White chocolate - scrumptious or no thanks?

This is one of our favorite cookie recipies right now; and can't see it with dark chocolate:

BEV’S OATMEAL COOKIES:

1 C Shortening
¾ C Brown sugar
¾ C White sugar
2 Eggs
2 tsp Vanilla
1 T Hot water
1 ½ C Flour
1 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Salt
2 C Rolled oats
2 C White chocolate pieces (12 oz package)
1 C Chopped pecans
1 C Chopped dry cranberries

Cream shortening and sugars. Stir in eggs and vanilla. Add hot water. Stir in flour, soda, and salt; and mix well. Add rolled oats and mix well. Stir in white chocolate and craisins. Drop with a one inch scoop about 1 ½ inches apart onto parchment paper. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until cookies are light brown. Cookies will be soft when taken off pan. Yield: 4 dozen cookies.

I'll bet it's the contrast of the creamy white chocolate with the tart dried cranberries that truly makes the cookie. I'd eat those!

Oh, yes. I have a recipe similar to this and love them. The white chocolate is a must.

Oh, totally agree. Louise MAKES these cookies and everyone loves them including me!!

For all you chocolate snobs, I submit that white chocolate IS a form of chocolate. Easiest to explain this is from (oh no!) Wikipedia: "Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree...The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste, and must be fermented to develop the flavor.
After fermentation, the beans are dried, then cleaned, and then roasted, and the shell is removed to produce cacao nibs. The nibs are then ground to cocoa mass, pure chocolate in rough form. Because this cocoa mass usually is liquefied then molded with or without other ingredients, it is called chocolate liquor. The liquor also may be processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Unsweetened baking chocolate (bitter chocolate) contains primarily cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions. Much of the chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate, combining cocoa solids, cocoa butter or other fat, and sugar. Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk but no cocoa solids."

It is a component of chocolate; it is not chocolate by itself.

I'm okay with white chocolate being considered a form of "chocolate". If indeed it is? My biggest thing is that I simply don't care for its taste. Relative to "normal" chocolate, it tastes too sweet and one-dimensional to me. I miss those dark nuances found in the solids. Granted, I've apparently never had a good white chocolate.

Jeff