"GirlScouts" news and stories

When 8-year-old Asheville, North Carolina girl Wild Freeborn enlisted her dad's help to set up a cookie-selling website, all she wanted to do was hawk enough Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties to earn her troop a trip to summer camp. Sounds smart, right? After all, any savvy entrepreneur needs a website.

At first, Freeborn's strategy worked, reports Newsweek: She sold more than 700 boxes of cookies to local residents through the online form, delivering every box herself.

But some parents got mad, citing unfair advantage, and Girl Scout officials quickly demanded that Wildborn take the website down, pointing to the Girl Scouts of America's longstanding ban on online sales. "The safety of our girls is always our chief concern. Girl Scout Cookie activities are designed to be face-to-face learning experiences for the girls," says the Girl Scout website.

Many people see this ban as silly and archaic, since the point of selling Girl Scout cookies is to raise money and teach entrepreneurship to young girls. And the future of entrepreneurship is certainly in online marketing, not going door-to-door Avon Lady-style. I say the Girl Scouts should get with the times and not punish girls for using their smarts and taking advantage of their resources.

What do you think - should the Girl Scouts ban online cookie sales?

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According to a report just yesterday from MSNBC, Girl Scout troops selling their cookies in Washington state are the latest victims of fraud. They have lost $100 so far due to fake $20 bills. This comes at a particularly rough time for Girl Scout cookie sales.

According to The Consumerist, a troop leader states that sales are down by as much as half. As The Consumerist states, "Girl Scout Cookies are not recession-proof." Apparently, they are also not safe from the fraudsters that seem to be sweeping our country, like Bernard Madoff and Robert Allen Stanford. As a result, troop leaders are defending themselves with counterfeit detecting pens. This specific troop of Girl Scouts in Bremerton, WA plans to sell more cookies this weekend, but with a cautious eye and a defensive pen.

Continue reading on AOL Food.

When I mentioned that Girl Scout cookie season was starting, there were many comments about Lemon Pastry Cremes, one of the retired cookie flavors that featured a light pastry cookie and a creamy lemon filling. As far as I've heard, the reason that they were discontinued is that they were switched from ABC Bakeries to Little Brownie Bakers, the second bakery that produces the Girl Scouts' cookies, and that Little Brownie Bakers lacks the right kind of equipment to produce them.

The Girl Scouts seems to retire one every few years, if not more often. Off the top of my head, I can think of several past favorites that are now gone.

• Lemon Coolers were light, crisp cookies with a bold flavor and dusted in powdered sugar.
• Double Dutch were chocolate, chocolate chip cookies.
• Ice Berry Piñatas looked vaguely like Danish pastries, with jam at the center of a tender cookie and a drizzle of icing. http://baking.about.com/od/familybaking/a/girlscoutcookie_2.htm
• Animal Treasures were just the same as the current "All Abouts" and "Thanks" cookies, with a butter cookie dipped in chocolate, as were Friendship Circles Cookies.
• Ole Oles were light, round, powdered sugar-covered cookies with vanilla, pecans and coconut.

I have never been a member of the Thin Mint fan club when it comes to Girl Scout cookies. Certainly, every year around this time, I do my duty of purchasing a few boxes of the cookies from co-workers (entrepreneurial girls always get their parents to do all the heavy-selling), but I wasn't part of the frenzied masses who would buy five six, seven boxes of Thin Mints, keep in the freezer, and eat year round. My favorites have always been the shortbread Trefoils.

But this year, I tried something new, the Cafe Cookie, and I think I have found a new favorite. The cookies are simple, plain cinnamon flavored cookies. They are a bit hard, but that, I suppose, is what makes them a cafe cookie - for dunking in coffee? I don't care. I love them.

What are your favorites?