Imprinting Your Future

It took me a long time to get over how boring the food is here on the coast. I remember the first time I heard someone singing the praises over Futano’s Pizza, and I thought to myself, “They’ve got to be fucking kidding!” A thin pre-baked crust with crap thrown on it and heated quickly is called pizza here? Where I came from you had a guy with hairy arms throwing dough up toward the ceiling, stretching it into the perfect shape and size. No rolling pins were used. The toppings were anointed generously with olive oil. When it was time to pull it from the oven the sight, the texture and the glistening of the moist toppings, and the salty smell of the melted imported cheese wrapped like octopus arms around every sense that a human possesses.

It was only recently that I realized that the food you grow up with is always the best. It has little to do with the food itself, but rather it’s more of a thing of imprinting.

There was a bakery in the town where I grew up. This bakery produced the first cup cake that I ever ate. It was an unassuming cupcake. The cake domed not harshly above the rim of the cup. The icing was placed with a spatula, rather than with a pastry bag. The icing extended to the edge of the cup, but never (rarely) over the paper. They didn’t have sprinkles (jimmies for you Mid-West folks) on them. They didn’t have flags or any plastic junk stuck in them. They were pure and simple cupcakes.

They were either yellow cake with chocolate frosting or devils food cake with white frosting. Nothing special, really. However, now all cup cakes pale in comparison.

My friend Jody who now lives in Texas was imprinted with the same cup cakes as I. We would always buy a box of six in the event one or the other of us would be driving by and see the others car parked out front. If not, we had some cup cakes for after. We timed our visits remarkably well and often snacked together either in her little red car or in my little Subaru Brat.

When ever Jody or I have moved to a new location, we never ask about the climate, or the housing, or people who live in the area. We ask, “Any good cup cakes there?” The answer is always “No, I wish…” To this day we are still searching. If one of us ever finds one that is close, and I mean really, really close, the other would be on the next flight out.

Unfortunately sometimes you can’t return home. That bakery of my youth is long gone. The baker and his family died long ago, and the bakery is now a meaningless shop that sells crap that no one really needs and gets thrown away shortly after purchasing. The cup cake and icing recipe is probably landfill under an East Coast Mega Bullshit chain store that cranks out tallow based baked goods with that icing that doesn’t even dissolve in hot water. I’d sacrifice a body part to get that recipe; just to have a touch stone to my childhood of so long ago when things tasted great. I’d make that sacrifice as well just to see Jody smile again as we untie the red and white stripped string around the cupcake box that holds six.