Why I Oughta...

In the midst of the gingerbread-cooking-making party in recent weeks, Mr. Hankey made his first visit to our house.  The kids, while intrigued, weren't quite sure to make of him.  And Nat shut it down pretty hard as soon as I started singing the song.  Maybe in a few years when the KotBTs is old enough to discover the show on his own we'll have another visit from Mr. Hankey during Christmastime. 

On a recent visit to NYC, I decided to ask around for a good recommendation for a black and white cookie.  There are a bunch of lists of the *best* black and white cookie out there on the web, but I figured some local might know the answer to my question:  the best black and white cookie that IS WALKABLE from where I was staying. The answer turned out to be the same:  Russ and Daughters.  It was both walkable and it turns out, #1 on the lists. I walked over there and was immediately struck by the place.  Beautiful sign.  And an even better experience inside.  The store was split down the middle with their smoked fish on the left and the bakery items on the right.  They bagged up a few cookies and off I went. Have a look at one of the cookies below.  These were different than the black and whites that I had been buying at the little bodega across the street from my normal hotel.  These were almost glazed, not frosted.  And...

At the office, I bought a few boxes of Girl Scout Cookies from one of my coworkers and instead of bringing them home for me to devour by the sleeve, I did what I thought was the honorable thing and put them in the common area for my team to enjoy. But...I'm not an idiot.  I absconded with one of my boxes and brought it home.  Samoas are not my favorite (more into the frozen Thin Mint, fyi), but they're a favorite of somebody special in my house.  You know what they say:  Happy....

Nat and the girls came back from TJ's with these beauties in their bag yesterday and while I'm a fan of the traditional TJ's cookie of fall (Their Maple Cookies), I have a soft spot for their holiday-themed Joe Joe's. These ones are particularly cute with the jack-o-lantern face and orange cream in the middle.   With Halloween being 3 weeks away, I'm seriously doubting that they'll last that long.

During the run-up to Christmas, we HORDE both Peppermint and Chocolate-Covered Peppermint Joe-Joe's from Trader Joe's.  They made my 2009 Favorite (Holiday) Things List , and should be on there every year.  Starting at Thanksgiving, every 10 days or so, when Nat (and sometimes I) head to TJ's, we grab at least one box of the cookies and usually two.  To be clear...we eat a lot of these, but so do our guests and most specifically our nieces and nephews.  But...still...we *do* probably eat too many cookies from the end of November to January 1 each year.  I'll admit that! Well...this year, there was a run on peppermint Joe-Joe's.  Our TJ's ran short and was out on two different occasions we went.  My sister went one day and they, too' were out.  Bummer.  But...on a random trip to the Park Ridge TJ's, we ran into this mysterious beast:  The Astounding Multi-Flavor Joe-Joe's package.  Inside, there were four flavors: Pepper...