C is for cookie

Sophie has finally had her first cookie :) Giving her any kind of baked goods has always been tricky because of the whole milk/eggs/butter business and she didn't even like the vegan cupcake we got her for her birthday last year. It's not something essential to her diet and she never asks for it, and so we don't feel like we need to push this one. I gave her a slice of zucchini bread a couple of weeks ago and she liked it well enough that I felt inspired to find a good recipe (this one comes highly recommended), but apart from that, she's been perfectly happy with her huge snack trove of crackers, pretzel sticks, rice crackers, fruit, and cereal.

But after swim class today, as we wandered around Mark's Carts like we always do, we thought it might be nice to get Sophie a cookie from The Lunch Room, a vegan food cart that we've heard really good things about. That everything is completely vegan meant we didn't have to worry about possible traces of egg or butter in things or cross-contamination even when some non-vegan vendors claim things are dairy-free. We chose a classic chocolate chip cookie-- I mean, if it's going to be her first cookie, why settle for anything less?

Her first bites were a little tentative, like she wasn't quite sure what to make of the texture.

But a couple of bites later, it was like she's been eating cookies all her life:

In the words of our friend, Jenn, it was like she's was drunk on cookie!

You can't really tell, but the cookie was literally the size of Sophie's face, if not larger, and our daughter obliterated it entirely by herself in under 10 minutes. If not for the fact that a crumb fell on my lap, I don't think either Jude or I would have managed to snatch a taste. It was really quite yummy- a little chewy like a oatmeal cookie with a nice molasses flavor. It didn't taste vegan at all and I wasn't surprised that Sophie demolished the whole thing in one sitting (and still had room for her usual post-swim soy hot chocolate after. And all this BEFORE lunch...). Since Sophie took to the cookie so well, I asked Phillis, the owner if they made cakes or cupcakes in anticipation of Sophie's birthday in August. They haven't officially sold any other baked goods apart from cookies and gingersnaps but they have been planning on putting cupcakes on the menu for a while so that's something she can definitely help us with! Yay!