A Valentine's Day Ode to BAK'D
The greatest cookies in the world
In hindsight, sparking a marital tempest was a tad extreme with respect to dessert. I snuck the vituperative text on WhatsApp to my wife cautioning her to not share with our guests.
It was a warm summer evening some friends were over for pizza on our back deck. The day prior we had just had our semi regular, though not frequent enough, delivery from BAK’D. Gourmet cookies when heated mildly in your toaster for a couple minutes oven transform from specialized cookie to manna from heaven.
We had stumbled across the local producer at the UBC Farmer’s Market. The only benefit of having enrolled in a weekly CSA (oh good more root vegetables and dirt streaked greens!) was having found BAK’D. A brother and sister started the Burnaby-based company during the pandemic.
These are not Oreos. These are not ChipsAhoy. These are not third example of mass-produced mediocrity.
These are BAK’D. And they are glorious.
A dense yet delicate mixture. The Chocolate Peanut Butter quickly became my favorite no actually the S’more, definitely the S’More but then again also the Cookies ‘N Cream but then there was this Hot Chocolate one unveiled over the Christmas season this past year.
I send the owners pictures of my family enjoying the cookies which are always welcomed with a gracious reply. I showed her a picture of me in a BAK’D hat at my daughter’s lemonade stand. She asked for a cup, so at the annual street event in Kitsilano I dispatched my daughter to deliver some lemonade for the BAK’D booth.
My daughter was gifted some cookies in exchange in a trade so lopsided its only historical comp would be the deal that sent Babe Ruth from Boston to New York. Fortunately for our household we’re the Yankees in this deal.
When my brother and his family visited us last year we made a special order for them. My brother dutifully created a tapas style selection for his family to try and rank their top choices.
On Valentine’s Day in 2022 or 2023, my wife and I each independent of each other ordered the family BAK’D. Which led to some confusion but no complaints when a double order arrived.
Fortunately, so long as you spend $75 you get free delivery in the metro area. Hitting that total is never a problem.
I track the farmer’s market schedule online but can’t always make it. Unfortunately, BAK’D isn’t always present at the farmer’s markets near us. That led to some vigilante advocacy on my part.
I lobbied unsuccessfully with multiple farmer’s market to get BAK’D a permanent place at the most adjacent markets. If you’ve ever read or listened to the text of Winston Churchill’s Finest Hour speech that’s a fair approximation of my determination. Sprinkling in some internet Stan culture.
We shall not flag just inhale. We shall go on to the end of the box, we shall eat BAK’D throughout the metro. We shall eat BAK’D near the seas and oceans, we shall eat BAK’D with growing confidence and growing strength. We shall fill our pantries, whatever the cost may be, we shall eat BAK’D on the beaches, we shall eat BAK’D on the city parks, we shall eat BAK’D in the fields and in the streets. We shall never surrender…but would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the new entrepreneurs, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of all people craving a more just dessert.
A few months ago I realized that a midweek market at the Vancouver Art Plaza would be a feasible stop on the way home from the aquarium. So in the crush of rush hour we summoned the courage and perseverance of Hillary and Norgay. Traffic was horrible. Parking was worse. The weather was deteriorating. Rain drops angrier by the minute. The evening wind blustered around us. We soldiered on.
Given the conditions we did not have to fight crowds at the market. The kids helped me pick out two boxes. I met the other cofounder who recognized me as the “famous Noah” or something equally fatuous. I do love the cookies.
Which brings me back to that summer evening on the deck. Some generous friends of ours, kind friends, people who have hosted us plenty of times and given us hand me downs and other useful things were over. But if I shared our BAK’D cookies, my whole world, including all that I have known and cared for, will sink in the abyss of a new Dark Age. So I braced myself for hosting duties and offered literally anything else for dessert.
It was not my finest hour.