My weekend was sweet.
Saturday was the PPRA’s Dessert Party: we sold about 157,500 calories and raised $852. Lots of people showed up and ate heartily and enjoyed themselves thoroughly, including the ancient Italian klepto who wolfed down 17 desserts. I’d show you a picture of her, but my ethics prevent it. Instead, here’s a picture of the cutest little dessert eaters I’ve ever seen.
My lop-sided cake (which I subsequently renamed the Dr. Seuss cake) sold out early! Now I know the dessert part isn’t about competitive baking, but I was very pleased. In 2005 I made banana bread and there was lots left over. I mean, who’s going to choose banana bread among hundreds of more exotic desserts?
I resolved then that this year I would make something with visual appeal, something that would stand up and dance and sing out to little kids. Hence, the chocolate layer cake with Smarties embedded in it. Interestingly it sold out before any kids even got there. Maybe it was because every time someone looked at it, I immediately piped up proudly with “I made it myself!” so they felt obliged to choose it. At any rate, it was gone in the first half hour and I was inordinately pleased with myself.
As for me, I ate ginger-pear pound cake, a slice of this cool cherry thing that MP Paul Dewar made, a piece of my Dr. Seuss cake, and a Jello Jiggler.
But that wasn’t the end of my sweet weekend.
Sunday I went to the Hershey Chocoate Factory in Smiths Falls, stopping first at Tim Horton’s for a Boston Cream donut.
Here are a few things you might not know about Hersheys.
- Milton Hershey’s middle name was Snavely.
- The Hershey’s Kiss is 100 years old this year!
- Milton Snavely Hershey died in 1945 in the very same room in which he was born, even though his family sold the house when he was very young and moved frequently.
- He put money into housing, parks, education and recreation in the communities in which he built chocolate factories.
- Hersheys is the largest employer in Smiths Falls: 500 workers and their families depend on it.
- “He always placed the quality of his product and the well-being of his workers ahead of profits.”
- Hershey’s will be shutting down its Smiths Falls factory in 2008, as part of a global profits-maximizing strategy.
And so it goes.
We took the factory tour up on the observation decks. Since it was the weekend, the factory wasn’t operating, but it was still interesting. There were signs everywhere saying photography was strictly prohibited, so this is an illegal photograph. Don’t tell.
One of my favourite things was the vintage packaging displays. This is one of them. Do you recognize any of these candy boxes? If so, you might be old.
I failed this test.
We left the factory with a big bar of dark chocolate, chocolate covered raisins and red Twizzlers, the perfect way to cap off a very sweet weekend.
Today I’m waddling.
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