No, they are not made out of real Girl Scouts.

But they are just as sweet and lovable.

Right now, in Maplewood and South Orange, it's Girl Scout cookie time! Time for you to stock up on Thin Mints and feed your Samoa cravings. This month, you can find Brownies, Juniors and Cadettes selling cookies outside of Kings in Maplewood, Pathmark in South Orange and at the train stations in both towns.

The cookie sales are the main fundraising event for the troops, which can get anywhere from 70 cents to $1 per box depending on how many they sell. This money goes to pay for camping trips–like the Maplewood South Orange Service Unit Camporee being held at Camp Hoover in May. It also pays for supplies to perform service projects and earn badges as well as pay for the actual badges themselves.

But first, a little history. The first Girl Scout cookie sale was held in December 1917 by the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, OK. The cookies were sold in the school cafeteria as a service project. By 1922, simple sugar cookies were baked in homes and sold door to door for 30 cents a dozen. The recipe was provided by Florence E. Neil, a local director in Chicago. It wasn't until 1951 that the best selling Girl Scout cookie of all time, the Thin Mint, was introduced.

Here in Maplewood and South Orange, there are about 18 troops selling cookies. The sale started in January with the troops selling to friends, family and neighbors. Cookie order deliveries started in late February. The month of March starts the booth sales. You can find out when the next sale is by clicking here.

This year, the troops have it a bit easier. In past years, the troops would need to drive to Montclair to pick up the cookies for their sales. This year, in an undisclosed location somewhere in the Maplewood/South Orange area, there is a Cookie Depot. The initial delivery to stock the depot was 500 cases of cookies.

That's 6,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. All in one place. And that includes one full shipping palette of Thin Mints alone. The location is being kept secret for the safety of the cookies...

As good as the cookies are, they're not without controversy. First, there is the voluntary recall of Lemon Chalet–a vanilla cookie sandwich with a lemon crème filling. While they are safe to eat, some boxes may have an 'off' taste or smell. The lot numbers in the recall are 7459402 and 7459403. Please contact your troop for a replacement should you have any of the recalled boxes.

Secondly, there's the price. They're $4 a box now in our area. In New York City and southern New Jersey, they're still $3.50 a box, for now. The upside is the troops get a bit more money. The downside? It's $4 per box.

Lastly, there is the thought that with the high rate of childhood obesity, the Girl Scouts really shouldn't be selling cookies. The GSUSA's official stance is that the cookies are a treat which "shouldn't be a big part of somebody's diet."

That aside, there are some cool things you can do with Girl Scout cookies. Like pair them with wine. Hank Zona, Maplewood's own wine guru and proprietor of Swirl Wine Events, has done just that. While dining one night at Arturo's in Maplewood, Hank asked the owner if it was okay for him to run home to get six wines and some girl scout cookies for dessert since the tasting menu at Arturo's didn't come with dessert.With the owner's blessing, Hank cleared a table and offered tastes to the patrons present.

Since the cookies are very sweet and strongly flavored, finding pairings that work was challenging.

"One pairing principle is if you have a sweet food, you may have to have a sweeter wine, so most of the wines I used to pair were dessert or fortified wines—most, not all," Hank noted. "It was fun to put together, and also a good opportunity to not only show how and why to pair certain things, but a chance to get people to try wines they might not normally try, like sherries and Vin Santo." Some pairings that work are Lemon Chalets with a Roederer Estate and Samoas with white tawny ports.

Now for some fun girl scout cookie trivia.

The best selling cookie is Thin Mints. No surprise really. Thin Mints account for over 25% of total sales. Next up is Samoas with 19% of total sales. And the third most popular cookie is the peanut butter and chocolate Tagalongs with 13% of sales.

There are two authorized cookie bakers: Little Brownie Bakers have been baking Girl Scout cookies for about 30 years, and ABC Bakers have been churning them out since 1939.

There are over 28 varieties of cookies available–but only about eight varieties are offered for sale during the various sale periods. There are three mandatory flavors always available: Thin Mints, shortbread and the peanut butter sandwich cookie.

The cookies have different names depending on who makes them. Little Brownie Bakers make Do-si-dos, while ABC calls them Peanut Butter Sandwiches. Tagalongs are the same as Peanut Butter Patties. Samoas are Carmel deLights, and Trefoils are Shortbreads.

New cookies that have been introduced recently are Thank You Berry Munch for 2010 and Dulce de Leche in 2009. Some new cookies don't fare all that well. The sugar-free variety was dropped this year because of low sales.

Little Brownie Bakers make over 4,500,000 Thin Mints per day during peak baking periods.

The cookies are only available for a limited time–through the end of March in our area. So stock up. They freeze well!