Will Travel for Sweets

November 09, 2007 ↓ 2 Comments

When I was a teen, some of my first attempts at being “independent” were to ride my bike to the 7-11 convenience store on Route 53 in Parsippany, NJ.

Candy was only 30 cents each. That meant my hard(ly) earned dollar got me three candies.

I’d buy myself a Snickers, a 3 Musketeers, and a Milky Way—or some such varied combination. The candy was a kind of reward for having ridden several miles uphill.

Later in life, when I got a car, I’d drive to the Lakeview Bakery on Parsippany Road. When I was a young kid my mother would buy me cookies there. When I got older I’d go alone and buy myself cookies there. They bake these smile-face cookies that, still to this day, make me feel happy when I eat them. There was a nice lady who used to work in the office at my elementary school who later worked behind the counter at the bakery. She very well might not be around anymore…

I haven’t been back to Parsippany in several years. If I go, however, it will be easy to avoid candy from 7-11, and a really hard to not visit Lakeview Bakery for a smile-face cookie.

Where do you go for sweets?

(2) Comments: Will Travel for Sweets

Gwenn
Nov 14, 2007

When I was a kid, I’d go to the bakery and old-style grocery store on the village square of my grandparents’ tiny town in Brittany, France. My mother or grandmother would be buying the family necessities—a fresh loaf of bread, the tomatoes for a salad—while I was picking out my own—candies like they don’t have in the US (or so it seemed!). Part of the fun of this shopping excursion was the way I earned my sweet “centimes”: I played the card game “battle” with my grandfather and we bet the smallest coins, currency worth less than a US penny. Still, they added up to a whole lot of sugar!
Now that I’m older, I go back “chez Le Lamer” whenever I’m in Bubry, but I buy their boxes of mixed chocolates instead…

Traci
Jul 10, 2009

When I first left home, I had no car, so if I had a sugar craving I would have to walk to get it, day or night, rain or snow (lots of snow up here). But I would do it! I would trek 2 or 3 miles to the nearest 24 hr gas station and buy 8 or 10 little debbie snack cakes and return and eat them all. or 4 or 5 donuts. Crazy. I wish I was one of those people who could take or leave sugar, instead of salivating just looking at it.