Girl Scout cookies and cream

Sure, no problem. Six little Girl Scout cookie-ish desserts. I love Girl Scout cookies. I dig dessert.

This was going to be a piece of cake. So I thought, taking my seat at the judge’s table in Boomtown’s convention center.

Less than an hour later, I had a sugar rush that rivaled that of an adolescent working through a fat pillowcase of Halloween treats. I’d sampled Dreyer’s Ice Cream laced with Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties. I’d eaten Shortbreads dipped in chocolate created by Becky Cavender of Sweets Handmade Candies and Caramel deLite cake served in a white coconut and drizzled with cream prepared by Robert Quintanilla of Scolari’s.

Sweet.

The 2002 Girl Scout Cookie Concoction Contest at Boomtown Hotel and Casino Monday kicked off the annual distribution of sugary disks. If you ordered any of these recently from a girl in a brown, green or tan vest, your cookies are on their way.

If you didn’t order in advance, have no fear. Girl Scouts will be stationed in many prominent places like grocery stores and the J.C. Penney Outlet for the next few weeks, hawking the above goodies at $3 a box. My daughter, for example, intends to spend six hours Friday evening in front of Blockbuster Video on Prater Way in Sparks.

So let’s be shamelessly promotional here. If you see a Scout cookie-pusher, feel free to buy a box or two. It’s been a not-so-good year for cookie sales all around. Troop leader Danya Bellamy says that sales have been down, down, down. Danya’s daughter Ashlee, who sold as many as 928 boxes of cookies one year, only sold about 350 so far this year. (Yes, I know that’s still a lot of cookies. But individual troops only get 50 cents a box, and that funds a year’s worth of positive character-building activities.)

I never realized just how versatile Girl Scout cookies could be until the Cookie Concoctions event. The seven judges including myself concurred that the best dessert overall was a creamy Friendship pie, drizzled with chocolate and caramel, topped with decorative chocolate, berries and chunks of pure Caramel deLite. Dennis Castillo of Boomtown came up with this winning idea. The Scolari’s coconuts came in second, and you can get the recipe for Harrah’s third-prize winning contribution, Caramel deLite brownies à la mode, at the Girl Scouts of the Sierra Nevada Web site, www.gssn.org.

About the time that I could barely move, the whole event was over and I possessed a to-go box with almost an entire Thin Mint cake baked up by Tabatha and Delsey at Albertson’s (winner of the Best Presentation award). I’d been able to eat only a bite or two, but it was a fine cake.

I felt a bit gooey, somewhat queasy and definitely over-desserted.

Not my two daughters, though. They had other plans that involved heading to Boomtown’s Fun Center. They were bent on spending some quality time with me.

"Hey, let’s go on the full-motion theater ride!"