I remember those cookies so well, as a matter of fact, I was almost sick of them because one of my brother's friends worked there and would bring home all the "messed up" cookies and so we always had them around. I was young but I do remember them and yes, they were good!
Well hi all Unknon Jeromes Cookie fans. I too was a super fan of Unknown Jeromes... I have had a little secret though for the past 32 years. I have lived in New Mexico for a long while now but I am from Marin County. I used to work for RB furniture near San Rafael area when I was 20 years old (I'm 52 now) there was a dark haired sales lady who I worked with, twice my age about. (I was the youngest salesman there) she had a cool boyfriend that was a foreigner of some kind, I no longer remember his name but he was tall and thin and brown haired man with a nice accent - Caucasian decent. He was in deeply with Unknown Jeromes in some way. He used to bring us individually foil wrapped Chocolate Chip Unknown Jeromes cookies while picking up his girlfriend. I got to be a little friendly with him over time as I was young and enthusiastic he took to me. He told me how to make these cookies and to this day I make perfect replicas of Unknown Jeromes Chocolate Chip cookies. I know the secrets. I will gladly ship some cookies to interested parties. The secrets would probably be very very difficult to guess, as its quite a turn from a normal Chocolate Chip cookie or any other cookie for that matter. When I could no longer find these wonder cookies I learned to master them myself. Additionally they are quite nutritious. Although I'm told my oatmeal raisin, cranberry, pecan etc. version based on these principles I learned are the best cookie on earth... smirk. These days I have upgraded them to mostly all organic.
I was in charge of distribution of Unknown Jerome's cookies in the South Bay in 1980. Steeped in myth and legend as the company and products are, and in spite of the best cookies then and now, combined with some of the best, most passionate and skilled employees one might imagine, UJ failed. People often ask "Why, how?" and more importantly what happened to the recipe? Someone is holding on to the recipe(s). Several years ago I tracked down the original investor and was referred to a woman whom I emailed multiple times even offering $40,000 for the BFJ recipe without so much as the courtesy of a reply.
To set the record straight, former comedy writer Andrew Johnson was not the owner, he was a minor investor, public front man and [..]. The cookies were known as the "adult" and "haute" cookie because they really did contain a plethora of aphrodisiacs; I visited the bakery several times and saw shelves of gallon jugs of aphrodisiac extracts. I witnessed them added to BFJ batter, but not others though they may have been.
My team worked to get UJ into 7-11 stores with some major local success. We hired a fabulous young woman away from the San Francisco Cookie Co. and along with a person from Langendorf and the tireless efforts of Eric S- at UJ, achieved approval from [...] to go national in their stores. Due to mismanagement at the top of UJ this was not to be. While [...] my delivery drivers were fired as soon as they reached permanent status, stale and broken cookies were not replaced, dirty jars as well were considered to be the store's responsibility - though we did washed and exchanged most of them at our facility, failure to comply with Health Dept. requirements, even though labeled wrappers were finally instituted it was too little too late. Dozens of cookies had gone MIA and my team were erroneously blamed even though we kept strict and accurate records of everything we were blamed for all losses of cookies company-wide. Our records showing we had no losses other than a few dozen given out as company policy samples over time were not considered. Lies and accusations originated from one woman and one man who were new hires. I was fired, the man who lied had been hired as a driver, was given my position, quit after two weeks, South Bay distribution all but fell apart, and I was begged to come back [...] which I did for a short time. But the writing was on the wall that this company was going down fast and I left.
Unknown Jeromes could have been an international sensation. It still could be, but the recipe(s) is the first key. When I was trying to track it down I had 2 major investors, an incredibly skilled baker who owns several "Cookies By Design" stores ready to run with it if the recipe was found. About the recipe, two [...] members affirm it is a myth that it was concocted by a "French pastry chef for $100,000". Somebody somewhere has the recipes. Why they are being withheld is a tragic loss to everyone. There is no cookie in the world I am aware of that comes close to Unknown Jeromes. So if anyone finds it...
-- Edited by JasonLewis on Tuesday 7th of January 2014 03:12:44 PM
I've scoured my archives - no photos of the Naz to be found! I wish I had the insight to have documented the days there - so many controversial things about the business model/marketing, but it worked!
Alison; Unfortunately I was never privvy to the recipes of the cookies. The dough was delivered to the store from a warehouse on Kerner Blvd. in San Rafael. So all we did was open up these huge tubs and used ice-cream scoopers to make the regular cookies, a pastry bag for the crunchies, and hand rolled the Snart Foobs. The Nazaroons obviously were a macaroon type cookie, but as to other ingredients, I can't ell you what the heck it was. As for shaping them, it was just a matter of taking a ball of dough, put both pointer fingers in the shape of a triangle on top of the dough, and use your thumbs to create the nostrils. NOt a great description of how to shape it, but that's the basics! After you make the initial shape, it just takes a little sculpting to make it look right.
And no, I cannot locate any pictures as of yet from my days as a cookie girl. They exist somewhere, but probably in a box in the attic. I'll keep looking!
Katherine, former cookie gal - would you be able to describe how the Nazeroons were made? (I especially liked the ones with raisins in the nostrils.) I bought a dozen and took them to work to gross people out while "treating" them at the same time. They were a big hit and tasted great, but how did you shape them? If it doesn't violate someones copyright at this late date, could you share the recipe if you have it? Or even a ballpark guess? When I look for recipes like this on line I only find references to elephant ear cookies which are deep fried and not at all similar. Thanks :)
I was one of the original Unknown Jerome's cookie girls when it opened. It was my first real job in high school, and I was fortunate to have worked with a great group of people. I have such fond memories of working there and am so sad it closed. The company had a great marketing strategy! They created Unknown Jeromes in response to Famous Amos and his cookies. Let me take you down memory lane for a moment:
BFJ's (Big Fat Jeromes),BFJsandwich,RumRaisin,PinaColada,Crunchies,SnartFoobs, The Nazaroon (cookie shaped like the nose), and the Butterscotch. Anyone remember at Halloween when they made the Witch's Tit? It was a huge milk chocolate BFJ mound with a Hershey's kiss on top!
It was great to be able to eat the cookie dough raw! I developed a very strong cookie scooping muscle. Sometimes the dough for the Pina Colada had an inconsistent ingredient ratio, and when put in the oven, the cookies literally exploded and turned into a flat crystalized coconut mess. Not saleable, but they were still yummy!
My favorite memories were those customers that would come in and complain about the artwork on the wall, specifically the one of DaVinci's "Last Supper", however it was changed to the "Last Cookie". They said it was sacreligious... Some just never had a sense of humor. The Magritte picture was also a big topic of conversation.
To this day, I can still take a piece of playdough and mold it into the Naz. Some skills you never lose! And I always went home smelling like a cookie.....ah those were the days!
omigod, we used to drive to Unknown Jerome's during lunch, from Marin Catholic. Not just drive in a car, but sometimes in the back of a classmates pick-up truck. No whimpy rules back then, eh?
My family used to go to Unknown Jeromes and buy and bagfull of cookies. My dad loved the mocha sandwich cookie - two rich chocolate chip cookies with butter cream mocha filling in the middle. He later developed adult onset diabetes, and the cookie habit had to end. But he still talks about the good old days when we visit Larkspur Landing and peek at whatever restaurant currently occupies that space (Thai Restaurant?)
Regarding the cake at Marvin Gardens, if you Google Chocolate Beet Cake you will find at least a bazillion recipes for this cake, but which one might it be, if any?!
Do chocolate cake lovers remember the incredibly tall slices of the fabulous chocolate cake served in the 1970’s at the original Marvin’s Gardens restaurant on Magnolia in Larkspur? How about the rich dense Chocolate Beet Cake sold in the 1980’s across the street at the Cat’s Cradle Bakery? I knew people from the East Bay who would drive all the way over here just to buy it! What happened to those recipes???
