Food for Thought

Located in this grand city of Naples, Florida is a market/restaurant called Food and Thought.  F&T offers a variety of Organic items in both market and restaurant form.  Even though I am a Neapolitan, I can say that I have never visited F&T.  Why you ask?  Well, no reason really.  I just simply never have gone.  I have also never had an item from either the market or restaurant.  That was until I tried my first item last week – a cookie.  Acquired via my boss at work, I was excited to not only try this cookie but, write the review to follow.

Now, this cookie contained no description as to what kind it was.  At first look, I could see shredded pieces of carrots, a white shredded substance, walnuts and chocolate chips.  And, it looked somewhat oaty.  I don’t recall ever having a cookie before that contained carrot pieces.  I was quite intrigued and brought the cookie home to try.

I removed this cookie from the plastic wrap and examined it more closely.  It was very heavy, moist and did not have any strong smells.  I broke the cookie into a few pieces and examining the cross-section, I received confirmation of the elements I was expecting.  I observed shredded pieces of carrots, coconut, oats, walnuts and chocolate chips – very interesting.  Going into the first bite, I was totally blind and had absolutely no idea what to expect.  Carrots?  Really?  I bit the bullet and placed that first piece in my mouth.

Whatever my inner-self was expecting to taste, was totally not what I tasted.  The first bite I had did not contain any chocolate chips or walnuts.  The best way to describe it was weird.  The consistency of this cookie was unlike anything I have ever had before.  I could feel the shredded pieces within my mouth as I was chewing the cookie.  While it was indeed very moist, I felt as if the cookie itself was also very dry.  As I continued to eat the cookie, and had pieces with walnuts and/or chocolate chips, the dryness was quite improved.

Moist and dry at the same time really baffled me.  I continued to eat the cookie and found myself having a problem deciding if I liked it or not.  Even though I could taste the shredded pieces of carrots & coconut, I did not feel as if the cookie itself really tasted like this.  There were some oats visible yet, the cookie didn’t really taste like oats either.  The only flavor I could really taste from the visible ingredients was the chocolate chips.  The chips were of the semi-sweet variety, soft and chewy.  The bites containing the chocolate chips, provided me with bursts of flavor over a rather unflavored cookie.  I did also get some flavors from the walnuts.  While the walnuts were not very crunchy, I could taste the familiar solid taste of them.

There were no flavors of sugar or spices at all from this cookie.  I can say hands down, that I have never experienced this phoneme with any cookie I have ever had before.  Odd?  Well of course it was odd.  Still, I had no problem eating this entire cookie constantly searching for the missing flavors.  Did I find them?  No I did not.  Food for Thought this was indeed.

Even though this cookie had no real flavors to speak of, aside from the walnuts & chocolate chips, at least it did not have strange flavors that I could not place.  I could taste the consistency of the ingredients just not their taste.  Would I have picked out this cookie on my own?  Well, probably not.  But, I am glad that I got to try it.  Even though there were no real flavors to speak of, this cookie was not all that bad.  I will never have to have one again, but the missing flavors have left me with an unsolved riddle.  At least I got my Food for Thought from the place simply known as, Food and Thought.