TRIVIA TODAY - Monday, May 4, 2015

Greetings Infomaniacs,

Girl Scout cookies are pretty much the biggest enemy when it comes to my diet. I grew up being in the Girl Scouts and had those darn cookies every year. Now I have little cousins asking me to buy them, and how can I resist those little faces when they ask if I'd like to buy some cookies? Also, how can I resist those delicious Thin Mints and Do-Si-Dos? It's a double whammy right there!

Enjoy!
Melissa

Questions? Comments? Email Melissa

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WHO SAID IT?
QUOTE: "Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave."

HINT: (1936-), is an American actress, primarily known for her roles in television sitcoms.


RANDOM TIDBITS
For a while, each Girl Scout council could choose its own baker, and at one point there were 29 different companies making the cookies. To streamline the process, that number went down to four in the late 1970s, and in the 1990s, it decreased even further to two: ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers.

The cookies were first sold in 1917. Back then, the scouts baked the cookies themselves and sold them door to door. By the 1920s, they were using a simple sugar cookie recipe, perhaps based on one published in a July 1922 issue of The American Girl magazine. In 1935, the words "Girl Scout Cookies" appeared on the boxes for the first time, and in 1936, the national organization began using commercial bakers.

Samoas, second in sales only to the iconic Thin Mints, were added to the Little Brownie cookie line in 1975. No one seems sure where the name Samoa comes from. One popular theory is the coconut connection. Of the island Samoa's top exports, number eight is coconut oil while number 15 is coconuts, brazil nuts, and cashews.

A trefoil is a kind of three-leafed plant-hence the shape of the shortbread cookie with the same name. The word trefoil comes from the Latin trifolium, "three leaf." The trefoil is also the emblem of both the Girl Scouts of the U.S. and the Girl Guides of Canada.

If the name Savannah Smiles sounds familiar, that's because it was a 1982 family-friendly movie about an unhappy little girl named Savannah who runs away from home, but in the end is happily reunited with her mother. However, the actress who played Savannah, Bridgette Andersen, didn't have such a happy ending; she died of an apparent drug overdose at age 21.

While the Girl Guides of Canada were established two years before the Girl Scouts, they began selling cookies later, in 1927. Past cookie varieties included vanilla crème, maple cream, and shortbread, but nowadays, the Canadian cookie selection is much more streamlined than the Girl Scouts'. In the spring they offer "classic chocolate and vanilla cookies," and in the fall, their version of Thin Mints: Chocolately Mint cookies.

(www.mentalfloss.com)


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Skinny I am fast,
fat I am slow,
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WHO SAID IT?
QUOTE: "Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave."

ANSWER: Mary Tyler Moore.

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