For Illustration Friday: double.

Which is what you’ll become if you eat too many of them. My friend Candy (her real name) says the reason ice cream sundaes are so good is that they combine the hot sauce with the cold ice cream. I had never thought of that combination as the key factor, but I believe she’s right.

Caption: What fat women daydream about, what thin women daydream about.

Picture of homemade pie.

You would think that with a title of (take deep breath) Trader Joe’s Chocolate Pumpkin Pecan Praline Tart, how could they miss, right? Nice cheerful orange label with chocolate dots, attractive looking pie. But I won’t make you wait until the end of the review: thumbs down.

What is the difference between tart and pie? [Pause while I go over to Google.]  Okay, here:

A tart is made with a crust formed in a tart pan or a low, straight-walled pan with a removable bottom. A pie, similar to a tart, is baked in a pie pan that has sloping sides. Both a tart and a pie can have the crust prebaked and filled or baked with fruits, custards or chocolate.

Everything 2 agrees with that. Already, things are not quite right with this TJ dessert. This is definitely a pie, not a tart.

Anyway, it has a sweet crumbly crust. I love soft crusts! But it’s not real chocolate, and it doesn’t taste like chocolate, unless it’s the cheap drugstore kind. The filling has a slightly crunchy filling, of substance, but not chewy.

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I don’t like white bread anymore. Only grainy or dark bread or bread of substance. I like my bagels and English muffins  and crumpets to be grainy, too!

I also don’t like toasters. Too slow.

Or toaster ovens. (What is the point of them again? I think I’m going to toss mine.)

Microwave is fast, but where’s the slightly burnt/toasted edges?

That leaves my big stove. That’s right, I turn it all the way up to broil, put a piece of tin foil down and the bread on top, wait 30 sec, turn it over and put some butter on so it melts just right, and Bob’s your uncle!

Honey is optional, along with the guilt.

And I thought Buster Brown only made shoes! Buster Brown Bread through Flickr Creative Commons Photographs by Derek Farr (Detroit Derek). Thanks Derek!

For Illustration Friday, the subject was: “sugary.” I’ve always hated to follow directions, and the sound of this word sets my teeth on end, anyway. I’ve never liked sugar as a topping, not even confectioners’ sugar. But I do like jimmies! Out here they call them sprinkles. I prefer all chocolate.

"Uh oh, we're out of jimmies." (Or sprinkles, for you weird people.) ©D. Barstow 2010

I found a whole forum on jimmies, here.

Someone at school told me that jimmies is actually a ra-cial slur related to the Jim Crow laws (’course, she was from Jersey)…anyone else heard this?

I hope not! I never heard that before. More comments ideas, below.

Yeah, I’ve heard that they’re sprinkles if they’re multi-colored, and jimmies if they’re chocolate, because it was slang for Jim Crow. And even if it’s not true, enough people around think it’s true, so I call them all sprinkles. Read more »