. At 5:00 p.m., after I had spent all day working at school and she had been mooting all afternoon, she came up to my office. She told me it was time to put down the Bluebook and eat some cookies. She said we could either go to High Rise Bakery in Harvard Square or one of the places downtown. I felt pressed for time and stressed about the coming week, so told her I wanted to go to the one in Harvard Square because we could drive and park and it wouldn't take as long as messing around with the T. We drove to Harvard and immediately upon arriving in Harvard Square, found The Best Parking Spot On The Planet. If you've ever driven to Harvard Square, you know that this simply does not happen. Even better, we didn't have to feed the meter. My stress began to melt.

We walked to High Rise Bakery, which sits just off the square on Brattle Street, and it was closed. Did my questing buddy or I think to check the hours? Of course not. Coffee shops are always open, right? But High Rise seems to be an actual bakery - the kind where flour-covered men come to work at 4:00 a.m. to bake actual loaves of bread - and so I guess their clientele really aren't the 6:00 p.m.-on-a-Sunday-cookie-quester type of people. 

This photo is from www.cremacambridge.com, obviously.
When we were there it was cold and dark, but the cafe was
all lit up and cozy looking. 

But kday was not to be quest-busted. We walked into Burdick's, home of the most delicious hot chocolate on the planet and lots of very fancy looking pastries, but no cookies. (Pats self on back for exercising restraint and not buying nine cups of hot chocolate). We walked into some weird vegan place, but no cookies. I got out my iphone. We googled "best bakery in Harvard Square" and came up with a list of places. Crema Cafe was about a block from where we were standing and we decided to give it a go. We got to Crema and were delighted - not only did they have chocolate cookies, but they also had seating and a pretty cozy coffee shop vibe. We purchased our cookie ($1.75!) and sat down in 2 empty seats at a large communal table. 

I took this one but no, those aren't our espresso cups. 

Crema was started in Cambridge for Cambridgeans, that much is clear - the menu contains walnut aoli and fancy PB&J, among other Cambridgey things. On their website they state that they wanted to create a "third place" between home and work where people could go and "meet, chat, sip, read, write, watch, think, taste and enjoy" in between all the other obligations in life. We sat there and did all of those things for about an hour. We caught up on what had been going on in both of our lives, talked about The Impending End Of Law School, and did a little bit of good old fashioned gossiping. We went on a secret  side quest right afterwards, which involved several fits of giggles. 

The cookie at Crema was delicious - very buttery, crispy on the outside and rather cakey on the inside, with milk chocolate chips throughout. It was a healthy size, perfect for sharing. But the real delight of this quest was that it exemplified the reasons we started questing in the first place. First, we were both stressed at the beginning of the quest - me with my Bluebook, she with her mooting - and put it aside to spend part of the evening together.  Second, when our quest didn't go according to plan, we found a terrific new spot that we will certainly go back to. Third, we spent longer than we thought we would chatting and catching up, suddenly oblivious to the stress that could have derailed the quest earlier on. Fourth, the evening ended in fits of giggles. 

So on your birthday, kday, I want to thank you. Thank you for telling me to put down the Bluebook and quest with you every week. Thank you for being someone I can tell my secrets to. Thank you for making law school more bearable. Thank you for giggling with me. Next year, when I have to continue Questing Boston all by myself, I will think of you all the time and miss you a lot.

Happy Birthday to the best questing buddy on the planet! 

Kilvert & Forbes: Barely Baked Brilliance

Getting into Quincy Market is a challenge, there's no doubt about it. First, there's usually some acrobatic group or mime on stilts or untalented group of middle schoolers playing brass instruments in front. Giant groups of people inexplicably stop to watch whatever it is that's going on, even though they don't really want to. It's best to stick out your elbows and push through these people because they're generally tourists and aren't in the same rush that you're in to get into the market. They must not know all the delicious stuff that's in there, because I have no idea why any reasonable person would rather watch a very quiet man on stilts than eat cookies and clam chowder and lobster rolls. Even if you successfully get into the market, you still have to get past the slow moving crowd that congregates around Starbucks. Despite the fact that these tourists ought to be properly caffeinated and a little quicker than the mime-watching tourists, they are still very, very slow. But it's okay, because you can see the beacon that marks your destination:

Cue the harp music, it's Kilvert & Forbes Bakeshop. Now, the Forbes part of Kilvert & Forbes refers to John Forbes Kerry, Massachusetts' esteemed senator, relatively awkward presidential candidate, and co-star of the best Jib Jab video ever.   In 1976, Senator Kerry was practicing law, which he apparently found "quite predictable and very boring." He thought that owning a bakery would make things better and so he and his business partner opened a bakery in Quincy Market, named it after their mothers, and ta-da! Kilvert & Forbes was born. Their sweets were baked according to family recipes and apparently, the new owners (Maggie's Sweets) still use them to this day.

Now. Senator Kerry. I was dismayed to hear that you think being a lawyer is predictable and boring. Kday and I have been promised thrilling adventures and epic suspense by our respective future employers, so we're not sure what you're talking about. *Cough* [Reconsiders career plan]...

We do, however, agree with you on one crucial point: COOKIES ARE A GREAT IDEA. Always. More to the point, Senator Kerry, your mom really knew her stuff when it came to cookie baking. Look at this spread! Now, I have to confess. I have been a Kilvert & Forbes cookie monster since before I moved to Boston. Every time I came up from New York (the other place where they keep all my favorite foods), I would purchase an M&M cookie. Indeed, this cookie quest was directly influenced by my desire to see what other cookie magic Boston had up its sleeve. At any rate, our chocolate chip cookie was delicious. We took it to my house, where we shared it with Drew.

It had a very nutty flavor, as though it had been baked on a pan that had just held some of the walnut cookies, all of which had a truly spectacular amount of walnuts on them (in a "would you like some cookie with your walnuts" kind of way). The chocolate chip cookie was oh-so-perfectly baked, soft and bendy in the middle and crispy on the outside. I still prefer the M&M cookies to the chocolate chip cookies (and certainly to the low fat options that Maggie and her misguided friends have introduced to the shop - ptooie!) but the chocolate chip cookie was still excellent. At $3.25, it was a bit expensive, but it was giant and easily shareable so that made up for it.

Moral of the story: If you are in Quincy Market, be sure you shove past the tourists and get yourself a cookie at Kilvert & Forbes. Tourists leave Boston, but cookies are forever.

Boston Chipyard: Cookies We All Can Make

Two Fridays ago, Melanie and I set out to Faneuil Hall for what was going to be one of our most epic quests ever. Our plan involved not one, not two, but three cookie shops in one outing. There were two reasons why we were feeling so ambitious. First, Faneuil Hall is far away from where we live, so it just seemed the most convenient to do all the cookie shops there in one outing. Second, we did double-features for cupcakes, and we are always looking to one-up ourselves, so doing three in one evening seemed like the next logical thing to do.

Upon getting to Faneuil Hall, we first bought a cookie from Kilvert and Forbes. Melanie will write a full post about that extremely delicious cookie shortly. We then set out for the Boston Chipyard. Tucked away in the back of Faneuil Hall is this cookie shop. After trying to purchase 3 chocolate chip cookies (we were being thoughtful and buying one for Mel's husband), we learned that you can only buy them by the half dozen or dozen. So we got 3 chocolate chip cookies, 1 oatmeal chocolate chip, 1 peanut butter chocolate chip, and 1 double chocolate cookie.

We then set out for the third cookie shop, only to find that it was closed. With our three-cookies-in-one-night plan foiled, we set out back into the cold to Mel's apartment where we ate dinner and then began enjoying our cookies.

Quite simply, the Boston Chipyard is selling something that you don't have to buy. The bite-sized cookies had a crunchy texture and just weren't that delicious. After taking one bite, I said "this tastes like something that came out of my oven, and that I overcooked." Now, I'm not a terrible cook, but I'm not trying to make my living selling cookies. If law school doesn't work out, I guess I could consider this career change....But right now, that is neither here nor there. I don't want to spend money on something I could make. As Mel and I discussed these mediocre cookies, Mel yelled "there's only one chip!!" I looked at her, and she held the evidence in her hand. There was only a single chocolate chip in Mel's cookie. That is completely unacceptable. A good chocolate chip cookie has the correct ratio or cookie to chocolate, and a single chocolate chip is just insufficient.

If you're in Faneuil Hall and craving some sweets, you can skip the Boston Chipyard. It's not worth the caloric intake. Instead, walk over to Kilvert and Forbes and buy a much larger, more delicious, and more unhealthy cookie there that is worth all the calories.

The Chocolate Chip Cookie: A Bit of History

The epically snowy winter is putting a damper on our questing but never fear, loyal followers. We'll be back at it once there is no longer a blizzard every week (literally). In the meantime, I thought I would research the chocolate chip cookie.

We got the idea for this quest from this website, which lists the 50 Most Fattening Foods in the 50 States. The chocolate chip cookie is the most fattening food in the Commonwealth (at least according to these people) and I've got to say that alongside things like "livermush" (made of pig head parts, from North Carolina), Eskimo Ice Cream (involving reindeer fat and seal oil, from Alaska), and the "Luther Burger" (donuts + meat, from Georgia), Massachusetts made one of the better contributions to the American waistline. Sidenote: My home state of New Mexico contributed frito pie to the list, which would make a really great quest. At any rate, look at the slideshow. It will make you want to brush your teeth and go to the gym.

Back to the quest at hand.

The Toll House Inn 

The chocolate chip cookie is a "drop cookie," as distinguished from molded cookies, pressed cookies, etc. It was invented, like most delicious things, by accident. Ruth Wakefield owned the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts and she stumbled upon the recipe one day. There are conflicting accounts of her motivations (thanks, Wikipedia). One story, propagated by Nestle, indicates that she was trying to make chocolate cookies and ran out of baker's chocolate. She substituted broken pieces of chocolate and hoped they would melt into the dough and, voila, the chocolate chip cookie was born. She apparently sold the recipe to Nestle in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate chips (good cook, bad businesswoman). Story #2 gives Wakefield more credit as a cook - she was already the author of a cookbook and no stranger to the melting properties of chocolate, and would never have thought they would melt into the dough. Apparently, the "accident" occurred when the vibrations of a mixer caused a bag of chocolate to fall into a batch of cookie dough and only the protestations of a savvy employee (obviously the source of story #2) kept Wakefield from tossing the whole batch into the garbage. Either way, Toll House Cookies were born. GIs asked for them in care packages, people wrote letters to Wakefield asking for the recipe, and the national chocolate chip cookie craze began with a bang. Then we all got fat, which brings me to the 1990s.

In 1997, a third grade class from Somerset, Massachusetts proposed that the Commonwealth adopt the chocolate chip cookie as the official state cookie. The legislature, after many long hours of debate and tastings, obliged. The state beverage (cranberry juice), state bean (Navy), state dessert (Boston Cream Pie), state donut (Boston Cream), and state muffin (corn) welcomed the chocolate chip cookie into the fold.

And here we are! Questing for the official state cookie of Massachusetts is a fitting final quest for kday and I, who will soon part ways (she will take up residence in the home of the BLT and I will stay here and continue eating my way through Boston). We are excited for our adventure, which will include a day of face-stuffing at Fanieul Hall, where Boston keeps many, many cookies (including John Kerry's favorite) so stay tuned!