Gentle readers,
Every day is a swaggerific day here at TONY, where the trees grow mojito muddlers, the watercoolers are filled with beaujolais nouveau, and the ground is paved with advance-copy cookbooks. But these last several days have seen an out-of-the-ordinary bounty for Team Eat Out—I speak of none other than Valentine’s Day goodies, which are surprisingly desirable and devoid of gag-inducing cheez.
Exhibit A (top) are the too-cute-to-be-pervy cookies from Patti Page Baked Ideas. (They actually taste good, but why would you eat them when they’re so freakin’ cute?) In the chocolate section, we have some pretty creative packaging from Max Brenner (we don’t love their chocolate, per se, but hey, call us shallow—theirs are the Rose, Love Me Not and Kissing Egg).
From Bouchon Bakery, we were the proud recipients of two heart-shaped cookies, both adorable (not pictured—we ate them—though the white-chocolate iced shortbread with "Kiss Me" written on it was particularly good!); a box of chocolates (ate those, too); and a white chocolate bar dotted with pistachios, dried cherries and apricots, the flip side painted with hearts (pictured—note the missing bite).
Last, we have the Vosges contingent—though the Gatsby Loves Daisy box (with the half-naked pinup) is chock-full of precious touches (notes between the two literary lovebirds, rose petals on each truffle), our bookish side is more taken with the minilibrary of Vosges chocolate bars (tied with the purple ribbon), including the stellar-sounding Barcelona bar with smoked almonds, gray salt and milk chocolate.
Not that we were swayed by the freebies—our print V-Day selections in next week’s issue don’t include any of them. But, in a rare case of unsolicited goods, these were too good not to share.
