I go to Pasadena often because my younger daughter’s cheer team practices there. Yes, I spawned a cheerleader because my parents don’t have enough to laugh about in heaven. It’s given me a chance to explore Old Pasadena and I’ve been loving it. But the fact that “Of all the Gin Joints” so to speak, I mean that Little Flower Candy Company just happened to open a bakery in Pasadena was just dumb luck for me. The building is an art deco cubby that reveals itself as you’re zooming along what looks like a residential area. Pasadena is funny that way.
Candy
Candy
Toss Those Candy Canes Into Biscotti
It happens every year. About a month before Christmas, I buy at least a couple of boxes of little candy canes. I have plans to hang them over the edge of cups of hot cocoa. I place a large bowl of them on the kitchen island, ready to be snatched up and chewed. There are all kinds of ways I use them during the holidays. But, it never fails. I always buy way too many. And, every year at this time, I pull out the leftover candy canes and begin to stir them into cookie dough. This year is no different. But this year, the cookies are Italian-style twice-baked cookies – biscotti.
Wednesdays With M&Ms
Wednesday was a special day in my house when I was a child. My father was (and still is) a pharmacist. To help make ends meet, he worked a second job on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons at a local drug store instead of his usual 9-5 gig at the area hospital. Thirty years ago being a pharmacist didn’t bring in the big bucks it does today and with four kids, he had his hands full. He was never home until long after dinner on Wednesdays and we were always excited for his return, partly because he brought with him our weekly chocolate treat – plain M&Ms.
Mars Attacks
Last night, at about 2:00 a.m I woke up and couldn’t go back to
sleep. Normally I give myself an hour of trying to go back to sleep
before I give up and go downstairs to watch TV. Last night I knew it
just wasn’t gonna happen.
It was warm in the living room and our two Portugese water dogs, Stachmo and Gabby followed me, hopped up on the couch, and snuggled close. After five minutes of channel surfing, I landed on a documentary with the intriguing title: The Chocolate Wars. It was about the rivalry between the altruistic Milton Hershey and the odious Forrest Mars, son of Frank Mars, the founder of Mars Candy Company.
A Magical Lollipop
Trick or treating in Maine in the 60's was lovely...Simple costumes that we worked diligently on for at least a week. planning, using scraps of material from the tailor's discard bin at our parent's dry cleaning business. Stapling and glueing, borrowing our mother make-up when she wasn't looking because she didn't appreciate her red lipstick being used to cover such a large area of our face that it suddenly was only 1 inch tall when she opened it to use the day after Halloween.
We never had warnings to not wear dark clothes or have to check our bag of candy for dangerous anything. All we had to worry about was which house would have the best candy and goodies. We carefully planned it out by the street, starting our canvasing just as it was getting dark with large decorated grocery bag in hand and always a costume that was overly long and easy to trip over. We crossed street after street or passed piles of burning leaves that everyone always had burning eerily in front of their house.
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