Trader Joe's Tuesday Treats: Double Chocolate Wafer Cookies

Deceptively Bite-Sized and Dangerously Delicious

There are two Trader Joe’s in West Hollywood.

My Trader Joe’s is located on Santa Monica Boulevard, next to a bank branch I sometimes hit up for rolls of quarters to feed the laundry machine. There is also a doggy day care on the corner, whose four-legged attendees give me a look and a half-hearted head tilt on my way to and from the car. Across the street I sometimes visit the bulk grocer Smart and Final.

Two long blocks and fifteen short blocks away, on Sunset Boulevard sits the other WeHo Trader Joe’s. The shopping center boasts a Landmark Theatres cinema and a Starbucks, and is located across the street from the historic Laugh Factory comedy club.

Nine times out of ten I shop at the Santa Monica store, but last week’s trip to the dry cleaner put me closer in orbit to the Sunset store where I stopped in to buy four wine keys for my personal mise en place.

I left that day with so, so much more. That particular in-store experience reminded me how dramatically different one physical space’s energy may differ from that of another. Both stores are versions of the same, standardized Trader Joe’s grocery haven. But the Sunset vibe is completely different from the Santa Monica vibe.

The mall that houses the Sunset TJ’s has no less than seven salons and barbershops, a gym, a neuromuscular and sports therapy center, and an athletic apparel store. As a result, almost everyone in the store is very fit, perfectly groomed and made up, or both. They all look amazing. Even more significantly: everyone feels good. The endorphins are so palpable in the space, during last week’s visit I caught a secondhand exuberance immersed in the energy of all those hot and happy people.

So I spent more. Even though I hadn’t lifted a weight in years and was overdue for shave, I felt good about myself—so I wanted to do something sweet for other people. I bought four types of cookies to bring as a token of appreciation to the very hard-working kitchen staff at the restaurant: Double Chocolate Wafer Cookies, Dark Chocolate Dipped French Butter Cookies, Oatmeal Cranberry Dunkers with White Fudge Drizzle, and Fig Cookies.

I kept the Double Chocolate Wafer Cookies for myself. There’s no rule that says the back of the house deserves all the fun, just as there is no rule that says a dog can’t play basketball. And while Air Bud may be a highly skilled dunker, I actually found the Double Chocolate Wafer Cookies even more devilishly delicious than the crowd-pleasing Chocolatey Coated Chocolate Chip Cookie Dunkers I wrote about in April.

The world is in flames; play by your own rules.

Chocolate creme, a hint of hazelnut, and a decadent chocolate coating. Each bite-sized piece hits like a tiny little Nutella bomb, mocking your meager attempt to only eat just one. Yeah, good luck with that.

Fair warning: at room temperature, the chocolate coating can leave a little residue on your hand—especially if you indulge in more than one. Keep the bag in the fridge (or freezer, if you’re hardcore), to slow the transmission of coating to fingertip and ensure a mess-free treat.

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Previously, on Certain Thoughts:

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