The Taste of Childhood Birthdays
Sorry about yesterday. I got busy doing something and the next thing I knew it was 5:00. Yes, I spent eight hours doing one thing. Just like a real job! (D'oh!)
It's probably just as well because I only had one more idea and I wasn't sure what I was going to write about after that. We've covered the presents, so today is a tribute to the other staple of childhood birthday parties: the cake. Growing up, we didn't do the traditional cake. We had something so much more awesome...
Behold the Friendly's Wattamelon Roll! Just looking at that picture I can almost taste it. We first started having these when we moved to my grandparents' house. We hadn't had any Friendly's near us, but they had a couple relatively close. I was always a big fan of ice cream cake, and my guess is that they went to get an ice cream cake, saw how expensive they were, and opted for the cheaper sherbet roll. Thankfully, it did not disappoint.
It's an amazing feat of confectionary engineering. The "rind" is made of lime sherbet, the "fruit" of watermelon sherbet, and the seeds of chocolate chips. I'm not sure who decided to first attempt that combination, but hopefully we'll meet in heaven one day. Not only is it tasty, but it adds the perfect amount of culinary atmosphere to a summer birthday. Biting a Wattamelon Roll makes me think of sitting at my grandparents' picnic table under the string of party lights with lightning bugs flying all around. It was my compensation for having a birthday in the summer when no one was around to come to a party.
As years went by, we still had the Wattamelon Roll for Tracy's birthday, but I had found something else to make my taste buds dance.
Oh, Dutch Fudge Roll. How I love thee. There's one drawback to the Dutch Fudge Roll - it can only serve, at most, about eight people, and that's if you slice it pretty thin. However, as I mentioned before, none of my friends partied with me anyway so...the parents, Grandma, Grandpa...yep, perfect for six. I didn't know where I was going to get a picture of this for the blog, so I started searching archive.com, Yahoo! images, and anything else I could think of. I didn't think I was going to have any luck. On a lark, I decided to try Friendlys.com. They still make these! I can't believe it! Our stupid Friendly's doesn't seem to have anything in the freezer case but half gallons, so I thought the whole chain had simplified their take home treats. Nope, apparently there are still decent restaurants out there where you can pick up your roll of choice or one of those sundae cups that I still crave from time to time. Friendly's used to be my favorite restaurant. Knowing that there may be some out there that still have that old spirit renews my faith a little.
Well, it's Friday, and I'm not going to pretend that I might post tomorrow. So, this has been birthday week. Thinking of these things has gotten me a little more into the spirit, at least as much as you can when you're about to turn 28. Maybe this year I can party like it's 1989.
It's probably just as well because I only had one more idea and I wasn't sure what I was going to write about after that. We've covered the presents, so today is a tribute to the other staple of childhood birthday parties: the cake. Growing up, we didn't do the traditional cake. We had something so much more awesome...
Behold the Friendly's Wattamelon Roll! Just looking at that picture I can almost taste it. We first started having these when we moved to my grandparents' house. We hadn't had any Friendly's near us, but they had a couple relatively close. I was always a big fan of ice cream cake, and my guess is that they went to get an ice cream cake, saw how expensive they were, and opted for the cheaper sherbet roll. Thankfully, it did not disappoint.
It's an amazing feat of confectionary engineering. The "rind" is made of lime sherbet, the "fruit" of watermelon sherbet, and the seeds of chocolate chips. I'm not sure who decided to first attempt that combination, but hopefully we'll meet in heaven one day. Not only is it tasty, but it adds the perfect amount of culinary atmosphere to a summer birthday. Biting a Wattamelon Roll makes me think of sitting at my grandparents' picnic table under the string of party lights with lightning bugs flying all around. It was my compensation for having a birthday in the summer when no one was around to come to a party.
As years went by, we still had the Wattamelon Roll for Tracy's birthday, but I had found something else to make my taste buds dance.
Oh, Dutch Fudge Roll. How I love thee. There's one drawback to the Dutch Fudge Roll - it can only serve, at most, about eight people, and that's if you slice it pretty thin. However, as I mentioned before, none of my friends partied with me anyway so...the parents, Grandma, Grandpa...yep, perfect for six. I didn't know where I was going to get a picture of this for the blog, so I started searching archive.com, Yahoo! images, and anything else I could think of. I didn't think I was going to have any luck. On a lark, I decided to try Friendlys.com. They still make these! I can't believe it! Our stupid Friendly's doesn't seem to have anything in the freezer case but half gallons, so I thought the whole chain had simplified their take home treats. Nope, apparently there are still decent restaurants out there where you can pick up your roll of choice or one of those sundae cups that I still crave from time to time. Friendly's used to be my favorite restaurant. Knowing that there may be some out there that still have that old spirit renews my faith a little.
Well, it's Friday, and I'm not going to pretend that I might post tomorrow. So, this has been birthday week. Thinking of these things has gotten me a little more into the spirit, at least as much as you can when you're about to turn 28. Maybe this year I can party like it's 1989.
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