Ben's Cookies

I’m a total cookie monster.  I survived my MBA on double chocolate chunk cookies every afternoon.  Especially during macroeconomics.  But when I want a real treat in England, I go to Ben’s Cookies.  Without question.  Like a child ranting after the Pied Piper.

Ben’s Cookies is to England what Crumbs is to New York–in that perfectly (we like to think) sane girls give up any hope of self-control and succumb in utterly every way to the intoxicating perfection that is a Ben’s cookie.  They are sold by the weight, and these are no skinny cookies.  They’re big, with crisp edges, and a collapsing, buttery, melting, oozing center, fresh from the oven.  The chocolate smears all over your face and your hands.  You try to stop because no one needs a cookie this big, but you can’t.  You are overwhelmed by Ben and all his sweetness and chocolaty charms.  But you give in, because you know you wanted to from the beginning.  You were always going to go through with it, from the moment you saw the red and white sign down the block.  You were a goner!

Image from Ben's Cookies. Click the picture to see all the cookies.

I am extremely partial to the chocolate orange, a combination of milk chocolate and marmalade, the triple chocolate, a chocolate cookie with chocolate and white chocolate chunks, and the dark chocolate, which is basically the ultimate version of a Chips Ahoy.  It should be noted that we are not talking chocolate chips, but chocolate slabs.  They also have lemon, coconut, chocolate-praline, chocolate-nut, double chocolate, white chocolate, peanut butter, ginger, oatmeal-raisin, fruit-and-nut, milk chocolate.  I actually just did all that from memory.  I literally can’t talk about it anymore, I’m going to go buy another one.

Ben’s Cookies

Stores all over the UK.  Click here for locations.

p.s. One of the best things about Ben’s is their overnight cookie delivery service.  It’s the cookie equivalent of Santa Claus.  I sent boxes of them to Mr. English for our anniversary and Mr. and Mrs. Miami for their engagement.  If you love someone in England, you may want to tell them in cookies.

Canton Arms

Mr. English and I spend a lot of time in Stockwell in London.  For those of you who don’t know it, and I wouldn’t if it weren’t for Mr. English, it’s not the place that I would have necessarily expected to find fantastic food.  You know what they say about English food.  But last night, we went down to the local pub, where we’ve ordinarily just gone for beers, and sat down to a proper meal.  When I tell you, it was one of the best meals I ever had in this country, and it was in the middle of gastro no man’s land!  What a tremendous find.  If you’re ever down south of the river, you have to try Canton Arms.

The ambiance is very dark wood, low key, British pub.  The front room is full of intellectuals ruminating over pints and reading books in high-backed chairs.  The wait staff is bright and young and cheerful, against the somber atmosphere, which makes me realize that I can’t remember if there was a fire going, or if it was them that made it feel so bright and cozy.  Around the back of the bar is this large, quaint, wooden room, filled with a hodgepodge of different sized, very comfortable tables and chairs.  Little votives in shot glasses winked and twinkled all over the dark room, giving it a starlight feel.  Very modern meets old world.  Very, I’ll say it again, cozy.  Mr. English and I appropriated a corner table by the window, and looked at the menu.  The beer and wine list is far more extensive than the dinner menu, but Mr. English tells me that the latter changes all the time, if not every day.

I was really surprised by the choices.  Probably because I was unfairly biased against a gastropub in Stockwell to begin with, which is evidence that one should not be a place-ist eater.  The starters included split pea and ham soup, braised cuttlefish with butter beans and olives, smoked salmon with what seemed to be house-pickled cucumbers, and a melange of beets with cow’s curd and rosemary and crisp bread crumbs resurrected from the excellent brown bread they served to start.  I had the beets, a combination of carpaccio-thin white beets that I’d never seen before, and wedges of small golden and red beets.  The beets, of course, were sweet, and lightly tossed in vinaigrette.  On top was a white cloud of tart, creamy cow’s curd.  And on top of that, extremely crisp and chunky wheat crumbs, and rosemary.  It was so simple, and so good.

The mains included black bass with crab risotto and monk’s beard, pork belly, cassoulet, and gnocchi.  When my gnocchi first arrived bubbling in a gratin dish, I had it inside out.  I thought the little chunks around the perimeter were the gnocchi, and I asked Mr. English, “what’s this thing in the middle?”  As it turns out, the thing in the middle was one giant, genius, rectangular, fluffy-as-air gnocchi, smothered in a cauldron of excellent tomato sauce studded with roasted squash and chard.  The top of the gnocchi slab was gratined with Parmesan cheese–sort of a gnocchi parmesan, instead of chicken or eggplant.  It was truly delicious.

To wash it all down, I had the cocktail of the day: rhubarb and prosecco.  And for dessert, a lemon cream pot, topped with a shot of crème de cassis, and an English shortbread cookie.

I loved it because it was this cold, windy, brutal English night, in a part of London that can, in all honesty, appear bleak.  There is a lot of grayness here.  But what I love about the English is that in the grayscape about them, they create points of color.  A whimsical hat perched at a bright angle like a tropical bird.  A planter full of pansies down the street.  Bright scarves and floral prints.  And a gastropub that twinkled with votives in the night, and that served fresh, colorful, English food that cheered up the eyes, and filled up the stomach in that hearty-meets-frivolous English way.  I love the pride they are taking in their cuisine right now, and especially in their ingredients.  I left feeling warm.

Canton Arms

177 South Lambeth Road

Stockwell, London SW8 1XP

0207 5828710

So sorry I don’t have pictures of the food from last night.  I tried, but the lighting made it impossible!