The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive?
Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

#999 - Eat 'n Park Cookies

Yes, that's correct. Eat 'n Park Smiley Cookies in all of their glorious incarnations. For those of you who are not familiar with Eat 'n Park, this is a chain of restaurants in Central/Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia which seems to be the offspring of that time that Denny's drank a little too much Thunderbird and stayed over night at Perkins' place. Nine months later, out popped l'il Eat 'n Park.

I've never understood the name either. Mrs. Jewbacca introduced me to the wonder of Eat 'n Park, although until we pulled into the parking lot I thought she was taking me to Eaton Park, leading me to have much different ideas for the evening. Apparently you actually Park 'n Eat, but hey, the food's good.

These little sugar cookies are probably the only thing on this earth that taste just as good fresh as they do 3-week old stale. They come in a variety of colors, but every single one of them has that smiley face that lets you know, "whatever is happening in the world, I'll still be sitting here smiling insanely -- until you eat me."

True story. I was travelling a lot in western PA when the Steelers were in the playoffs, before eventually winning the Super Bowl. The smiley faces were all black and gold at every Eat 'n Park I entered. I actually smuggled two dozen on the plane to bring back to my in-laws' Super Bowl party, where they were washed down with copious amounts of Iron City beer.

The icing is real thin, but real hard and cracks when you bite into that madly grinning face. It actually kind of hurts your teeth a little and the facial features are made of even harder icing that can actually give your gums a good scrapin' if you're not careful.

Right now, I have but one smiley bunny left. I am savoring it. But alas, it soon will join its 11 other friends in smiley cookie heaven.