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?

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.

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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.

It's that time of year again: Girl Scout cookie season. This year all Girl Scout cookies are trans-fat free so you can eat them with slightly less guilt than before.

There are two bakeries that produce Girl Scout Cookies, Little Brownie Bakers and ABC Bakers . Both produce some of the classic cookies, including Thin Mints, Samoas, Trefoils and Tagalongs (a.k.a. Peanut Butter Patties), but each of the bakeries make several cookies that the other does not. Little Brownie Bakers has three original creations this year. Sugar Free Little Brownies are little chewy chocolate squares "packed with chocolate chips" that are diabetic friendly and All-Abouts are all about "Enjoying life as a true Girl Scout" and appear to have a chocolate-flavored coating on one side.

ABC Bakers has Reduced Fat Cartwheels, which are "oatmeal rounds with a cinnamon burst in every bite" and lemon-iced shortbread Lemonades in their lineup this spring, as well as cookies with the odd name Thanks-a-Lot appear to be the same as the All-Abouts from LBB, although they have the words for "thanks" in five different languages written on them.

I'm planning on passing on both the All-Abouts and Thanks-a-Lots, but I'll consider getting a box of Lemonades with my Samoas, Tagalongs and Trefoils this year.

Somehow, the fact that August 10th is National S'mores Day managed to sneak by us, but these delicious treats are worth a mention, even if it is a bit belated.

If you're not familiar with s'mores, they are made by sandwiching a toasted marshmallow and a piece of chocolate in between two graham crackers. The name of the treat comes from the two words "some more," clearly combined because people often wanted to have at least a second serving after having one s'more. The treat was developed by campers in the early part of the 20th century, making use of the fairly new mass-produced marshmallows. Marshmallows were easy to transport, as were candy bars and graham crackers, and the marshmallows could be warmed easily over a fire to make a delicious treat in a situation where other types of sweets would have been difficult to come by.

As if we didn't really need more reason to buy an extra box or two of your favorite Girl Scout cookies, I have just stumbled across the website for one of two companies that bake the Girl Scout cookies that send us into a thin, minty frenzy every Spring. The website is obviously geared toward their happy little salesgirls, but they also list recipes, not for the cookies, themselves, but that use the cookies as ingredients.

Samoas by themselves are pretty rich (I consider them candy, myself), but they can be used to make Mocha Samoa Zuccoto, a chocolate cake-like base with a mascarpone and chocolate filling and crushed Samoas as a topping.

Sound too rich? Then what about Levitating Layers, alternating layers of Samoas, sweetened cream cheese, and chocolate pudding. And it's not just Samoas. You can use Tagalongs, Thin Mints, and Trefoils to make a Peanut Butter Mint Bombe.

I'll just take my Cafe cookies with a cup of coffee.

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?

Dreyers/Edys is putting out its seasonal, special-edition Girl Scout Cookie flavored ice creams this month. The flavors include Thin Mints, a chocolate mint concoction with cookie chunks based on the best-selling flavor, and Samoas Cookies, a creamy caramel ice cream with fudge swirls and chunks of Samoas cookies. Both of these flavors are available in regular and light varieties. The final limited-edition flavor is based on Tagalongs and is vanilla ice cream with peanut butter and fudge swirls as well as pieces of the famous peanut butter patty cookies mixed in. The flavors will be available in supermarkets through April.

On their website, the company is hosting a Junior Chef recipe contest. Kids 8-12 can enter their favorite dessert or snack recipes that use the Girl Scout ice creams for a chance to win a prize pack including a year’s supply of Dreyer’s ice cream. The grand-prize winner will also receive a $500 savings bond and have their recipe featured on cartons of ice cream. To get inspired, check out last year’s winning recipes.