Sunday, March 8, 2009 was a sad day. I can’t go so far as to say it was the worst day of my life, but it’s up there.
It was the day I made a routine stop at Starbucks with my boyfriend before going to a movie. We love coffee. But we also love white chocolate macadamia nut cookies (to be called WCMNCs from this point on). Like really love them. It’s a love I share with awesome people in my life; my boyfriend, my roommate…and I’ve developed a routine with both of them of picking up a latte and a WCMNC before a movie at the AMC Yonge & Dundas 24 or after a long yoga class at the Yoga Sanctuary.
On March 15, one last cookie was left at the Starbucks in the Vancouver airport. I wonder if the person who bought it knew the significance of their indulgence.
I actually had a bit of a WCMNC problem in second-year university. It must not have been long after I discovered WCMNCs, because I was hooked. Every time I saw a Starbucks, if I hadn’t already had my fix that day, I would stop for a WCMNC. I can even recall the indulgence of twice in one day (granted, that was to fill the void Via Rail had caused me with inconvenient student pricing and excessive amounts of walking.)
There is another reason that Starbucks white chocolate macadamia nut cookies hold such a special place in my heart (and belly). I’m from a small town in northern B.C. ⎯ sans Starbucks.
So on March 8, after having been home for Christmas for two weeks and then interning in Yellowknife (also sans-Starbucks) for six weeks, I couldn’t even remember the last time I savoured the sweet indulgence of a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie.
Walking up to the counter, my boyfriend mentioned that there was no White Chocolate Macadamia Nut cookie sign behind the clear display glass. “Oh yeah,” said I, ever the Starbucks cookie-buying pro, “Sometimes they don’t have them on display, but they have them under the counter if you ask.”
You can imagine how crushed I was when the barista told me that the cookies have been discontinued! “Discontinued!” I exclaimed. “Why would they do something like that?” She looked completely unfazed. As if this outrage was O.K. There was no explanation as to why Starbucks would recall one of the only extreme indulgences in my life or whether or not they were ever coming back. And just like that, they were gone; out of my life forever.
Starbucks says it “periodically makes changes to our baked goods offerings to ensure there is a variety of high quality items from which our customers can choose.” In January, the mega-chain discontinued the WCMNC from most stores in Canada and replaced it with the Marble Chocolate Cookie – “a cookie with a dark chocolate base and white chocolate chips.”
Starbucks says it does not release sales numbers for individual items, so the company could not provide information on the sale of WCMNCs vs. other cookies.
“I can’t even remember when the last time I had one was,” I moped to my boyfriend that day. “I didn’t even know that I was savouring the last Starbucks white chocolate macadamia nut cookie of my existence.