Introducing: Accept Cookies, a newsletter (and life philosophy)

In another time in our lives, in another era of the internet, cookies meant only one thing: delicious, wonderful, little treats. But now, in order to let robots deepen their relationships with us, this word has been co-opted and turned into a term for a little packet of data that tracks your movements and behavior and whether or not you actually bought that thing you put in your cart but then you remembered you were supposed to be working. In short, they made ‘cookies’ something to be skeptical of — and I can’t just sit by and let things go on like this. Some foods never recover from the force of their metaphors. (I’m so sorry, Spam. Though I’ve never found you delicious, some people do, and I certainly don’t hate you like I hate junk mail. You deserve better.)

Well, I love cookies. I really love them. And if their name is going to be used in vain for a metaphor on the internet, then dammit, it should be a delightful one.

So I’d like to introduce Accept Cookies, a twice-a-month newsletter where I write about creative things that delight me. If you subscribe, you can expect to get my thoughts on music, film, television, podcasts, books, and design. So, I guess my cookies will also be packets of data, but data that will hopefully bring you as much joy as a chocolate chip cookie brings me.

In fact, let the first cookie be about the work of Molly Reeder, who painted the wonderful watercolor artwork for Accept Cookies. You can see her Instagram here, and her website here (where you can also buy prints of her work). She paints food and flora in exquisite detail, but she’s also a baker, so I knew she would know exactly how to capture the chocolate chip cookies of my dreams.

(For the record, the chocolate chip cookies of my dreams are made with brown butter, a mix of dark chocolates (74% and 66% cocoa ideally (By the way, I should prepare you for a lot of parentheses. FYI, we’re currently three parenthesis-levels deep.)), and sea salt on top. Just to bring this metaphor all the way back around to the original source.)

Cookies are great. We should never lose sight of that. I hope you will accept them, and this newsletter, into your heart.