Watching: Bogdan washing his car. One of my wishes has already come true! Can the digital camera and the trip to Antarctica be far behind?

Tab laughed at the way I kept sneaking peeks out the side window at the sight. But, really, there are few things I find more of a turn-on than a goodlooking guy washing his car. Oh, the lather! Oh, the caress of the chamois cloth! Ahem. Excuse me while I collect myself.

The Last Rum Cake

Tab took the boys out with him this morning as he ran errands and went "yard saling," our term for cruising the neighborhoods in search of good lawn sales. Tab loves finding bargains at yard sales, and he knows all the prime locations, too. He is always on the lookout for kids' toys, and since he is the one who also like to shop the toy stores, he knows a good price when he sees it. Many of our boys' books, Duplos, Legos, Tinkertoys, and toy cars have come from yard sales.

He also stopped by Landolfi's bakery to pick up a rum cake, our last one ever. Landolfi's is closing after nearly one hundred years in Chambersburg, the Italian section of the city. The current owners, the fourth generation of Landolfis to operate the bakery, are moving to South Carolina where they will open a new bakery. They had hoped to sell the business: the property, the name, and (most importantly) the hundred-year-old recipes for Italian pastries, which have been a closely guarded family secret. Their quest to find a buyer was even picked up by the national wire services; my mother read about it in a Maine newspaper.

Unfortunately, the owners wanted to sell everything as a package, and refused to consider offers that excluded the real estate. Ultimately they were unsuccessful, and Landolfi's will close for good on June 30.

I didn't visit Landolfi's often, actually. I try to keep my distance from Italian pastry shops as I don't need the temptation. But we couldn't let Landolfi's close without having one more rum cake. We served Landolfi's rum cake at the twins' christening and we always had one for our guests at our New Year's Eve party. (We used to have a social life. Now we have kids.)

The Landolfi's rum cake consists of three layers of rum-soaked yellow cake, separated by vanilla and chocolate rum cream. The cake is iced with a rich whipped cream frosting, not at all sweet, and the sides are coated in sliced, toasted almonds. It is a thing of beauty, and a joy for as long as it lasts in our refrigerator...probably not too long in this house.

I guess it is just as well for the sake of my diet that I'll never have another Landolfi's rum cake, but we'll miss that bakery and the part of city history it represents.

Arrivederci, Landolfi's!

previous       index       e-mail me       next