To the editors:

"Tears of joy welled up in my eyes" as I perused Adam I. Arenson's editorial this past Friday ("The Joy of Cookies," 12/4). Finally, I thought, a true food-snob sympathizer! My high school friends, having grown up with delicacies from my mother's kitchen, were well-acquainted with my food snobbery; instead of asking what I was going to major in at college, most people asked what I was going to eat. How well they predicted the inadequacy of dorm food!

However, my penchant for the gourmet (and only the gourmet) has baffled my Harvard friends from day one. By an unhappy coincidence, my 18th birthday coincided with the first day of classes freshman year: my mother saved me from dining hall misery by setting up a Fedex account and air-mailing me an apricot pie (to the astonishment of my roommates). This was but the first in a long series of misunderstandings by my friends.

Slowly but surely, the education of my friends is paying off, though they haven't quite reached the palate-pleasing plateau upon which Adam and I reside. (Perhaps our mutual Southern Californian heritage explains our food snobbery?) But at least now roommates, blockmates, and random acquaintances all eagerly anticipate my mother's packages. I want Adam to know that a few Cantabrigians understand the joy of cookies and uphold the Banner of the Gourmet in his absence. MARY-BETH A. MUCHMORE '00   Dec. 6, 1998