Those who have been around East Lansing, Michigan for more than a few years may remember Bilbo’s Restaurant/Bar. I think a place called La Trattoria, or something like that, is in its space now. It’s right next to El Azteco. You know the place.

Anyway, back then, Bilbo’s had the best cinnamon sticks anywhere. In fact, as far as I know, the were the only place that had cinammon sticks. They were way ahead of the game on that one. The night I heard that Bilbo’s was shutting down, I lay in bed, my eyes tearing up with the thought of the rare jewel of Bilbo’s cinnamon sticks being gone forever.

So these days it seems like every pizza place offers some version of cinammon sticks. Pizza Hut has them. Domino’s has them. And, this evening I had some from Cottage Inn Pizza.

While Cottage Inn does great pizza, their cinammon sticks just don’t cut it. And, frankly, I haven’t had any cinammon sticks since Bilbo’s that are worth the money you pay for them.

Here’s the problem: these pizza shops are cheaping out. They have some leftover pizza crust, throw some cinammon & sugar on them, add a little tube of prepackaged icing and call it desert.

The solution? Well, the wise pizza place will custom make dough specifically for some tasty, soft cinammon sticks. They should rise more than pizza crust, they should be a little fluffier, a little more moist, and the dough should be a little sweeter.

And they shouldn’t be served with icing. It’s honey, baby. Honey.

If any pizza place in town starts to offer well-crafted cinammon sticks, they will capture my devotion and the devotion of so many other people who find out about the desert.

The really smart place will track down an old employee of Bilbo’s and find the original recipe.