Once many moons ago during a summer as an undergraduate student, I took an opportunity for myself to complete a life goal: visit China. A good friend of mine and I took a tour to the country that ever since I was a young girl I had wanted to visit. Thirteen days traveling the country, seeing the sights, and meeting people born in a culture so different than mine was one of the most amazing things I’d ever done, and have done to date.

The only drawback was the food. I’m a picky eater, and Chinese food isn’t high on my list of things I enjoy overall. I like certain dishes, but not the majority of the cuisine. Thirteen days of Chinese food morning, noon, and night began to take it’s toll. Toward the final days of the trip, I was surviving on plain rice and wondering when I’d see fried chicken again. Being that milk was a significant beverage narcotic in my life at that time, I was also going through significant milk withdrawals. The only milk I was able to find in the places we went in China was a sweetened goat’s milk that I did not enjoy.

Then, we got to Hong Kong. Between being such a large city and being owned by the British for so long, Hong Kong had amenities that I thought I wouldn’t see again until I got back to the States. A hotel with a decent dessert section in the gift shop was one of those things. I have a significant sweet tooth and was unaccustomed to some of the other sweets available in other cities.

I picked up a pack of cookies that I didn’t know what they were. The package was in Chinese, but the cookie on the front looked interesting. I got back to my hotel room after a day of wandering in Hong Kong and settled down to share the pack with my friend. They were amazingly good. I’d never had a whole wheat cookie before. And the little wee bit of chocolate on the top gave just the right sweetness to what was basically a non-sweet cookie.

I saved the packaging having the feeling that the cookies were some type of import since there was a small amount of English-language writing on the package, listing the name of the company: McVities.

I found out McVities was a cookie company based in England. That they had a variety of delectable looking treats I would love to try. None of which I could find in the Greater Baton Rouge area. ACK! I had to have these cookies. I looked high. I looked low. And finally, I decided to pop into a little grocery store in Baton Rouge, Calandros, known for some of their specialty items. I was in luck; they carried McVitie’s digestives.

Every few months while shopping in Baton Rouge, I’d pick up a pack to bring home, and enjoy not only the taste of the cookies but also the memories of a fabulous trip I took once upon a time. Then disaster struck! Calandro’s stopped carrying McVitie’s! WAH!

However, the fates smiled down on me and quickly opened a Cost Plus World Market soon after, which carries McVitie’s Digestives in a variety of flavors as well as Hob Nobs.

This past weekend, I happened to stop into World Market between a hair cut and meeting a friend for lunch. They had a special deal: 2 tubes of digestives for $6. Considering 1 tube is normally $4, I decided this was a deal and picked them up for bento inclusion in the coming weeks.

I can’t even describe to you what I like so much about this cookie. But while I do like the ones with chocolate on them, the ones without any type of adornment are almost better. Maybe that is a wee bit of purist talking on the digestive cookie front. However, the plain ones weren’t the ones on sale.

If you can find these in your neck of the woods, try them. They are worth the price, worth the bite, worth the calories. And that’s not just nostalgic memories talking. They are good by themselves, with a cup of milk, with a cup of coffee, or with a cup of tea (if you’re so inclined).

This post is post of love for a cookie near and dear to my heart and is in no way solicitied by McVitie’s.  However, if a representative from McVitie’s finds this post and feels the need to send me some cookies…well, I wouldn’t say no, now would I?  LOL!