Searching for the elusive cookie
Ramadan is coming up. (Like, day after tomorrow. Early Ramadan mubarak, y’all!) And so, of course, I am planning an iftaar party because that’s what you do in Ramadan when you are not fasting or praying or reading Quran: you go to iftaar parties. I got the first Evite almost six weeks ago, at which point I turned, wide-eyed, to Alicia who was sitting next to me, and said, I have to pick a date! Now! The flood has started!
Indeed it had, as somebody else got my coveted original date before I sent out invitations for it. (Narrowing down the guest list is hard. I dither for days as I try to balance my small house with all the people I’d like to invite, and particularly with all the people who I know will invite me. This time, I lost the date in my indecision.)
I was working on the menu when I ran across this post from Smitten Kitchen. The icebox cake. I’ve heard of it before and always skipped over it without reading the recipe too closely, casually dismissing it as too 50’s housewifey for my taste. And then I saw that photo. It’s beautiful. It’s simple. It’s beautiful in its simplicity. Best of all, it MUST be made the night before.
This, I decided, would be my chocolate dessert.
The universe has decided otherwise. No icebox cake for you, guests. You’ll just have to settle for a fudgy chocolate layer cake with chocolate ganache icing, or maybe dark chocolate cupcakes with cream-cheese frosting. The icebox cake has five ingredients, one of which does not exist on this planet, or at least not outside of Chicago.
I’ve scoured the Internet. I’ve called four grocery stores and one drugstore. I’ve harangued two store managers. I cannot find the Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers anywhere except on Amazon, and despite the deep level of my current obsession, I don’t know if I can pay $40 to ship myself six boxes of cookies. (Although, as I write this, I’m beginning to wonder if $40 for six boxes of cookies is really ALL that much.)
Everybody has them in the computer. Nobody has them on the shelf. The Kroger customer service person cheerfully offered me the phone number of another Kroger in the area. The Publix store manager halfheartedly offered to order them for me, but even I don’t go to Publix enough for him to know my name, which he didn’t bother to write down so he could tell me when they’d arrived. And then there’s the Whole Foods manager.
Ah, the Whole Foods manager. Alicia convinced me to call the store rather than going by in person. She even wrote out a list of phone numbers for me as I searched the Internet fruitlessly for chocolate wafer cookies, any chocolate wafer cookies. I called the one in Sandy Springs.
“Hi, I’m looking for Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer cookies. Do you carry them?”
“Hold on,” she said, “let me transfer you.”
Several minutes of hold music later, a man picked up the phone. “Who are you holding for?”
“Hi, I’m looking for Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer cookies. Do you carry them?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll transfer you to grocery.”
Two more minutes of hold music. “Grocery.”
“Hi, I’m looking for Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer cookies. Do you carry them?”
“Nabisco?” (said as though he didn’t understand me)
“Yes, please.”
“Nabisco?” (said as though I had just insulted his grandmother)
“Yes, the Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers.”
“No.”
And then there was a click, and he was gone. Apparently, Nabisco is beneath Whole Foods. I wonder if it’s the high fructose corn syrup that puts them over the edge.
So, Universe 1, Huda 0. Chocolate wafer cookies still so securely hidden even Jack Bauer couldn’t torture their whereabouts out of some nefarious and wily stock boy. It might be time to stop doing my best Sir Pellinore impression and turn instead to Essence of Chocolate for a chocolate dessert recipe… or maybe to give in and order off Amazon after all.
On a completely unrelated note… spicy garlicky cashew chicken? SO YUMMY.
The Whole Food guy hung up on you?
That’s hilarious.
Dan
12 Sep 07 at 6:59 am
Try Ingles – they are the only place I can find the Nabisco brown edge wafers. They have better cookie selections in smaller towns too for some reason.
Heather
12 Sep 07 at 7:50 am
It was the getting hung up on after twice being asked to clarify the “Nabisco” part that had me rolling.
Heather, I did call Ingels, although I guess I specifically asked if they had the Nabisco Chocolate Wafers (in the computer, not on the shelf). I’ll swing by one in person and see whether they have something I can use… or maybe I’ll try Augusta!
huda
12 Sep 07 at 8:42 am
My grandma used to make that dessert, and it was one of my favorites. If you do end up making it, I’ll pay you back the $40 if you send me a big honkin’ piece!
Dave
12 Sep 07 at 11:32 am
Hah, how about this? You and Sumaiya come to visit, and I’ll make enough cakes to finish out the Amazon shipment? I don’t think a slice would mail very well anyway….
huda
12 Sep 07 at 6:32 pm
Huda, You are hilarious!!
Lauren Garifalos Hintz
28 Sep 07 at 12:14 pm
That’s really funny. In fact it would be even funnier to me if I wasn’t in the same predicament. I live in Massachusets and we can’t find these cookies ANYWHERE! My grandfather used to make the icebox cakes for me a lot when I was younger and even used to make them for my MOM. What a dissapointment that the wafers are so hard to find.
Abi
18 Jul 08 at 8:11 am
I’ve been trying to find those stinkin’ wafers in the phoenix area. Now it’s becoming an obsession………….where ARE they?
ellie
22 Aug 08 at 5:14 pm
OMG! It’s not just me looking for these.
Somehow, that makes me feel better.
any success? anybody??
I will let you know if I find a better price somewhere…
Kris
24 Sep 08 at 12:34 am
Well I live in Tucson and have been addicted to these chocolate wafers for years — there is no store here that still sells them — I’ve had to change my habits — ugh! What is wrong Nabisco??
Nancy
9 Oct 08 at 9:38 pm
add me to the list of frustrated and disappointed Nabisco Chocolate Wafer seekers. I am really considering buying online for pumpkin pie recipe I want to make for the holidays. I am in Michigan but from Chicago. I recall seeing them at a store in Chicago…not sure which. I would surely have a friend go to that store and buy/send to me, here in Michigan if I could just remember which store!!!
Jen
9 Oct 08 at 9:46 pm
I live in Kansas City, and I had been buying these at my local HyVee over the last year and making ice cream sandwiches out of them (ya squirt canned whipped cream on them, put in the freezer for 20 minutes and bam! ya got a yummy ice cream sandwich).
But – like all of you – they disappeared about 2 months ago. The label was on the shelf and there was a big empty space there for about 4 weeks, then – sadness of all sadness – they took the label off the shelf and filled the hole with some very pedestrian cookie. What is up with that???!!!
I don’t want to pay $40 for cookies, either
Donna
14 Oct 08 at 8:33 pm
You can get them at Gristedes Grocery Stores in NYC. For $5-6 a pack. I’m pissed cuz I bought 2 packs and forgot to bring them back to MI for the holidays… now I’m suffering cuz I can’t freaking find the cookies ANYWHERE in MI.
Joanna
25 Nov 08 at 3:57 pm
I found them in NYC at Food Emporium on Broadway @ 68th Street — $5.19 a box!
gail
26 Nov 08 at 7:04 pm
they were at my krogers a week or 2 ago.
we snagged 2 boxes(YESS!!!)
bob
17 Dec 08 at 6:34 pm
I wanted to make the famous ice box cake recipe for Christmas, and can’t find the Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers anywhere in Phoenix. My family will be so disappointed.
Joyce Warner
19 Dec 08 at 4:23 pm
My sister told me that the Nabisco man at Albertsons just told her Nabisco discontinued them this past summer…..tell me this isn’t so!!!
Christine Mitchell
23 Dec 08 at 1:41 pm
usually you can find these at Christmas time. I found them in November at Walmarts
carole
26 Dec 08 at 12:30 am
Weighing in two years late on this–Publix has them in Georgia, and I have occasionally seen them at Kroger (not lately, though). Oddly enough, I’ve never seen them carried in the cookie aisles. They get stowed away with the ice cream toppings/cones/nuts. Maybe for a future iftaar party, you’ll get lucky!
Joan Becker
6 Aug 09 at 9:44 am
They are not discontinued. Giant Eagle sells these cookies in the cookie aisle. I found them yesterday, because my son has been asking me about them. If you have a Giant Eagle in your area, and they don’t have them, ask them to order them. They are pretty good about trying to please their customers.
Pat
12 Aug 09 at 9:19 am
We have them in Maine! Shaw’s supermarkets carry them for about 4.79 a box. Get your New England friends to send you some! That’s what I’m doing for my friend in Florida.
Sarah
24 Aug 09 at 12:17 pm
[...] post titled “Searching for the elusive cookie” is actually about the kind of cookies you eat, not the kind of cookies that Web browsers use [...]
Hah at apropos of anything
31 Jan 10 at 8:16 pm