Back in the mid eighties, my brother Mike and I used to meet at the family home in Aurora on weekends to research businesses to start. We always baked cookies while we talked, which sort of grew into a cottage business as we got more and more requests and orders from colleagues, friends, and neighbors. Our father kept asking why we didn't just sell our cookies? After a busy Christmas season when we were literally using a door propped up on sawhorses as a packing table for all of the cookie orders, we finally agreed. We found a location for our shop in the historic Keystone Building on Stolp Island in Aurora, Ilinois. 

We opened Michael D's Cookies----'Michael' for my brother, and 'D' for me---in July of 1988. For my part, I never worked so hard, nor had so much fun, as I did running the cookie shop. Part of my job was product development, so I created all of the recipes you will find in The Cookie Shop Cookbook. My brother remarried and moved out of the area in the mid-nineties, and I continued as sole owner of the shop until my worsening arthritis prompted the sale of the shop at the end of the century. I still miss it every day. {Please note that I have no current affiliation with Michael D's Cookies.}