Desserts and Other Foods I happen to be a pie lover. I don’t know anyone who likes pies as much as I do. One of my favorites is anything with chunks of apples in it. Where I used to live, we had several fruit trees and my next-door neighbor who was my Godmother, would bake apple pies which were fantastic. I never lost my taste for them no matter how many I ate. One of the most disappointing apple pies I ever ate came from a supermarket bakery. What disappointed me was the fact there were no apple chunks in it. The bakery had the nerve to put in an apple sauce like filling. I felt like I was eating a pie made for a baby, if there is such a thing. Apple pies come in many different types. One of my favorites is Dutch Apple with the icing on top and the apples mixed with a light sprinkling of raisins. Another great apple pie is Apple Crumb with those big brown crumbs on top. My mouth waters just thinking about it. There is a limit on what should go into an apple pie, and yes, I know not everyone will agree. I think cheese has no place in one, no matter what kind of cheese it is. I also like my apple pies sweet not tart. Some people eat pies like apple caramel. I have to confess I have never tried this one, but it sounds like I might like it. I have had Cinnamon Apple pie and I liked it very much. There is nothing better for me than a slice of apple crumb pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on it. I have to confess I have been accused of ruining pies, because I like them cold out of the refrigerator, which is the opposite of my dear late wife who liked them warmed up. Sometimes I stock up on Table Top individual apple pies, the size is just right for one person. But I don’t want anyone to think that I only eat apple pies. There is also nothing as good at times as a well-made Boston Cream pie. Notice I said well-made, because I have had some pretty bad ones over the years. Technically, cheese cake is not a pie. Entenmann’s Bakery used to have a really good pineapple cheese cake which came on a pie plate, I no longer see it for sale. I could talk about pies for the rest of the article, but I don’t want to put anyone to sleep, if it is not too late. I have always like desserts of different kinds. When I was young, I came from a very poor family and sometimes my mother would ask a friend if we could come over for dinner because there was nothing for me to eat. I don’t remember ever missing a meal but now that I look back, I don’t think I can say the same for my mother. There was just me and her. Maybe that is why I don’t feel a meal is complete without dessert. Things got better for us when I was about 11 years old and we moved. There were no problems with meals anymore and I remember some of my favorite things to eat for dessert. One of those cakes was a Suzy Q. It was a chocolate cake with an obscene amount of cream in the middle. This was one of my favorite packaged cakes and I wish they were still around today. All the bakeries used to make a cake named the Charlotte Russe. It had yellow cake, topped with a pile of whipped cream and a cherry all inside a sleeve of cardboard. To most kids this was the greatest cake in the world. It was a very rare treat for me to get one. After we moved and my mother got a better job I started getting more desserts. A couple of other cakes I liked were the Drakes big coffee cake and the Banana Twinkies. Today it seems they are gone, but the standard Twinkie is still being sold after a comeback when the original company went out of business. I remember when we finally got a refrigerator. Before that we had what was known as an icebox, which the iceman refill with ice from time to time. The poor guy had to carry large blocks of ice up the stairs of our building. There was no elevator in many of those old buildings at the time. A friend told me about a sad story about his iceman. His family had just purchased a refrigerator and the iceman was told not to deliver any more ice. He replied that the people were making a mistake by buying a refrigerator because they would just break down. I guess he was facing elimination and didn’t know what to do. When I was a teenager, I used to love those big soft salted pretzels. They used to sell then on a street corner in a shopping district. One day I was in the area and ready to buy one when I couldn’t believe what I saw. The man with the basket had knocked it over and the pretzels had fallen into the street. He was busily picking them up and putting them back in the basket for sale. That was it for me. There was a small restaurant named Nedick’s. There food was nothing special and if you were in a hurry, you could get a hot dog right away and eat it standing or sitting. There was one thing they had that we teenagers loved and that was the most incredible orangeade. When you drank a glass of this ice-cold drink on a hot day the back of your throat would tingle and you would almost get brain freeze, but the drink was so good you just didn’t care. I guess having the best orangeade on the planet was not enough to keep them in business. One thing is for sure, we differ on food. I might love that apple pie, but I am sure there must be people around who are not crazy over apple pies. It is just like the fact I love pizza burgers, but others in my family don’t like them. It is amazing when you think about it, two people can eat the same thing and one can love it and yet the other might hate it. Could it be that the food is stimulating different parts of the brains of the two people?
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