Sinterklaas Has Something For Your Shoe

Stocking stuffer idea of the day — stroopwafels! A Dutch Brown student has seen a gaping hole in the sorely underdeveloped American snack food market and filled it. As a freshman, Abhishek Pruisken had brought some traditional Dutch waffle cookies from home and they were a big hit. Finding none available stateside, he and his friend Erik Ornitz started fiddling around in their dorm room and now it’s a real business and taking off.

All the Van Wafels baking is now carried out in the kitchen at the Hope Club on Benevolent Street which must be interesting. All I know is these cookies may be the most successful point-of-purchase impulse buy ever sold at Blue State Coffee. At $2/package of two, they are flying off the shelves almost like in a Dutch coffee shop, but without their synergistic marketing advantages. (They are also available at George’s Deli, Meeting Street Cafe, the Blue Room at Brown and pretty much anywhere Abhishek can get his foot in the door because he is charming and adorable and probably could have sold us wooden shoes, but these things really are delish.)

All of this has reminded me of the famous David Sedaris story of ‘Six to Eight Black Men’ an account of the utterly insane St. Nicholas Christmas tradition of the Netherlands, which I have to ask Abhishek about next time I see him. (Nutty video accompanies a David Sedaris reading of the story after the jump.)

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Also here is what the wafels look like.