We’re originally from Philadelphia, famous for cheese-steaks, soft pretzels, German bakeries, and, err, uh, crime and oil refineries.
Throughout my teens and into my adulthood, whenever my grandmother would come down for a weekend visit she would bring me a famous filthadelphia german butter-cake. I never knew why—I just thought she was being Grandma, so I never asked.
As the years went by, I really started to hate those damn butter-cakes. I’d force a slice down when she was around, but it would quickly find its way into the trashcan as soon as she’d leave. Even now, just writing this post I get a queasy feeling just thinking about a damn german butter-cake.
So finally when she was like 86 years old I broke down and asked her why she always brought me a butter-cake when she came down from Philly.
Apparently one time when I was a little boy, she gave me a piece of butter-cake and I said that I liked it. Sheesh! Imagine that? A little kid liking something sweet. Because of that one little “mmm, yummy”, I was sentenced to a life of butter-cakes.
Oh well, her heart was in the right place. May she rest in piece.