Friday, January 14, 2011

Odd Cravings - Good Memories

For the past week I have had two very strange childhood craving. I more odd than the other seeing that I never really liked one as a child. Weird? I should say so.

When I was young my great Grandfather would share with me his cookie stash. I mean it literally was a stash ---hidden away in tins on top the China hutch. Since he lived with just my great Grandmother, I was never sure who he was hiding the cookies from. Never the less--he had a stash.

There were typically two kinds of cookies to enjoy on a normal day --chocolate covered graham crackers & lemon coolers. My preference was always the chocolate of course. Never did I see the point of the lemon butter based cookie other than possibly the fabulous powder sugar coating. Which, brings me to part of my strange craving - LEMON COOLERS!

I have never craved this cookie but for some reason this whole week I have had the urge to eat them. So, after day 3 I finally gave it and decided to purchase a package. 3 stores later I realize that they are now being made by a brand called Niche and can be purchased on Amazon -6 boxes to a case. I am not craving them hard enough to eat 6 boxes! So, in searching the web - looking for similar recipes - I did find a few but none that seemed for certain to recreate the experience.

On top of this, I can't stop thinking about Entenmann's cheese filled crumb coffee cake! My Grandmother, yes daughter of my great Grandfather ( I blame that whole side for my favorites) used to have this around the house for breakfast time or sometimes for "coffee." I could truly careless about the cake! It has always been the sweetened cream cheese filling - but the crumbs - they too had their own special place in my heart. I was always torn, do you eat the end with no filling and lots of sugar and crumb or do you go right for the center (most of family did) to get as much of the filling? Choices!

So, I also looked for a recipe to recreate that memory instead. Could have gone to the store but now I am lazy and frustrated!

I decided to resolve this - today for breakfast I mixed into low fat cream cheese a tbsp of powdered sugar, a splash of Vanilla extract and Lemon Juice. Mixed it together and viola - tasted close enough to filling with the scent of lemon coolers. Anyway, dipped some bagel into this mix - not a bad way to resolve a craving- hope it works or I am liable to find myself at the store buying and possibly eating all the filling from one of those silly crumbs cakes. I will say it brings back fond memories of loved ones and good times. It may be just me but in my family I associate lots of gatherings with the dishes served---like chocolate fondue NYE, donuts after church, ice cream before bedtime, rolos before leaving my great Grandparents house (take away treats) etc...All make me smile!

Does this happen to you out of the blue? How do you resolve your strange cravings?

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