Sylvester Damianos, FAIA, former AIA president and chairman of The American Architectural Foundation, next year's chancellor of the AIA College of Fellows, and designer of the AAF Keystone Award, has added more kudos to his resume: cookie design.

Damianos, president of the Damianosgroup PC, Pittsburgh, is part of the team that created An Edible Game—The Smart Cookie, a dessert with a cerebral twist. Questions and answers based on the Knowledge in a Nutshell book series by Charles Reichblum are baked into the walnut-shaped sugar cookies—sort of like a fortune cookie with flare. The idea is that after-dinner revelers test one another's knowledge of esoteric facts.

The Jenny Lee Bakery introduced The Smart Cookie July 26 at its retail outlets in Pittsburgh. Knowledge in a Nutshell Inc. is quite proud of the fact that an architect designed the cookie mold. (The design program was straightforward enough: make a cookie that looks like a walnut and still slips easily out of the mold after baking.)

The Reichblums are clients of Damianosgroup, a relationship that goes back to the 1970s, Damianos said. Knowing that his design interests extend beyond architecture, they contacted him when the idea of The Smart Cookie first began to develop. Damianos created the wax form for the cookie mold, from which sculptor Peter Calaboyias created the metal form.

Copyright 2002 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.