Livin' La Vida Levain

DISCLAIMER: There comes a time in every pseudo food blogger's career when she can simply not express the deliciousness of a certain product. I was worried this would happen when I blogged about the Juice Joint's Friday wrap but thankfully it did not...alas, I have been postponing the creation of this post because the stakes are really, really high. When you're done reading this, please consider that I debated if I should even attempt to write about the following New York cookie heaven for fear I would not do their baked creations of perfection justice.

I have found the perfect cookie.

There, I said it. The cookie lives on the Upper West Side and summers in the Hamptons. It's name is Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip and it leaves all cookie competition in the dust. Here's the story...


My sister and brother-in-law used to live in a 1 bedroom walk-up apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. On my first visit to their new home, I stumbled upon part of a cookie wrapped up on their kitchen counter. I obviously was eager to give this mysterious baked good a try and took a bite. It was at this moment when the memory of all other cookies faded from my brain. It was almost a moment of cookie self actualization.

I immediately got the whole story from my sister who explained that the cookie was from a little shop called the Levain Bakery and lucky us, it was located directly across the street. I also remember the moment that my brother-in-law entered the conversation with the words, "You need to try Levain." He wasn't kidding.


So we made our way across the street and this is where my memory of the events gets a little hazy since I was completely taken with the entire experience. There was so much going on. Here's what I recall about my first visit:

• Levain makes a few other products but the cookie selection is what drew me in (and what continues to draw me in--I have yet to purchase or consume any of Levain's other products because once you have the cookie nothing else matters).
• The bakery is tiny (there is room for maybe six non-bakery staff in the windowed seating area) and located below "New York's only all waxing salon," Max Wax.
  

Since then, I have incorporated a trip to the Levain Bakery on most visits to New York. I keep Levain in my back pocket of insider food information and impress most New Yorkers I meet when I mention this food gem. I happily receive boxes of Levain by mail on birthdays and other occasions at my office (my perfect and very intelligent and coordinated niece, Olivia "Livvypants/The Pants" R., recently sent me a box to thank me for babysitting after a road trip) or hand delivered after other friends visit Gotham City. I open text messages from in-the-know friends when Levain appears on Oprah and teach us the correct French pronunciation of the shop's name. And so it goes...

Most New Yorkers have lots to say on the subject of food, especially cookies. But I have yet to meet anyone born or currently living in NYC who has a negative thought on Levain. It's almost as if Levain passes everyone's cookie test. We agree...then spend a moment basking in the thought that sometime, in the near future, we will have a chance to climb down Levain's narrow staircase at 74th and Amsterdam and make a really tough decision: chocolate peanut butter, chocolate chocolate chip, or walnut chocolate chip.