You access them by the document.cookie
Code:
document.cookie =
'ppkcookie1=testcookie; expires=Thu, 2 Aug 2001 20:47:11 UTC; path=/'
1. First the name-value pair ('ppkcookie1=testcookie')
2. then a semicolon and a space
3. then the expiry date in the correct format ('expires=Thu, 2 Aug 2001 20:47:11 UTC')
4. again a semicolon and a space
5. then the path (path=/)
From:
http://www.quirksmode.org/js/cookies.html