Let me eat cake!

So I was headed up to Green Bay, Wis., to cover the Raiders-Packers game for Raiderfans.net, and along the way, I noticed something.


When you drive from Milwaukee's Gen. Mitchell Airport to Appleton, Wis., the suburb where we were staying, you drive up the highway and make a left at a town called Manitowoc, which I can't pronounce (I think it's "man-i-toe-WOC" but I keep saying "man-i-TOE-woc"), but which sounded awfully familiar.

See, in addition to the Burger Boat Company ("the ship you can eat like a meal"), Manitowoc is home to...

Uniquely Yours Pastry Shoppe, makers of fine wedding cakes and the best mint brownies I've ever eaten.

So I did what any sane person would do... or at least, what any half-crazed munkee would do. I stopped to place my holiday order!


And that's how I get to spend the better part of a Saturday evening with the one, the only Jin!

And may I say, she's every bit as lovely and charming in person as she is on "teh internets."

The shop is lovely, and includes not just a wide variety of cakes, cookies, pies, bars, cookies and cookies, but an area filled with Tarot cards, used books and, most importantly...

Jewels' jewelry!

So after a quick tour of the shop, and an introduction to Mr. Jin and the Jindog, we headed off to dinner at the Courthouse Pub, which features Jin's Chocolate Oblivion on its menu.

(Directions as best I recall: Turn right on Marshall, turn left at Golddiggers - adults only! - and turn right at the prison.)

And then it was a few hours of dining, whining and just generally enjoying the hell out of ourselves.

Then, after placing my Sweetbox order - order your own here! - I got a nice lil' Hanukkah gift: A box of assorted cookies for me and Marisa, including lemony ones for M and berry and chocolate/PB ones for me.

(She ate four within about two hours of me getting off the plane Monday morning. I killed six more at work Tuesday night. Thank goodness they're small.)

But, by way of rebuttal, I did not try to steal a whole tray of the berry ones, as she claims! I was merely, um, moving them to a more easterly location.

Anyway, despite one small incident in which I nearly left my cookies where I'd safely hidden them in the rental car (resulting in a frantic rush back to the Hertz counter at 5:15 a.m. before my plane flight), the visit proved spectacular.

Jin's a helluva baker. And a helluva lady, too.

And did I mention the cookies are pretty darn good? And she ships them.

(Not like Burger Boat Company ships, I mean mail order.)

So... you've read this far. What are you waiting for? Click the links I so painstakingly insert into all my posts that you usually never click on, and order some cookies in time for the holidays!

Yeah, I'm still hoping for the munkee cookies - ow! dropping that hint hurt! - but still. You gotta trust me on this one. These cookies don't miss. And the brownies don't, either!

Certificate of Authenticity (brownies not included):