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The Cookie Recipe The Cookie Truth? And the Morals of a swedish magazine... Cookie Linx |
| The leading swedish cooking-magazine "Allt om mat" no. 1/96 printed this story: |
My daughter & I had just finished a salad at Neiman-Marcus Cafe in Dallas & decided to have a small dessert. Because both of us are such cookie lovers, we decided to try the "Neiman-Marcus Cookie". It was so excellent that I asked if they would give me the recipe and the waitress said with a small frown, "I’m afraid not." Well, I said, would you let me buy the recipe? With a cute smile, she said, "Yes." I asked how much, and she responded, "two fifty, it’s a great deal!" I said with approval, just add it to my tab. Thirty days later, I received my VISA statement from Neiman-Marcus and it was $285.00. I looked again and I remembered I had only spent $9.95 for two salads and about $20.00 for a scarf. As I glanced at the bottom of the statement, it said, "Cookie Recipe -$250.00." That’s outrageous!! I called Neiman’s Accounting Dept. and told them the waitress said it was "two-fifty," which clearly does not mean "two hundred and fifty dollars" by any *POSSIBLE* interpretation of the phrase. Nieman-Marcus refused to budge. They would not refund my money, because according to them, "What the waitress told you is not our problem. You have already seen the recipe - we absolutely will not refund your money at this point." I explained to her the criminal statutes which govern fraud in Texas, I threatened to refer them to the Better Business Bureau and the State’s Attorney General for engaging in fraud. I was basically told, "Do what you want, we don’t give a crap, and we’re not refunding your money." I waited, thinking of how I could get even, or even try and get any of my money back. I just said, "Okay, you folks got my $250, and now I’m going to have $250.00 worth of fun." I told her that I was going to see to it that every cookie lover in the United States with an e-mail account has a $250.00 cookie recipe from Neiman-Marcus ...for free. She replied, "I wish you wouldn’t do this." I said, "Well, you should have thought of that before you ripped me off, and slammed down the phone on her. So, here it is!!! Please, please, please pass it on to everyone you can possibly think of. I paid $250 dollars for this... I don’t want Nieman-Marcus to *ever* get another penny off of this recipe....
2 tsp. soda
2 cups (4 ¼ dl) sugar
5 cups (12 dl) blended oatmeal**
2 cups (500 gram) butter 
24 oz. chocolate chips
2 cups (4 ¼ dl) brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 8 oz. Hershey Bar (grated) 
4 eggs 
2 tsp. baking powder
3 cups (7 dl) chopped nuts (your choice)
2 tsp. vanilla
** Measure oatmeal and blend in a blender to a fine powder.
Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla; mix
together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda.
Add chocolate chips, Hershey Bar and nuts. Roll into balls and
place two inches apart on a cookie sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 112 cookies.
Enjoy! |
Let's find out what  has to say about it... They have also sent me an e-mail. And why not have a look at these pages: Please don't pass it on! Don´t spread that hoax. Cookie stories in absurdum... |
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How about the swedish magazine then? I called Allt om mat and asked them if they knew they had printed an urban myth, and wondered if they had checked any sources since the story obviously aims to give Neiman Marcus a bad name. A fair thing to do would be to print a correction in their next edition, maybe apologizing to Neiman Marcus? I got the reply "We believe this story is true, and... what makes you believe you are right about this anyway?". So I faxed the magazine a couple of internet newbie hoaxwarnings and printouts from similar stories. And a few weeks later they called me back, to tell me that they now were aware about this story being a hoax, but they couldn´t print a correction in their magazine since "If we do that, everybody who missed the original story will call us to get a copy of the recipe, and we don´t have time for things like that...." Maybe they should stick with what they do best then, i.e cooking and baking. (Allt om mat is an excellent cooking magazine, after all). I'm not sure I like the idea of cooking magazines printing gossip without correcting obvious errors, especially when businesses or persons are named and targeted. Since I first published this page, march 16, 1996 I have received hundreds of letters from people who did read the original article in "Allt om mat" and had been convinced it was true. This shows the danger of spreading this kind of stories in a magazine. Keep in mind, "Allt om mat" is the Swedish cooking-guru, and subscribers all over the world read it on regular basis. Finally, for all those who come to me looking for more cookie recipes, here are some nice cookie links, no myths, no legends, just plain cookie pleasure!
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