For the cookie monster in us all...

I feel like I can end this post now.

I mean, seriously, look above. What you're seeing is the cookie to end all cookies. Well, one of the cookies to end all cookies that, like its siblings, is born in the magic kitchen at Levain bakery. This cookie weighs half a pound, falls somewhere between cookie and scone in texture, and is made of all organic ingredients. In short, Levain cookies are extraordinary; the best in the city, by far- this, any critic would echo.


My friend Loren, the mayor of all things food in NY (featured in the Park Ave. Winter post, directly below), works at Levain on and off. I was first handed a bag of cookies from across that counter by Loren in the Summer of 06', when I was in New York looking for apartments. I would be moving a month later, and had a day and a half on the hottest week of New York's summer thus-far to find a place. Between meetings with brokers and stoned NYU students whose shit-holes they actually called apartments, glistening, I went to 74th and Amsterdam at Loren's behest. I came down the four steps into the tiny bakery that churns out gargantuan goods, and my life changed.


The cookie varieties are chocolate chip walnut, dark chocolate peanut butter chip, dark chocolate choloate chip, and oatmeal raisin, my absolute favorite. They have flat breads and sandwiches, scones, and brioches and all are wonderful, I'm sure, but I only know the cookies... and, now that I think about it, a turkey and cucumber sandwich that was solid, anchored by incredible bread. But the cookies. I don't know how quite to express why they're so good. They just are, seriously, unbelievable.

Below you see what was left of the oatmeal raising cookie Loren handed me when I came in the last time by the time I realized that I meant to take a picture of it. This cookie is so delicious: not too sweet, kind of hard on the outside, soft on the inside, and the raisins are huge and plump. The cost of each cookie I should mention is $3.75, steep for a cookie, but irrelevant when what you're paying for is the best cookie you've had.

Real magic is made down those few stairs on 74th- Levain is the best little cave there was.