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Episode 14 - Scout's Honor with Kimberly Nardi
20 Plays1 year ago
This week we are joined by a very special guest. The first guest that I've never met in person. We get all the dirt on a well-known Marine, a special peek into Copper Kettle Chocolate Factory, learn a little bit about Graeter's Ice Cream, and end the episode drafting our favorite Girl Scout cookies. You don't want to miss this one!
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:12
Speaker
Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight Gonna grab some afternoon
Favorite Graders Ice Cream Flavors
00:00:18
Speaker
delight My motto's always been, when it's right, it's right
00:00:24
Speaker
Good afternoon,
Family Stories and Fantasy Football Secret
00:00:27
Speaker
delights. I'm your host, Matt Latimer, just trying to bring you a smile on this Wednesday. But I couldn't do that alone. So I had to bring on a very special guest, probably one of the forefront experts, not only in chocolate making, but also in fantasy football, a member of our league that we didn't even know about until last year. I'm bringing on Miss Kimberly Nardi. How are you doing today, Kimberly?
00:00:50
Speaker
I'm good, how are you? Yeah, I can't complain. You know, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Chocolate-Making Interests and Hobbies
00:00:56
Speaker
Well, I am a mom of two. I have two beautiful little girls, Lillian and Kylie. They're six and four and I currently work at Graders. I've been with them for over eight years and I have a lot of fun working there. And then I have a cat Cheeto. He's pretty cool. I like to listen to books and listen to music and go to concerts and
00:01:19
Speaker
It's kind of my life right now. Nice. That's a good time.
The History and Evolution of Girl Scout Cookies
00:01:22
Speaker
So what do you do when you work at graders? What's your role? So I'm the store manager. So I'm like a training store manager. So I train other managers that are hired into the company externally and then get them ready to run their own store eventually. So I'm currently working at the one in Upper Ellington.
00:01:38
Speaker
What's your favorite flavor of ice cream from graders? That's a tough one. I could never answer it before, but now I'm pretty sure mine is midnight snack. It's like a newer flavor. We've had it for a couple of years. It's got like brownies in it, chocolate covered pretzels, and then mini greasy peanut butter cups.
00:01:53
Speaker
I don't think I've ever had Midnight Snack. Yeah, it'll
Book Recommendations and Episode Wrap-Up
00:01:56
Speaker
probably be your new favorite too if you try it. My favorite has always been Buckeye Blitz, but I swear that when I was a kid Buckeye Blitz used to have mini Buckeyes in it and now it's Buckeye Blitz Chip and it's not as good. Oh, I've heard that before. Okay, so I'm not just hallucinating. Yeah, I'm gonna have to ask Chip about that one. He might know. Check with him because I have some major complaints that they ruined the best flavor that they had at Graders. Oh man, I kind of want to try these mini Buckeyes.
00:02:21
Speaker
They're amazing. Anytime you get mini Buckeyes and ice cream, it's top notch. Yeah, for sure. Now, Kimberly, you know, our listeners might recognize your last name and that's because you are the sister of one of our top tier guests, Mr. Travis Nardi, gunnery sergeant, Marine veteran Travis Nardi. What's that like? Give us some details on what Travis is like as an older brother.
00:02:42
Speaker
Oh man, you know, he actually is really funny as an older brother I kind of get a different side of him than I think some people do get where he'll got up his way to make me laugh I was definitely like your typical annoying little sister we would you know growing up We'd go to Hawaii every year to visit our dad and sure if you've listened to his episode He talks a little bit about that But you know, I'd always feel like my drink on him on the plane not on purpose. I
00:03:09
Speaker
But on accident, I was totally the most annoying little sister. We either fought or we got along really great. So he definitely beat up on me a little bit, toughened me up, didn't let me do anything that he didn't like. Pretty protective, I would say. Just a goofball. I was pretty lucky to have him and I still admire him. He's one of my mentors in life and really good friends still. So yeah, I really look up to him.
00:03:35
Speaker
Well, that's very nice of you to say. I wouldn't have expected Travis to be too cool of an older brother. He's not that cool of a person now, but I'm glad to hear that growing up, he was doing what had to be done.
00:03:45
Speaker
Yeah, he did. But yeah, he was he was tough on me too. So one of my favorite memories of him growing up was like he used to pretend to be like a little old guy with a cane to walk and he needed a cane to walk and he'd like do skits and nerdy stuff like that, like just to make me laugh. It's pretty funny. Well, that's good of him. I can need it. I think we need to get Travis to do one of these skits for us. I think we do. Now that he's older, old man walks,
00:04:12
Speaker
That's what I'm thinking. I mean, he's definitely got to be like slightly crippled from his years in the military. Absolutely. So he gets pulled off way better. I think we could get a book. Max meets an old man. That's what we need. We do need that. Are your kids fans of Travis's books?
00:04:26
Speaker
They are, yeah, they do, they have their own copies signed by him. I have his autographed copies put up in a sentimental's box and then I have another copy that they can kind of tear through and ruin without ruining his official autographed one. And then of course they love it because they love Max and my oldest daughter Lillian and my nephew Max, they're two weeks apart.
00:04:51
Speaker
You know, I think we need a book that's Max and Lillian have a play date. I like Max and Lillian go to the park. That would be really cool. Where's that one coming? I don't know. I think when Travis listens to this, that'd be a very nice Christmas present, Travis. You could write a book for each of Kimberly's daughters. Yeah, that would be cool. We'll talk him into that. I'll kick him out of the league if he doesn't.
00:05:09
Speaker
Or you could write a book about having an annoying little sister for being a little kid and how that would be. You know, speaking of fantasy football, so Travis in our league, he is a two time champion. We don't know how he does it because in the group chat and when you talk to him in person, he doesn't know anything about anything and continuously makes the playoffs somehow. And then last year he had to go on a cruise and miss the draft.
00:05:32
Speaker
So you came in and drafted his team for him and it was basically every single player that he has been drafting for the last five years and he made the playoffs this year. So what our league wants to know is how long have you been drafting Travis's teams for him and how long have you been the true manager of the Oceanside Helldivers?
00:05:53
Speaker
So unfortunately, you know, when he went on that cruise, there's no way around it. I had to expose him a little bit. So his secret came out that day. Yeah, I didn't. You guys know that, but pretty much the whole time since the startup of the league, I've been doing the draft and putting the guys in setting up the lineup every week and winning them for him.
00:06:13
Speaker
I knew it. I freaking knew it that there is no way that this man could be good at fantasy football and he's had a ringer the entire time. Has he been sharing the prize pools with you? Oh yeah, like I get 60-40. Jeez. He's actually putting you through the ringer. You deserve more. You know that the winner also gets copper kettle chocolate and now the winner gets a candy bar that they craft and they get to design named after them sold at copper kettle for one year.
00:06:39
Speaker
Wow, that's actually pretty good. What was the candy bar last year? Last year's first year that we did it, it was the Shibco bar. It was, let's just say a less than stellar product. It wasn't bought a lot, but it did taste good. And it was honeycomb kind of crisp with peanut butter covered in chocolate. The closest product we could buy to it would be like a little Debbie's like nutty buddy. So that was the first one. I know there's some trial runs being done for this year's bar, but that's top secret information.
00:07:03
Speaker
Oh, okay. Well, I feel obligated to throw in, you know, a free pint of ice cream since I've been playing secretly and denying the team of another cool prize. I'm going to add that to the list. Let's add a free pint of ice cream to the winner from graders. Our winner this year, Jacob Knave, his favorite ice cream place is graders. Of course it is. So that's big for him. I think that we also just need to get Travis to write a children's book about the winner.
00:07:30
Speaker
That's also a requirement. I think he should have to, yeah. Speaking of copper kettle, you recently got to go to Houston and you saw the wonder of copper kettle chocolate factory. What was that like?
00:07:40
Speaker
Oh, it's a lot of fun. I've been out there before helping out around like the busy season holiday time. It's a whole lot of fun. I got to watch Ryan do his thing and make all the chocolate and he didn't let me make any chocolate though when I was there. So, you know, but we were busy. So I do want to make stuff the next time I go out there. See what I can come up with or just learn, you know, the tips and tricks. And one year when I went out there, we did chocolate dip strawberries. We do them every year for Valentine's Day.
00:08:10
Speaker
and I couldn't do it. In the bowl where the chocolate is melting the pot, it's like spinning and you have to dip it in at the right time. It kept falling off the stick. It's actually a technique that's harder than you would think it would be. So, mostly they have me working out front, dealing with customers, doing what I know best and it's a lot of fun interacting with people and helping them choose their chocolate and I love it. It's a good time. It's a bunch of baloney that he's not giving you a shot at making some products.
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah, I don't I don't know about that. So I told him I would be his apprentice or his little assistant and help them out But I went for Valentine's Day, so they they're really busy So maybe I have to go down, you know in the summer when they slow down a little bit and and learn from them Yeah, you got to go like 4th of July. Nobody's buying chocolate for 4th of July. He hits September He starts prepping for Christmas
00:09:00
Speaker
Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, I love it. It's a lot of fun. We need to get you as an expert because I'm trying to talk Ryan into opening a copper kettle here, but he needs a trusted source to help run the show. I told him I'd work for free on Saturdays and Sundays, but you know, he's moving slow. He's moving slow on it.
00:09:16
Speaker
Yeah, I know. I've been telling them to open one for me here, too. You know, I live outside of Columbus and all of the greater stores are in Columbus. So I have a little bit of a drive and I was like, you guys could put one over here and I'll run it wherever. So maybe the second store is in the works. Maybe not. I don't know. But looking forward to seeing what's in the future.
00:09:37
Speaker
You know what we need to have you do? We need to have you talk the owners and the higher ups at graders into purchasing prepackaged turtles from Copper Kettle to either use in the ice cream or just sell in the store. Like people walk through the line, they just pick up a box of turtles as they go.
00:09:53
Speaker
For sure. The Grater's family, you know, does know that I have a chocolate family business. So our grandparents had the Golden Turtle Chocolate Factory and they actually, I think went to a lot of the conventions that the Grater's family went to because Grater's does sell chocolate and candy and things like that.
00:10:10
Speaker
So I've joked with the owners of Copper Kettle about it. And I don't think they said, I don't know if we can keep up with, you know, the demand of all the graders locations. Cause they have, I think we have 56 locations now, but we're definitely an ice cream business like graders, but they do have the chocolate and donuts too. So yeah, that would be pretty cool though. A little like ice cream collab. We could just a picture of Copper Kettle in it. So yeah, I gave Kathy Grater a box.
00:10:36
Speaker
of chocolate around Christmas time and Chip Grater and all that and then I got to go to Cincinnati and help the head of like he runs like the chocolate and the donuts and all that the bakery kind of and I got to go work with him and we we had a fun time they do Florentine Friday in November every year so I got to help them run the belts and do chocolate stuff and learn from him which is really cool.
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah, we need this collab to happen ASAP because Ryan won't ruin the integrity of his chocolate and ship it to me, unless it's cold enough. So I'm now in a dead period where I can't get copper kettle for like six months. But if they do the deal with graders, then I can always have access to copper kettle.
00:11:17
Speaker
That's true. Yeah, that is tough. I forgot about that. Shipping periods officially over, huh? Maybe for me, he might do something special, but you really got to talk him into it. I think it's too warm in Texas. It's not too warm in Ohio. So like if it showed up on my doorstep, you know, it's 40 degrees this morning, so it wouldn't melt, but it's, you know, 75, 80 in Texas. Yeah, for sure. Some good stuff. My favorite are also the turtles. Always have been the turtles. That was my next question. I love the turtles too.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, they have some pretty cool stuff too that I've never had before from my grandparents. So they do a little bit of the popcorn clusters and just different like stuff that they come up with. That's really cool. And when I was there, I told him that he needed to make chocolate covered potato chips because we made those at Cincinnati at the greater factory. And so he, he sent me a video that he made them.
00:12:07
Speaker
Oh, that's, so you're the inspiration for that. I saw it on Instagram. Yeah. And then I don't get to try them. So hopefully they will. I'm sure they will. I've been trying to talk him into many different, different marshmallow kind of treats, like flavored marshmallows, like a key lime one or like a raspberry swirl marshmallow. And he finally made cookies and cream. Oh, I saw that. That looked really good. So I want him to make more flavors of marshmallow.
00:12:29
Speaker
Oh yeah, I want to try that too. That did look really good. I don't know how he did that. My uncle did tell me though he was going to teach me how to make fudge maybe. That'll be fun. Fudge is annoying to make. He used to make homemade fudge with my grandma and grandpa when I was a kid. It's a lot harder than you'd think.
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. For Valentine's Day, though, we did have strawberry marshmallows, chocolate-covered strawberry marshmallow bears. And I think raspberry. Oh, really? Like gummy bears? No, like marshmallow covered in chocolate. Oh, really? Yeah. But shaped like a bear? Yeah. Super cute. I didn't even know if I saw those. Have you been there in person? I've been to Copper Kettle multiple times. Okay. Okay, cool.
00:13:06
Speaker
I don't know if you heard on the episode, I said on another episode, so I'll do a quick rehash. I think I said it on Hawaii's episode, but Ryan and their family actually opened their shop in Cyprus and it is a less than 10 minute drive to where my aunt and cousins have lived for the last like almost 20 years. So they've been in Houston like my whole life and then they moved to Cyprus probably about 20 years ago and they just happened to open the shop like 10 minutes from their house. So every time, every couple of years I go to Houston to see my aunt and cousins and I go and I stop and I see Ryan and go into Copper Cattle. Oh, that's so fun. Love it.
00:13:35
Speaker
Pretty crazy small world kind of stuff there. Cypress is massive just to begin with. They have like 13 high schools with 4,000 kids in them each. So to move like five minutes from their neighborhood is wild. Yeah, it really is. When I was down there, you know, we were driving for Super Bowl Sunday, we went somewhere and it was like, it's a little bit of a drive. And they're like, oh, it's really not that far compared to other places.
00:13:56
Speaker
So it's pretty large now outside of annoying Travis and making chocolate. What other kind of hobbies do you have? What do you like to do for fun outside of being a mom or then as a mom?
00:14:07
Speaker
Oh boy, yeah, between running a grader's location and being a full-time single mom, it's a lot. You know, it's really time consuming. Running the whole household by myself, it's a huge job. So just spending time with the kids when I can, playing with them, Lillian likes to play board games, which is really cool because I like to play board games and, you know, my older brother wouldn't always play with me when we were growing up.
00:14:31
Speaker
he wanted to play like Nintendo 64 and stuff like that. So I get like getting to play games with them, watching them play together, taking them to like the park and just try to spoil them when I can and like I said I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks so I started listening to Audible in November and I think I'm almost to 60 books.
00:14:52
Speaker
You know, Travis picks on me. He's like, oh, it's not about how much how many you read. It's about what you learn from them. But I've listened to some of them a couple of times. So he always gives me good reads, too. And I really enjoy that. Here comes spring. I'm looking forward to my gardening a little bit again, planting some
00:15:10
Speaker
beautiful purple flowers up front to match my purple door and doing the yard work too. So I found that I enjoy that being a homeowner. So I'm not good at it though. So like I have a house plant over there. It's looking a little bit brown. To be fair, my cat does chew on it a little bit. So it doesn't really stand a chance. And I'm like, Oh man, you know, and then it's a learning process.
00:15:33
Speaker
We stopped buying houseplants because my cat eats them all. We just stopped. He kills all of them or if they're small, he'll dig up the roots and he'll just unpot them. Right. He is that way too. Looking forward to the warmer weather so we can get outside a little bit more and enjoy that. You've been living in Columbus obviously for a really long time, right? Because you went to Upper Arlington also?
00:15:53
Speaker
So same background as my brother, we went to UA for a little while when we were kids and then moved out into the country and ended up going to Fairbanks. So he made the switch I think three or four months before I did. I didn't want to leave
00:16:11
Speaker
my friends and you know so he was the guy to go test the waters he got to go to Fairbanks and of course he loved it he's like oh no it's so great but he probably already had met his wife my sister-in-law Christian and was like yeah I'm never leaving this school but yeah
00:16:27
Speaker
It was a huge like culture shock for me going from like super large school to a country school where kind of everybody knew each other and you know like a farming school and I went there and then after my first year of college I moved to Arizona.
00:16:45
Speaker
So I lived there for about a year. And then after that, my dad asked me if I wanted to go to Hawaii and live with them. And I was, I was pretty young, you know, I was like 21, 22. And I was like, I would love to. So I got to live out there for a couple years and I had a lot of fun actually living there, not just visiting for a couple months a year, you know, over the summer. And so I got to work out, you know, work there, live there, have a lot of fun and somehow ended up back in Ohio after all that.
00:17:13
Speaker
You thought to yourself, I've already lived in some of the most beautiful, highly regarded places in the entire world. Let me move back to the rainiest city in the United States of America. Yeah. And I'm not a cold person really, you know, which cracks me up because I work at graders too. And I remember when I first got the job there, going into the walk-in freezer, I'm like, what am I doing? I can't stand being cold. And I got the coldest job and like the coldest state. And yeah, I was really sad.
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah, not a great plan to move to Ohio if you don't like the cold. A worse plan if you don't like the rain. For sure. So I've been living in and around Columbus ever since moving back from there.
00:17:52
Speaker
Okay. Have you taken your kids out to oil and tangy Indian caverns? I have not. No, that's what I used to do when I was a kid. Like the summer you go down and there's like little caves that the native Americans used to stay in. So like it stays pretty cool. And then they have a putt putt course. You can do like mining where they give you like a bag of sand and then you run it through like sifters and stuff. And you find like rocks and gemstones and things that you get to be able to like keep and take home with you. Oh yeah. They would really enjoy that. I'll have to check that out.
00:18:18
Speaker
Yeah, that was a good time. That's what we used to do. What else is there, COSI? Have you been to COSI? Maybe when they're younger, but I have not taken them in the last like few years. So I definitely needed to go check that out too. The last time that I went to COSI with our nephew, I remember thinking, I don't even know if I went with our nephew or it might've just been me and Rihanna went. But anyway, the last time that we went, I remember thinking, wow, all of these exhibits were new when I was like a kid and now they're all 20 years old. Where's the new stuff at? Oh really? It's updated?
00:18:48
Speaker
I feel like it needs updated a little bit. They do like a different exhibit every now and then like roaming exhibits. So that changes, but there was a lot of stuff where I was like, this was new like 25 years ago. And it was every exhibit was like, I remember this when I was a kid. So it's definitely old.
00:19:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah, they need to step it up a little bit. That's what I'm saying. Step it up, Kosai. All right, Kimberly, are you ready to get into a little bit of afternoon delights place at the table? Yes. Well, today we are going to learn about the history of the Girl Scouts. Perfect. I don't know if you ever wore a Girl Scout or if your kids are Girl Scouts.
00:19:21
Speaker
Yeah, I did Girl Scouts for like one or two years and then I just signed up my daughter. She had her first meeting last month and then she has her second meeting coming up and they're daisies so they missed cookie season or they don't really get to do anything. They're too little still, but I just got her tunic all sewed up and everything ready to go and she loves it.
00:19:41
Speaker
Well, good. You'll be able to share all this with her and then she can go in and talk about it with all the Scouts. Perfect. So Girl Scouts of the United States of America, which is just the Girl Scouts is obviously a youth group for girls in America living abroad. And it was founded in 1912 by Juliette Gordon Lowe.
00:19:59
Speaker
The Girl Scouts, they work to build and encourage girls and provide confidence and character to help make the world a better place. And similar to Boy Scouts, it's through outdoor activities involving camping, community service, and then skills like first aid, that type of thing. Obviously, you get different badges for different activities, depending on what you do in the wilderness. So the first group, it was organized in Savannah, Georgia, and it has always been exclusively for women. So Miss Lowe, she actually grew up
00:20:29
Speaker
in the wilderness. She was born in Chicago. Her family was actually one of the first settlers but then she moved to the Northwest Territories in Wisconsin and they lived down the wilderness and that's where she learned all the skills for the Girl Scouts and then as she got older she moved to Savannah, Georgia and she wanted to be able to build a place to learn all the things that she did for young women to help them develop in the world which I thought it was
00:20:51
Speaker
I didn't realize that, you know, the Girl Scouts were 112 years old when I started looking into it. I guess I felt like they were a newer group, but they've been around for a long time. Currently the Girl Scouts, they have about 2.3 million members are Girl Scouts and more than 50 million women have participated in Girl Scouts throughout history. So it's a very big group, but you mentioned it. The most popular thing with the Girl Scouts is the cookies. And that's really what we're here to learn about is the inception of the Girl Scout cookie.
00:21:18
Speaker
Now I thought that the Girl Scout cookie was something that would have came much later, obviously it being mass produced. But the first Girl Scout cookies were actually homemade sugar cookies made by moms that were volunteering inside the group. And they started selling these in 1917.
00:21:35
Speaker
just five years after the Girl Scouts were formed in order to help finance group activities. So this all started for just moms helping their kids in the kitchen over a hundred years ago. The mistletoe troop in Muskegee, Oklahoma was one of the first groups to make cookies. It was actually older girls baking cookies as well and selling them in the high school cafeteria. It's pretty cool.
00:21:58
Speaker
That's what I was thinking. In the 1920s, when they started selling cookies, they estimated the cost of the ingredients to make about six to seven dozen cookies was about 25 to 35 cents. They suggested that the troops would sell a dozen cookies for about a quarter, which is much cheaper than the $5 a box that we're seeing today. Did you get any of the soup here?
00:22:20
Speaker
Oh, I I always do. Yeah. Are they still five bucks? Are they more now? No, they were five dollars a box this year. Okay. They post up outside of Walmart and like Lowe's and then they make me feel bad and I have to buy Girl Scout cookies. It's a terrible thing. It is. I'm trying to not be as fat but there was once upon a time where I would have been like Kevin from the office where it was like our troop is gonna sell more cookies than anybody else if we just get Matt to buy cookies.
00:22:42
Speaker
So I try and cut back and I try and spread it out. So I usually always keep some cash on me during Girl Scouts season and I'll get, you know, two boxes every time I go and then I end up seeing like five different groups. So I get, I'm getting like 10 boxes of cookies. But yeah, in 1933 in Philadelphia, those Girl Scouts, they actually sold the cookies outside of the city's gas and electric company windows. Price per box was 23 cents for 44 cookies. That seems pretty crazy.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah, it does. It's a lot. Now in World War II, because of rationing and sugar shortages and flour and the total war and everything, the Girl Scouts actually stopped selling cookies for a while and then they went and they switched to Girl Scout calendars to help raise money.
00:23:21
Speaker
But after the war that all came back and the Girl Scouts they started in like the late 1940s is when they kind of started first mass reducing cookies and they got other people to like make the cookies for them and the first Girl Scout cookie stamped with the Girl Scout logo that was ever sold was the trefoil cookie.
00:23:39
Speaker
and then in the 1950s they bumped that up where they had three varieties they sold a little sandwich cookie they sold the trefoils and then they sold chocolate mints which are now known as thin mints so those are the three original cookies that have been sold here now for 70 years thin mints are 70 years old
00:23:56
Speaker
It's pretty good. They have a couple of new ones I was looking at the other day. And yeah, I think they've added quite a few since then. I think there's 10 or 11 now, but there's eight that are only really popular. As Girl Scout cookies in the 1960s, the baby boomers, they really started getting Girl Scouts enrolled and membership took off and cookie sales took off. And they used to have 14 different licensed bakers mixing their cookies and they would print them in aluminum foil. And in 1966, they went to Thin Mints, Trefoils and the peanut butter sandwich cookies.
00:24:25
Speaker
by the 1970s they had added all four cookies and then by 1982 they were producing seven different types of cookies by the time that they got to the 1990s they had actually only gone to two different bakers and looking to supply them and by 1998 the number going to three they had eight
00:24:41
Speaker
different cookies. Girl Scouts of America had introduced aged appropriate awards. They had the Girl Scout Brownies, the juniors, the cadets, and the seniors. They included the cookie activity badge, which was awarded to participating in cookie sales. And then in the 2000s is when they started kind of redesigning the boxes to what we know now to be more colorful. And they have pictures of like the girls doing their activities like canoeing and all that kind of stuff.
00:25:04
Speaker
on that and then in the early 2000s is actually when they started the group the daisies. That's when they were allowed to start selling cookies. So it looks like the daisies are allowed to start selling cookies and that just started a few years ago. Because she'll be she'll still be a daisy I think for another year. I think it's kindergarten first grade.
00:25:21
Speaker
So next year, we'll buy cookies from her and we'll get her true. Up the notch, everybody from Afternoon Delights will buy cookies from Miss Kimberly Nardi's children. So that's pretty much the history of the Girl Scouts and the Girl Scout cookies. I didn't have too much time this week to prepare a better Afternoon Delights for you. So I apologize for that for Afternoon Delights place at the table. It's pretty good. Don't learn a lot.
00:25:41
Speaker
Now we're going to get into the meat of this draft, which is really what everybody wants. We're going to draft the best Girl Scout cookies. Okay. I don't know if we can get to five each because I think that there's only eight, but we're going to try. Would you like to go first or second? I'll go first. All right. Kick us off. What is the best Girl Scout cookie? It's definitely Thin Mints by far. By far, you think? Yeah. What do you love about Thin Mints?
00:26:04
Speaker
Oh, they're so good. Do you put yours in the freezer? Are you a Thin Mint person? I like to put mine in the freezer and eat them. They're like refreshing chocolate cookies. They're so good. I just remember that being my Girl Scout cookie of choice growing up. And then, you know, I branched out to my second favorite, which I won't say yet. I'll let you do your draft. But yeah, they're so good. They're, you know, thin and crunchy. So chocolatey and minty.
00:26:30
Speaker
They're just the right amount of mint and it's so easy to eat an entire sleeve. I have eaten them cold or frozen, but I typically don't. So they had Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookie Pretzels at Costco. Whoa. Like produce ones. And we bought those. They did taste exactly like a Thin Mint. And then it came in such a big bag. And every now and then we do our own homemade ice cream. So we made like a chocolate ice cream base with Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mint Pretzels inside of the ice cream. Now it's pretty amazing.
00:26:56
Speaker
Sounds really good. That's another thing, get graders to partner with the Girl Scouts of Ohio and you can make all types of Girl Scout flavors during the summer.
00:27:04
Speaker
That's true. That would be a big one. All right. Well, you took one of my top two, but my favorite Girl Scout cookie is the Tagalong. It's a Reese's cup with a little shortbread cookie. Yeah. I mean, I love peanut butter and chocolate, so it's the best combo. They got a great shape. They got good consistency. Everything's balanced. There's not too much peanut butter. The only negative thing about a Tagalong is just that not enough of them come in a box.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I would also say that's my brother's favorite Girl Scout cookie and my mom's too. So I remember eating those as a kid and they kind of get, you kind of get chocolate on your hands. I feel like if you don't eat them fast enough, they kind of, they're kind of messy. They do melt in your hands a little bit. We'll have to look into that. We'll have to find out from Ryan why the chocolate melts in our hands so quickly. We'll see if he can break down the science of that for us.
00:27:52
Speaker
That is one of the negatives, but I've never really had that problem because I'm like a human vacuum. So I've never not eaten the cookies fast enough. Yeah, that's true. And my second pick that I'm taking is the Samoa, which some people in other parts of the country, I guess they're called Carmel delights. Oh, I haven't seen it. I feel like I should look up on Google, like what a box of that looks like versus the Samoas.
00:28:17
Speaker
I think it's the exact same thing. I know the Samoa comes in the purple box. This is one that as a kid, this was one of my least favorite Girl Scout cookies because I hated coconut with a passion. As I get older, I just start to realize how big of an idiot I was because coconut, especially toasted coconut is unbelievable.
00:28:35
Speaker
I love toasted coconut and this is just a little like biscuit cookie and it kind of reminds me of like a Keebler elf fudge stripe with toasted coconut around it and they're just unbelievable. Which shout out to Ryan again because he also makes a chocolate covered marshmallow that he rolls in toasted coconut and it tastes exactly like a Samoa cookie. Absolutely unbelievable. The ones he sells like three of them it comes on a stick and they roll them in toasted coconut. Did you have those when you were down there?
00:29:02
Speaker
No, is it like a marshmallow rolled in coconut and then dipped in chocolate or chocolate covered marshmallow with the coconut on top? It takes like a marshmallow, dips it in chocolate, rolls it in toasted coconut. Okay, yeah. I didn't see any of those, no. I don't know if he's mass producing them and selling them. I know that he tested them out and maybe more people didn't buy them, but when I was down there, they were brand new. He gave me two and they tasted exactly like a Samoa and it was unbelievable.
00:29:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's really good. I love toasted coconut too. I was gonna say that's my second favorite Girl Scout cookie is also the Samoa Girl Scout cookie. I think we got the top three right off the bat. Alright, give me pick number two. So after Samoas, have you had the Samoas Girl Scout cookies?
00:29:49
Speaker
I have had the s'mores Girl Scout cookies. I have a box upstairs right now. Yeah, I think that would be one of mine. And you know, I don't think we had those as kids. How long has the s'mores one been out? I don't know. Let me look it up real quick. Yeah, so I like that one a lot. I agree. That's probably the best of the sandwich cookies that Girl Scout makes, which is awesome because I feel like a lot of times people do like
00:30:11
Speaker
s'more like i love s'mores but anytime it's like oh s'mores popcorn or like s'mores this or s'mores that and they try and make it taste like s'mores it tastes like it tastes so fake and just yeah it doesn't taste good at all but the girl scout cookie s'mores does taste really good it looks like it came out in august of 2016
00:30:29
Speaker
Okay, yeah, so definitely we didn't have those when we were kids. All right, give me pick number three for you. So these adventure fools, their soft brownie fired cookie with a caramel flavored cream topped with sea salt. Those are new cookie. Those came out in 2022 and they're, they're actually pretty unbelievable. They're definitely slowly climbing to the tops of the ranks of Girl Scout cookies for me.
00:30:51
Speaker
There is still one of my favorites that's left, and it's the peanut butter sandwich cookie, the do-si-do. These ones are all peanut butter. There is no chocolate. They, you know, so nothing really melts on you. They're not as good as the Tagalong. They're a lot less sweet. Like you have to have do-si-dos with a small glass of milk. This is a crunchy oatmeal sandwich cookie with creamy peanut butter filling. So definitely need some something else to go with that.
00:31:15
Speaker
Pick number four for me. I'm going to go with another new one, which is one of their gluten-free ones, but I'm going with toffee-tastic. I've never had it. It's a gluten-free, kind of like shortbread-ish cookie, and it has little bits of toffee inside of it. Give me your last two Girl Scout cookies. Oh, man. Okay.
00:31:38
Speaker
I guess if I had to pay the, I don't know, the lemon ups? And then I was looking over here and it says, you know, the lemonades. So are they lemonades or are they lemon ups? Because there are two different lemon Girl Scout cookies. Oh, really? Yes. And one is the lemonade and one is the lemon up. Wow.
00:31:59
Speaker
and it kind of depends regionally where you are at for which one you can get. So in Ohio, it's probably lemon-ups then.
00:32:08
Speaker
Yes, Ohio is the lemon up, which is a huge point of contention in my household. My wife's favorite Girl Scout cookie is the Lemonade's, which she's from Kentucky, and she can get the Lemonade's in Kentucky, but she can only get the Lemonup's here. Oh, wow. Kentucky's not that far away for the different cookie choice. Interesting. Yeah, I think the Lemonup's are my next choice. Give me your last pick then.
00:32:35
Speaker
I guess the caramel chocolate chip. Have you seen that? There's a caramel chocolate chip. It says there's a caramel chocolate chip. Maybe. Yeah, right here. Let me read it. I have never seen this Girl Scout cookie in my life. It says gluten-free, a rich caramel semi-sweet chocolate chips with a hint of sea salt and a chewy cookie. Huh. Maybe you can get them in Kentucky because it's on the lineup with the lemonades.
00:33:03
Speaker
Maybe it's a made-up Girl Scout cookie, but I do want to try it.
00:33:06
Speaker
Alright, well my last pick, I'm gonna take the lemonades. I've had them once, I'm not the biggest fan of lemon cookies, but those ones are pretty good, and I'm definitely not taking trefoils, that's my least favorite cookie. Here's another one that I haven't had, it's called Toastier. Yummy toast-shaped cookies full of French toast flavor and dipped in delicious icing. Yeah, I also saw that one. Toastier. That actually sounds super good. French toast inspired. It's shaped like a little French toast, a little piece of bread.
00:33:34
Speaker
There is another new cookie out that's a chocolate raspberry cookie and it's a thin mint. The exact same style of cookie is a thin mint, but raspberry instead of mint flavored. But you can only get that one bought online. Oh really? Okay, well now as my Girl Scout cookie seller that next year I'm expecting all these. I'll take one box of everything from your daughter next year. Well that is our draft of the best Girl Scout cookies. How you feel about your list? Pretty confident, solid choices in the correct order.
00:34:03
Speaker
That's true. You can't go wrong with Girl Scout cookies. They're all delicious. Yeah, they really are. All right. Now we are in our final segment, Kimberly. You said that you've done a whole bunch of audio books this year. It is time for the Afternoon Delights Book Club. Give me either your all time favorite book, something that you've read recently that you want to recommend that our listeners pick up and give a read.
00:34:24
Speaker
Oh wow, okay, let me see, I wasn't prepared for that one. You might have heard of it, the compound effect, that was really good. I actually listened to that one while I was in Texas. It really gets you motivated talking about behaviors and choices and your habits and how they all kind of affect all parts of your life.
00:34:41
Speaker
So I've listened to that one twice. My favorite book ever, probably this 12 rules for life book, my brother recommended to me. It's a really long read. There's some interesting like principles and it kind of really makes you think about life in a new way and it's really good. So highly recommend that one. I really like listening to just like self
00:35:03
Speaker
help, self-development, books, things like that. I don't go crazy with the fun books. I need to read a couple fun books I think too. Some like murder mystery adventure books. So if you have any good recommendations, send them to me.
00:35:17
Speaker
You're just going to have to listen to every episode of Afternoon Delights because we got Book Club at the end and there's a whole bunch of good stuff on there. I'm finishing up Demon Copperhead now. Did Forever War. We got Theft of Swords, Recursions, Grey Matter, The Silent Patient. There's all kinds of stuff. Just tune in to every episode, every Wednesday, Afternoon Delights and you can be a part of the Afternoon Delights Book Club. Love it.
00:35:40
Speaker
All right, Kimberly, well, that wraps up our show. I hope that you had a great time. We enjoyed you being on. You were a fantastic guest. We're glad that we got all the dirt on Travis, and we're gonna give him a hard time next time that he comes on as a guest. Okay, well, thank you for having me, Matt. I really appreciate it. Such an honor. Thank you for joining us again, and thank you out there to everybody listening. We appreciate every listen, and I'm your host, Matt Latimer, and I'm just reminding you that it's a good day to have a good day.
00:36:09
Speaker
I'll be your Saint Goodnight. I hate to go and live this pretty side. So long, farewell, I'll be your Saint Andrew. I do, I do, to you Andrew, Andrew.