Heaven help me Hope's Cookies

I’m often asked what my favorite dessert is. Which is next to impossible to answer. There are just so many amazing possibilities. It depends on my mood, my company, the time of the day, the season… it’s complicated business, this sweets obsession.

Unless we’re talking about cookies. Then it’s frighteningly easy and clear. Cookies are my favorite.

But then the question becomes, what kind?

You can never go wrong with a classic chocolate chip cookie, but then sometimes you’re confronted with an amazing selection of omigod options.

Like I was at Hope’s Cookies inside Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market.

From chocolate raspberry to caramel pecan…

Oatmeal raisin to apricot almond….

Peanut butter to snickerdoodles…

I have to say, they looked so over-the-top ridiculous that I had low expectations. But I was blown away.

Each cookie was moist, sugary and buttery.



Every flavor was unique.


They were generously sized but not obscene.


And, well, I’m in trouble. Because I now know that Hope’s delivers.

Best snickerdoodle in New York City

Thank goodness I read. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have seen the wee write-up in New York, which revealed the opening of Peels. And then I wouldn’t have walked into this deliciousness.


Each morning, everything is baked up fresh at the new café, the second act from Freemans owners Taavo Somer and Will Tigertt.

Circular brownies, I sampled. Oh, so fudgy.

I think I chocolate-breaded myself out a few days earlier; otherwise, I would have been all over this chocolate ginger banana bread.

Raspberry and peach cobbler. I can only imagine with those big, fluffy biscuits…

The monkey bread. Seeing the mascarpone label now and wondering why the heck I didn’t go for it.

And my champ, the snickerdoodle.

It’s buttery and sugary and cinnamon-y. All melded together in this oversized crater of a cookie.


I had the chocolate chip cookie, too, which was also nice and buttery; chewy at the edges with plenty of melty chocolate flecks.

But, really, it was all about the snickerdoodle.

Get after it.

325 Bowery at Second Street

Momo’s gonna knock you out

I have to admit: the fawning over David Chang bugs me (Eater). Maybe it’s because I don’t eat pork butt or because I think other NYC chefs are worthy of half the buzz that’s devoted to him. But, man oh man, am I whistling a new tune with his new bakery, dangerously located 250 paces from my apartment.

Fresh bread, cinnamon buns and “volcanoes”—savory treats exploding with gruyere, bacon and caramelized onions—are only half the story.

The three-layer cakes (pistachio, dulce de leche, chocolate chip!) dwarf the super thin pies (brownie pie, blondie pumpkinpie, crack pie!).

And then there are the cookies: double chocolate, corn, peanut butter, snickerdoodles (how I love these unsung heroes – and Momofuku’s are slightly undercooked, so they’re super doughy), blueberry cream, cornflake marshmallow chocolate chip, and the compost cookie: an obscene combination of chocolate and butterscotch chips, pretzels and coffee grounds.

The cookies are big and heavy, fresh and chewy, greasy and satisfying. Absolutely delicious. I'm eating my words.

13th and 2nd
212.254.3500