Friends from the UK were in town. They brought my fiancée and I a stellar gift: A beautiful tin box full of Ben’s Cookies.
I ate my first Ben’s Cookie in 2008 while doing an internship near London with my best friend. We both still remember it. Baked the same way since starting from an iconic red shop in Oxford’s covered market in 1984, these cookies are just the perfect mix of gooey, crunchy, and flavorful without tasting overpowering.
Yet, for some reason, you can only find them in the UK and a few select locations worldwide. Ergo, a stellar gift for a couple living in Munich with no access to these bad boys. The red, Christmas-themed box with its beautiful white lettering is a marvel all on its own. B…
Friends from the UK were in town. They brought my fiancée and I a stellar gift: A beautiful tin box full of Ben’s Cookies.
I ate my first Ben’s Cookie in 2008 while doing an internship near London with my best friend. We both still remember it. Baked the same way since starting from an iconic red shop in Oxford’s covered market in 1984, these cookies are just the perfect mix of gooey, crunchy, and flavorful without tasting overpowering.
Yet, for some reason, you can only find them in the UK and a few select locations worldwide. Ergo, a stellar gift for a couple living in Munich with no access to these bad boys. The red, Christmas-themed box with its beautiful white lettering is a marvel all on its own. But of course, the eight stars of the show were inside. There’s milk chocolate, double chocolate, triple chocolate, even variants with macadamia, peanuts, and more.
The next day, we were invited to other friends’ house. We didn’t have a good gift to bring, and I knew our hosts loved cookies. So we brought two of Ben’s. It definitely felt like a sacrifice at first. Were we really going to hand over a quarter of our special treat to someone else? But as soon as everyone popped a piece of a cookie into their mouth at the dinner table, the real lesson was clear: The best way to make presents last is to share them.
Now, our friends also know about Ben’s Cookies. They might look for them when they next go to the UK. Who knows? Maybe they’ll give them to more friends as a gift. And then they can tell them the story: “You know, the first time I ate these, friends brought them to our house, and…”
Sorrow shared may be sorrow cut in half, but a gift shared could turn into a gift doubled—even if, like a great cookie, it ends up disappearing entirely in the process.
Nik
Niklas Göke writes for dreamers, doers, and unbroken optimists. A self-taught writer with more than a decade of experience, Nik has published over 2,000 articles. His work has attracted tens of millions of readers and been featured in places like Business Insider, CNBC, Lifehacker, and many others. Nik has self-published 2 books thus far, most recently 2-Minute Pep Talks. Outside of his day job and daily blog, Nik loves reading, video games, and pizza, which he eats plenty a slice of in Munich, Germany, where he resides.