It’s Saturday night and my friend Liz and I just finished eating a delicious Pho dinner. We were driving back toward her house when she decided she was not ready to go home yet. Liz is pregnant with baby girl and is due in March. Unfortunately for Liz, the baby is sitting super low, and per doctor’s orders can’t do anything physical besides some yoga. This leaves us with few options to choose from. All she really wants to do is have a drink, but that isn’t going to be happening any time soon. The topic of wine streams into a discussion about chocolate, but we are too full to even think about eating again. After going back and forth for a while, still undecided, Liz blurts out, “I can’t do anything but eat, Tammy! It’s all I can do!”
Hysterically, at that moment, I learned that what a pregnant woman wants, a pregnant woman gets. We back tracked to Blue Back Square in West Hartford to hit up a few spots for strictly desserts. The Dessert Hop began an Munson’s Chocolates because the Cheesecake Factory was packed to the brim. At Munson’s we tried three chocolates we have never had before: Dark Chocolate Orange Peel, Creme Brulee, and a Chocolate Covered Cherry with Port Wine. I managed to get cherry syrup all over the place at first bite, and can’t say that I am surprised. The orange peel was nothing to write home about, but the Creme Brulee was crunchy with a buttery caramel. Good times.
Next up was good ol’ Ben & Jerry’s. I find the only time I ever eat Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is when I’ve had a terrible day or break-up, then I grab a pint at the store and manage to eat the entire thing. You’ve done this too, right? Ok, good. It had been a long while since I’ve been to one of their ice cream shops, so I was kind of excited to see if they had anything different. Liz and I scrolled through the list and there was a new flavor called “Spectacular Speculoos.” We had absolutely no idea what that was and therefore had to order it. We learned that Speculoos are a spiced shortbread cookie traditionally baked before St. Nicholas’ Feast in the Netherlands (thank you Wikipedia). It tasted like cinnamon and brown sugar. In my opinion, you can swirl raw cookie butter into anything and it can’t suck.
Happy that we only split a kid sized cup, Liz and I took a longer walk to Cafe Sofia to give our sugar filled bellies a rest. This will be our last stop on our little sugar tour. The first thing we noticed when we walked into the cafe was the variety of macaroons in the dessert case. Of all the flavors to choose from, I settle on Earl Grey and Liz ordered Nutella and Raspberry. For our drinks, a decaf latte and raspberry Italian soda. Everything was delicious except, of course, the Earl Grey macaroon. It wasn’t bad or anything, it just tasted like Fruit Loops. I mean, if I was looking for a Fruit Loop macaroon, this would be a dream come true. However, this was not at all what my taste buds were after. The Nutella macaroon tasted like true Nutella, and being the fan that she is, that was all Liz cared about it. Liz 1. Tammy 0.
At this point I know I am due for a few days of recovery after consuming these sugary treats and dealing with this candida nonsense, but I’ll survive. We sat for a while in our sugar coma’s, finished our drinks, and headed back to Liz’s house. For the rest of the night we curled up in warm blankets and watched Horrible Bosses 2 with two, huge glasses of water by our sides. I got to say, I now completely understand why partners of pregnant women gain sympathy weight!
It was such a fun night catching up with Liz and going out on a spontaneous sweet adventure. She has become one of my closest friends in the past 5 years and it’s always nice to get together to talk about life and laugh. I am so excited to meet her little girl next year who will, no doubt, have a sweet tooth just like her mama!
On a final note, today is Liz’s birthday and I want to send lots of love and warmest wishes on her very special day. Happiest of birthdays, my friend! xx
The Peppered Soul 