We recently received an invitation to meet Gail Simmons, Special Projects Manager with Food & Wine Magazine who gained national (international? interplanetary?) visibility as a judge on our favorite TV food show, “Top Chef.”

She was the celebrity guest at a debut party for Pepperidge Farm’s Tam Tam cookies—the top-selling cookie in Australia, now available in the U.S., and apparently a favorite of Gail’s. You can find them exclusively at Target stores from October through March (when they can be shipped in cool comfort without hot containers melting the chocolate).

If you like Kit Kat and Twix bars, these are bigger, plumper, more sumptuous versions. Crisp chocolate cookie layers are filled with chocolate crème or richer caramel, then enrobed in even richer chocolate.

Tim Tam cookies were originally made by Arnott’s Biscuits Limited of Australia, and are a huge favorite Down Under (the brand is now owned by Pepperidge Farm). The cookies were named after the 1958 Kentucky Derby winning horse.

The more voluptuous Caramel Tim Tams outshine their Chocolate Creme sisters, but if we had never met Caramel, we’d have been happy taking Chocolate Crème home.

The milk chocolate enrobing the cookie is very sweet—eat more than two at a time and you’ll be in the “Why did I eat that last cookie?” mode. So in that way, the cookies have a beneficial, self-limiting feature. We didn’t have a chance to try the dark chocolate versions.

 
Now, some of you have heard about the upcoming FTC “blogger disclosure law,” actually part of the new FTC Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, that is scheduled to go into effect on December 1st. Among other things, it requires those who endorse products in the media, including blogs and social media, to disclose if they have received the products for free, work for the company, are an MD, Phd or other “Dr.” (if they call upon their expertise as a doctor), etc.

At THE NIBBLE, we’re already anticipating using disclosures like, “We received these four flavors for free, and bought these 6 flavors at our local supermarket.” (THE NIBBLE gets free samples, but we spend far more buying products plus the ancillary products needed to cook, bake and otherwise prepare many of the free samples.)

In the case of Tim Tam: We got them for free but enjoyed them so much, we would gladly have paid for them and certainly will go out and pay for the dark chocolate versions. These are not artisan baked goods, but they are one heck of a comfort food fix.