Cookies are enjoyed by all of us. Young or old, rich or poor, Olympic athlete or couch potato, we're all the same - we all love cookies! We came across these interesting facts recently:

Most of us will consume about 35,000 cookies in our lifetime.

Chocolate Chip cookies are by far the most popular cookies in the North American today. They were accidentally created by Ruth Wakefield in 1933. (While baking cookies one day, Ruth realized she was out of nuts but she found some chocolate pieces in her pantry. Desperate, she substituted the nuts for chocolate and the rest is history!

Traditional Italian cookies are known as biscotti and are twice-baked to give an incomparable crisp taste; they are also known as cantuccini.

Gingerbread cookies from Germany were the first cookies ever associated with Christmas. Their popularity remains strong today.

The first fortune cookie was actually baked in America. (The tradition of a fortune with your cookie is Japanese even though most people associate fortune cookies with the Chinese tradition.)

Cookies were first baked in Persia in 7 A.D. (They were more like cookie cakes than the cookies we know today.)

We've assembled a selection of gourmet cookies that makes it virtually impossible not to tempt even the most serious dieter!