Maile Carpenter
Editor in Chief
@maile__fnmagf you believe you are what you eat, I’d like to direct your attention to
the Girl Scouts’ latest creations: They’re cookies called Lemon-Ups,
and they’re designed to make you feel fantastic about yourself.
Each one is stamped with an inspirational message (“I am bold!”
“I am strong!” “I am creative!”). In the age of girl power, it’s a genius
sales tactic: Nothing says “have another cookie” like a box of cookies
that keep telling you how awesome you are.
Introducing a new cookie is tricky for the Girl Scouts. How can
anything compete with a Thin Mint? I remember being horrified when
new chocolate chunk cookies landed on my troop’s order form in 1982.
They just weren’t part of my sales strategy. I knew which cookies I could
move because my mom was the troop leader, and every year during
cookie season our dining room was filled with the best sellers:
Thin Mints and Samoas, followed by Do-si-dos and Tagalongs,
and, for reasons I’ll never understand, Trefoils.
The Girl Scouts have introduced—and then retired—
about four dozen flavors of cookies and crackers over the
years. Olé Olés (powdered sugar cookies with pecans and
coconut) didn’t stick around for long, nor did Golden
Yangles (cheddar crackers) or Thank U Berry Munch
(might have been the name?).
The classics, though, have held strong for decades, which
led to a staff debate when we were creating a Girl Scout cookie feature
for this issue: Would we dishonor Girl Scout cookie lovers if we
took their favorites, crushed them up and turned them into
entirely different desserts? We decided to turn to our box of
Lemon-Ups for guidance, and the first cookie we pulled out
said “I am gutsy!” So we went for it; the recipes are on
page 25. While we were chopping Thin Mints and Do-si-dos into
unrecognizable bits, though, we decided to leave Lemon-Ups out
of the story. We couldn’t crush that many dreams.I sold enough
cookies in 1980
to earn a
major award:
a patch!
12 FOOD NETWORK MAGAZINE ●MARCH 2020
SASH AND COOKIES: RALPH SMITH; CARPENTER PORTRAIT: TRAVIS HUGGETT.editor’s letter
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