Vacation

Listeners share their favorite food and snack memories from vacation. 

Want to share your story? Email us at treatlandpod@gmail.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Hello and welcome to Treatland. This is the podcast where you, the listener, share your favorite food memories from childhood. We'll be playing your audio clips and reading your stories, and we'll definitely be sharing a few of our own along the way. Each episode has its own food-related theme. If you like what you hear today, please subscribe to our show.

SPEAKER_10 0:45

So the first time I had coconut water straight from the source, as in straight out of a coconut, was in Puerto Rico in 2015. And we stopped at one of those roadside fruit stands. I mean, it was like beachside, but you see them all over the island. And you see this in Hawaii and you see it in the Caribbean, but we'd just never been to one before. And so you pay for the coconut, they take a drill and they just drill a hole right in the top of it, and they stick a straw in and you just drink it. And it's this like subtly sweet, super refreshing, clear water. And I don't know what I was expecting, but it's nothing like coconut milk. Like that's a totally different product. And so you drink all the water out of the coconut, and then you give it back to the stand attendant, and they take a machete and they slice the whole thing in half, and they carve out like a little piece of the outer, like the brown shell, and they give it to you as kind of like a spoon, and you use that to then scoop and eat like the coconut meat out of the coconut. And it's like kind of soft and slippery, like a jelly-like consistency, kind of like like a really melty gummy bear. So, like maybe if you have texture issues, this is definitely not for you, but it is just really different than anything else, and it tastes like very subtly coconut, like it's not a super strong coconut flavor, it's just like just out of this world. And I totally regretted that we did not do this every single day of the trip. Why are we only doing this on the last day of the trip? So when we got home, my husband actually went out and bought a machete. Like, I'm not even kidding. I won't let that thing in the house. It lives in the garage. But for the special occasion treats, when we decide that we want to drink a coconut, because you can buy them at the International Grocery Store and just the regular grocery store, like now we have a machete, so we can open it up, he can drill a hole in it, we can drink them drink the coconut water, we can eat the meat and kind of relive that experience. I highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_08 2:58

So growing up, my family didn't go on traditional vacations exactly. We mostly stayed around my hometown state of Ohio. And when we vacationed, it was usually just for a day at a time and mostly to theme parks. As a kid, I was probably too much of a mindless little rug rat to pay attention to things like the details of food itself. But really, what I remember is the experience around the food. And that is what I carry with me to this day. I'll never forget walking into my very first theme park at King's Island, walking through the ticket gates and looking straight ahead at this mini but still huge replica Eiffel Tower. I remember the crowds and the sounds and the buildings and all of my favorite characters from Saturday morning cartoons moving throughout the park. But maybe what stands out to me the most is the aromatic smell of greasy fries, savory burgers, sugary elephant ears, funnel cakes, and of course, popcorn. Walking through the park was essentially just following your nose. But when you weren't screaming at the top of your lungs or standing in two hour miserable long lines, that's all you did was search for food. Without a doubt, though, even as I share this story, my favorite food to this day will always be a basketful of bacon cheddar fries. The kind where the fries were a little bit more like limp noodles drowning in grease and cheddar. I'll never forget wiping my greasy, cheesy hands on my brand new shorts, walking from roller coaster to roller coaster while listening to the sounds of metal wheels whooshing by on these spiraling roller coasters. But the only thing I could really think of next was ice cream. But it wasn't just Indie ice cream. There was this blue and white swirl ice cream that could only be found in Snoopy Land. Uh, this was the only part of the park where the lines for a simple ice cream cone felt like waiting for a ride. Even now, as an adult with four kids and a wife, I still get excited for this ice cream. It's this cake cone that is filled excessively with this indescribable blue and vanilla ice cream that is smothered with sprinkles. Yes, I still order it the same way. And yes, I say it's for my kids. It was always at the end of the day, just as the 90 sun started to drop and the 100-degree heat finally started to cool down, that we began to walk away from Snoopy Land and we headed for our final ride, which was the waterlog ride. I'll never forget getting to the top of that hill and then smashing down with the water spraying us like a hose and rinsing essentially all the grease and ice cream from the day off of our clothes. At least my parents could hope that's what happened. But by this point in the day, it is starting to get late. My parents are ready to leave, but I had one last thing on my mind, and that was making a stop to the candy store as if I needed any more sugar. The outrageously overpriced bag of candy somehow felt worth every penny. At least to me, because I didn't have to pay. But the candy at King's Island really did just hit different scooping giant ladlefuls of sour, sugary gummies into plastic bags until one of my parents came by and told me that I had had enough and they probably were spending too much money. Then came the sad long walk back to the car. I remember being tired and sticky and somber, but carrying these bags of candy like a souvenir. Looking back at the lights one last time before leaving the park, never really knowing when I was gonna come back again. But to this day, I carry the sights and the sounds and the smells of the tastes from those summer days at the park.

SPEAKER_05 7:22

In the eighties and nineties, family vacation for us was a big deal. It started in 1988 when we took our first trip to Florida, and I guess we loved it so much that for the next decade, Florida was our yearly destination. That first year we flew, but in the years that followed, we would all pile into the family van and make the drive from London, Ontario, Canada, all the way to Florida. Stopping for food at different restaurants and even gas stations and truck stops was such an adventure for us. In Canada, my sister and I would see so many commercials for treats, cereals, snacks, and various food items that were not available to us in the Great White North. So it was on these trips that we got to indulge in all that the US of A had to offer: fruit stripe gum, cherry coke, dip and dots, Cheetos Paws, Butterfinger BB's, Doritos 3D, Keebler pizzerias, Austin Crackers, and PB Crisps are just a small sampling of the treats that we desperately wanted to try, but weren't available to us. So on the long drive to the Sunshine State, any stop we made, we tried to find all the treats and things we saw on TV that we couldn't get at home. By the time we got to our destination, the van would be filled with empty wrappers and food shrapnel from trying all the tasty and sometimes not so tasty treats that we got to try along the way.

SPEAKER_07 8:43

Wow. Food memories and Vegas. That's an easy one for me because you know I'm in Vegas probably four or five times a year, and I love going. I'm not a degenerate gambler, don't get me wrong. I just like going, and I do like to gamble, so what the heck? There are currently four restaurants out there that I go to every time. Peppermint, which is a fantastic throwback. It still looks like 1950s and 60s Vegas. It has great food in the lounge area with like a river running through it. You can eat in there too. It's 24 hours, it's great. My favorite two Italian restaurants are out there: Don Vito's, which is in the South Point Hotel, and an off-the-strip place called Costa di Amore, where you get a code, you can go through the Sinatra entrance if you would call ahead of time. And then my favorite steakhouse ever, the Golden Steer. It's a little place off Sahara, and you can request booths. People like Robert Goulet, Don Rickles, all the old Vegas stars used to have booths there, and you can request sitting in one of their booths with the gold name on it. Steaks are fantastic too. But as far as a memory, a place that I really miss, and it used to be in the place I called Home out there for about 20 years, the Stardust Hotel, which sadly has since been turned into a resort world, it's a mega resort. But it's one of the earlier Vegas casinos at the time of Stardust. William B. Steakhouse, named after William Boyd, the person who took over Stardust in the 60s. William Boyd, or William B. Steakhouse, just a little fantastic dining. Really missed it. You've seen now too the little strawberries that they turned into tuxedos with chocolate, little arms and eyes on it, candy and stuff. That was one of the first places I ever saw those. But everything in that restaurant was just impeccable, from the cleanliness to the service to the food preparation. I really missed it. That's probably my vagus, yes, my favorite vagus memory from a restaurant standpoint.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Hi everyone. My name is Kevin, and I grew up in Indonesia. If you grew up in Indonesia, some of the uh absolute best childhood memories is not only in the classroom. They happen right outside the school kids. So basically, from elementary school all the way through high school, the street outside our schools was a paradise of food, snacks. The moment the final bell rang, we just rushed out, line up to find rows of street fender and stall lining the sidewalk. Everything was so cheap and so accessible and just incredibly delicious. Probably not the cleanest place we eat, but at that age, who cares, right? For me and my friends, this was not just about getting a quick bite. It was our daily routine. We hang out by the stores, laughing, gossiping, setting some snack while waiting for our drivers or perhaps to pick us up. I will share the top four or five of my favorite snacks that I just cannot get enough when I was young. The first one is Que Lacker. It's basically this is basically think about like a thinner of French crepe. It's but it's it's you know it's a street snack that's just so unbelievably crispy. The vendor would uh pour a thin layer of rice flour into this small rotating hot plate, probably about 10 inches diameter. Right before it's finished crisping up, they load it with toppings like slice of bananas with condensed milk or chocolate sprinkles, right? So many sweet stuff all in one place. Holding it warm, freshly folded lacquer, uh biting it into shattering crispy edge and heating the warm sweet meal is just pure heaven. And the second one is anatomas. Anatmos is basically if you translate in English, is golden chop. Think of it as a block of uncooked dry instant noodle. Yes, those instant noodles that you find in the market is a block of that, but heavily coated in different flavor. Like the one that I love the most is the chicken and the cheese flavor. Have the fun with the ritual eating it. So before you open, before you even open the pack, you had to cross the noodle block into tiny bits inside the bag, and you shake it up to distribute the season and then pour out that crunchy, salty goodness straight into our mouth. The crunchy was so loved and satisfying to be honest. The next one is chicky. Chiki is basically I'm gonna say it's quite similar with the cheese puff that you find in the grocery place around here. And but the brand was just so massive during that time. So anywhere we see a cheese puff, we call it chicky, and they had some pretty wild flavor back then, like chicken stock, chocolate, and believe it or not, there were some meatball flavor standing around with your friends, your fingers stained bright orange or yellow or brown from the seasoning powder. That was a classic after-school look on the way home. Then there was choke chokey. Choke choke is basically the most addictive chocolate treat of our childhood. It's it's think about like it's it's a simple, big, rich, milky chocolate paste packed into a long thin plastic tube. I'm gonna guess it's about 10 to 15 inches tube. To eat it, you just have to beat off the tip, squeeze the chocolate straight into your mouth. We used to see who could suck it up the fastest, or we would uh carefully roll the tube from the bottom to make sure we did not waste any single drop. It was so cheap and perfect shot of sugar to fill our afternoon games and hang out with friends. The last one that I want to share that I just can't get enough of it whenever I visit my parents, we call it sarabi. This is a traditional Indonesian Japanese pancake that's made from rice flour mixed with rich coconut milk and shredded coconut, which give it this beautiful fluffy, slightly chewy texture. It's traditionally cooked over charcoal in small clay pots, which give it this wonderful, kind of like smoky flavor when you eat it. Most traditional syrabi is very sweet. The vendor will pour golden brown coconut sugar and a red right on the top and biting into a warm sarabi with the smoky flavor from the clay pan combined with the sweet syrup, just it's just so delicious, just for us like having them sometimes. So, sharing this specific flavor, it's honestly like opening a time capsule for me. I'm going to visit my parents soon, so they just represent a time when life was just so simple. Afternoon were long, no cell phone, happiness could just be bought for a few coins right outside the school kit. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_10 17:00

2021 was our 10-year wedding anniversary, and we took a trip to Washington DC. We were staying north of the Memorial Mall, and I had, you know, pre-gamed, scouted out restaurants and like bakeries and things that were walking distance from our hotel. And the one place that I was like super excited to try was called Nino's Bakery. And I had seen online that they had a black sesame croissant on their menu. Now, croissants are not usually my go-to, but I am pretty obsessed with black sesame. And if you've never had that in dessert form, it's usually in like a paste. So they take black sesame seeds and you toast them or roast them until like they're super fragrant, and then you grind them up into a paste, usually with like a little bit of sesame oil or like another neutral oil, and you know, maybe some honey or some sugar, whatever your sweetener is. So a black sesame croissant then has that just like you know, black sesame butter, if you will, like slathered inside of it, and it's kind of this like earthier, savory version of like peanut butter or tahini. It's just amazing. So I tried this black sesame croissant on our last day of the trip, and I just was like obsessed with it. And since it was the last day, I couldn't go back for more. But fast forward to 2023, we're back in DC with my parents. I had planned us a trip, and all the trip I had hyped up this bakery, but they were only open like a couple days a week for a few hours in the morning, and our only chance to go, once again, was on our very last day. And I had scheduled that day as most of the trip, like down to a T. So we only had a small window that we could get to the bakery before we needed to be at the next place we were going. And this time we were staying south of the National Mall, so we had to take an Uber. And of course, DC traffic was awful, and the clock was ticking, and I'm in the backseat, just like, please just let me have this black sesame croissant. Like, I just want to get this thing so we can, you know, move on with our day. And we finally get there, and I'm just like, Woo-hoo, here we go, like, gonna have it again. Jump in line, just as I get up and I order it at the counter, and the woman is like, oh no, like the person in front of you bought the last one, and like that's all we have. And I was just like floored and standing there thinking, this stinks and this is a first world problem. But like, I've been thinking about this croissant for like two years. So I'm standing there in shock, and my mom starts doing the mom thing, and she's like, Are you sure you don't have any more in the back? Like, we came all the way from Ohio, and I'm like, Mom, it's okay. Like, there's there's nothing they can do, they can't just like magically make more appear. Well, then this woman walks over to me. She'd been standing by the door, and she says, Hey, I heard what happened. Like, I live here, I live down the street from this bakery, like I can come get these anytime. Sounds like you're from out of town. Please take mine. Just, you know, buy me a chocolate croissant and we'll just swap. And I was so overcome with her generosity. So we bought her a chocolate croissant. I thanked her profusely. We took a group photo outside. I ate it, and it was warm and nutty, and everything I remembered, it was just amazing. And it the whole rest of the day and that trip was just like elevated by this like really small gesture, but it was really just like an incredible way to end the trip.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

We used to travel through Las Vegas to see my grandfather, but then we'd also take a family road trip to California and Arizona, and we did we did this a couple times when I was younger. One of the times when we were driving back from California to Las Vegas, we were driving late at night. It was probably like 10 or 11 at night, I want to say. So we were coming back from California and going back to Las Vegas, and I believe we were driving through maybe the Mojave Desert or Death Valley or something late at night. We found this radio station. And if anyone knows Art Bell Coast to Coast, the radio show, he'd have call ins that were people seeing sightings of aliens and just weird phenomena, and he'd have interesting guests on all the time. And I'm not 100% sure it was Art Bell's show, but it was something very similar to that that we found on the radio in our rental car he had on some guy who like was a Professional clown and took it like extremely seriously. And the guy was kind of the host of the radio show was kind of like mocking the guy. And my brother and I, and my mom and dad, we were all laughing so hard, like laughing hysterically, like late at night in the car, driving through the desert. And we just like found this so entertaining. And we were all really hungry. And like, kind of as a late night snack, we ended up finding a Taco Bell, which I had never had before. I don't think we had it in New York at the time, but in Buffalo, New York. So we found this Taco Bell and we got the drive-thru. And my brother and I got these kids' meals. I think I had a steak fajita and maybe like hard shell taco. And then also they gave us those little cinnamon twists, which I don't know what they're actually called, but that was the very first time I ever tried Taco Bell, and the very first time I ever tried those little cinnamon twist things. And so, like my brother and I were in the back of the car, we're like laughing. We were driving and eating and listening to the show, and it felt like one of the best moments of my life, just because we all were in such a giggly mood, and the food tasted really good. And I don't know, I just love that memory so much. That one's almost more about just the feeling I get than the food itself.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

What's up, guys? This is Garrett from Born to Be Rad. Thank you for having me on once again. And this time we're going to talk about food that we ate during trips or when we were traveling. But we used to go down to Florida quite a bit because my grandmother lived there. And every time we did, we did go to Disney. And I can remember like the early 90s at Disney. They had this like, I think it was called the Handwich. It was at one of the parks where it was basically like a cone made out of bread, and they'd fill it with things like tuna or like ham and cheese. It was different, it almost felt like you were eating like a meat ice cream cone. It was wild. And I can remember that like it was yesterday. Eating that thing, walking around that hot sun and feeling so cool, like having your your sandwich in a cone. I guess that thing's been long discontinued, but it's always something that you know remains in my brain from being a little kid at Disney in the 90s. So hopefully that was a little bit different than the normal, you know, snacks that people are gonna talk about. But I figured I wanted to uh touch upon that because it was super unique.

SPEAKER_06 24:27

I'm from Buffalo, New York, and growing up my family did not have a lot of money. We really did struggle. I think we're kind of lower middle class, so vacations, as you can imagine, were pretty few and far between. And when we did go, we always went to the exact same two places. We went to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Don't ask me why. Every summer. And then maybe a little bit more towards late fall, early winter, we would go to the San Francisco Bay Area of California to visit my mom's side of the family. And whenever I would go to these places, I would always be excited to check out what kind of food options, specifically fast food options that they had. Like obviously, as a child, my palate was a lot less sophisticated than it would later become. And I think for most children, it's pretty common to be pretty excited by the prospect of fast food. You're going through the drive-thru, getting the food served pretty quickly, and then generally accompanied by plastic spinny or plushy sort of accompanying items. So that was always fun. But also in Buffalo, and I think I said this in another story, that we didn't really have a great deal of variety when it comes to fast food. I think we only had McDonald's, Burger King, and Mighty Taco in KFC. And then in 1994, we finally got Taco Bell. So when I would actually come out to California in the earliest days, Taco Bell was exotic to me. So that should kind of tell you where I was at. But this story in particular is more about my uncle. Now, my uncle is probably he was the baby of the family. He's my mom, he was my mom's youngest brother. I think he was about 15, maybe 17 years younger than she was. And he was only about maybe 10 years older than I was at the time. Maybe maybe like 11 or 12 years older than I was. So he was always the cool uncle. He rode a motorcycle. He had a girlfriend from Hawaii that he lived with. He would take me on the motorcycle rides and stuff, so I would always like to hang out with him. He was a cool guy. But I remember one time I stayed with him. And I just want to preface this by saying I know that there's been a long-standing heated debate about whether or not pineapple belongs on pizza. And up until this point, I think I would have completely agreed with the absolutely not side. Well, one of the nights that I stayed with my uncle and his girlfriend, they ordered two pizzas from Round Table Pizza, which is a place we also didn't have in Buffalo. I think we got one pepperoni, which obviously obviously everyone's gonna love. And one Hawaiian. And the Hawaiian, of course, is cheese, ham, and pineapple. And my uncle's girlfriend, Lavelle, was sort of egging me on to try it and being a child, somewhat pig-headed at the time. Like, no, no, I don't want to be that. I'm pineapple on pizza, yeah. But she was sort of goading me into it in a somewhat, like, you know, like sort of needling me a little bit, but in like a kind of a loving way. Oh, come on, try it, come on, try it. And then eventually I did. And obviously the slice is uh is shaking as I moved my hand up to my mouth to try to take them the probably like the most minuscule bite imaginable, because I'm terrified of these pineapples on pizza. And I took a bite of it, and I absolutely loved it. And actually, to this day, I still love ordering pineapple and ham on pizzas. I I uh definitely attribute that to Lavelle and those days back when I was a child, uh learning new foods and broadening my horizons.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

Thank you as always to Retro Vault for letting me be a part of today's episode of Treatland. So for my nostalgic memory slash story on vacation food uh memories, what comes to mind for me is a beautiful, lovely restaurant out in Rio Grande, New Joycey. And it is a seafood slash Italian bar and restaurant, but they're also known for having an area, like an arcade area for kids, as well as a store, uh like a huge candy section, of course, baked good, you know, some little bakery stuff. And then on top of all of that, as if that's not enough, there's an oddities slash sort of antique sort of history little museum area. And the place is absolutely humongous, especially going there as a child, it almost feels like to the point that you could get lost. And for a restaurant that's you know, most restaurants are kind of, you know, one one kind of size. So to see one like this is absolutely impressive. And they're very well known for their food, which is phenomenal. It's family-owned and it's been around forever. It's one of those places that like just feels like it popped up out of the dirt, out of the sand, and it's just been in Jersey since the beginning of time. But they keep it nice, they keep it clean, and it's super inviting, and it just has that wonderful family atmosphere. You know, when you go on vacation, you want to go somewhere really special when you decide to go out to eat. You know, it was of course going out to eat anywhere was was a big deal or a treat. But when you're on vacation or in vacation mode, you know, then it kind of goes to an even higher level of like if you're gonna go out to a restaurant. And this is certainly one of those types of places. I mean, like, definitely higher end, but still fairly priced and definitely affordable for anybody. But there's just so much to do there, like I said, from getting candy to playing games to checking out the oddities. And I could go on and on, even the oddities, even those are crazy. There's like two-headed animals, goats, and cows and stuff, and that's freaky to see before, during, or after eating. So it was always funny, you know, accidentally wandering into that section while, you know, get just getting up to use the restroom, and like, you know, you still got half a burger to eat or whatever, and now you're like looking at this two-headed, you know, sheep or something, and yeah, it's just everything about that place was wonderful, frightening, weird. If if you've ever been, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, you just gotta check it out. But it's just it's such a unique experience. And when I think of vacations, and specifically thinking of like food, I'm always trying something new when I go on vacation. So it's tough to think of like a nostalgic kind of consistent memory, but my family would always go out of the way to make it to Menzies, you know, no matter who I went down the shore with, whether it was my dad's side, my mom's side, you know, uh aunt and uncle, or like a friend of the family. It just seemed like a lot of people knew about Menzies, and it was sort of that family recommendation that would get passed around, and it was just great. It was, it was just a really awesome experience. I mean, the food, like I said, I'm like struggling to remember the food because so much of the other stuff just really stood out to me, especially as a younger kid going there, even a teenager. I mean, I always enjoyed the food, it was always really good, but I gotta say, just you know, the atmosphere of that place is unlike anything I've ever quite been to. And I just always remember the workers being so friendly and nice, and everybody just, you know, working really hard because it was a humongous, gigantic restaurant. So anyway, it is still around, and once again, it is in New Jersey. It is in an area called Rio Grande. Uh, I forget the uh the exact address, but if you Google it, you'll find it. So hopefully I didn't talk too long, and that's my story.

SPEAKER_09 32:45

I've been living nomadically for the past five years, most of it spent traveling by car around the U.S. So many of my food stories are travel stories. My favorite food experience, though, I don't know if it's my favorite, but one that I think of fondly, is when I am on road trips going from one place to the next, I'm vegetarian, so there's not many fast food places that I can partake in. However, McDonald's and Burger King and Wendy's do offer fries and ice cream cones. So my favorite thing when I need a little snack is to go get fries, an ice cream cone, and a Diet Coke through the drive-through. And it's the best feeling because it feels sort of an indulgent little treat. And for the first four years of my traveling, my beloved sole pet, Audrey, was with me. And Audrey was the best food buddy you could ever imagine. She would eat half of the fries and half of the ice cream cone with me. The second part is I have started traveling internationally as a nomad, and my first stop was Japan. And I'm sure everyone has heard stories of Japan and they're all true. It's all amazing, it's incredible. And yes, the 7-Elevens are everywhere and they are fantastic. They literally have cuisine there, they have gourmet food in their 7-Elevens, but my favorite thing were all the amazing little desserts that they had in little bags. I would get like five or 10 of them at a time and just carry them around and eat them throughout the day. It was fabulous, especially because if you go to Japan and you're a vegetarian, they have almost no vegetarian options anywhere you go. So 7-Eleven was often my breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Two of my favorite vacation memories involve my family. And the first one was going to Jamaica. And I was in fifth grade, I believe, and I had a miserable school year. But for my birthday, which was around spring break, it was actually just a spring break vacation. But for me, it was going to land on my birthday, which was kind of exciting. So we planned this trip to go to Jamaica, and my brother and I were super excited. And the hotel we stayed at was an all-inclusive hotel, and we had never experienced anything like that before. That was a first for us, and also we'd never been anywhere that was tropical like that. So it was just really exciting. By the pool, every single day they had entertainment, they had games, like pool activities, people winning prizes. They had like a guy on a microphone, like a DJ all afternoon and evening. And it was like a 24-hour party. And they also had a snack bar that was right near the pool in the stage. And you could go up there and get whatever you wanted. And my brother and I were just all about food. We were a little bit chubby growing up, and the idea that we could get anything we want at any time was mind-blowing to us. And we were ordering grilled cheese, french fries, ice cream cones, and then an hour later going up and ordering chicken fingers and french fries and an ice cream cone. So we were eating like multiple lunches per day when we were there. And I remember for whatever reason the grilled cheese specifically stands out to me. And I think I was taking the grilled cheese and dipping it in ketchup and the french fries and ketchup at the time. And I think that was like just like a weird, interesting memory I had. The thing that stands out most to me about this vacation was the night of my birthday. We had a dinner at the resort. At the end of the dinner, the chef brought out a cake. I mean, I was like kind of picky about desserts and stuff. And I see this cake come out, and I could tell it was not your typical like white frosting and you know, happy birthday written on it, or sprinkles. It looked like a spice cake. And I don't know, I just I was confused by it and not super thrilled that this was gonna be my birthday cake. But the chef brought it out, put it on the table, and I'm like, well, it's cake. I'm gonna at least try it. And the taste of this cake is just like buried in my mind forevermore because it was so incredible. It was like a spice cake, but it had pineapple, and I'm pretty sure it had some kind of rum in it, possibly coconut, and possibly some like nuts, and a really, really yummy, like cream cheese style frosting. And I've looked it up in recent years, and it's actually called a hummingbird cake, and it has similar spices to what you'd find in like banana bread, like moist and had the little bit of spiciness, and then the creamy frosting. And it was so good. And I think the pineapple in it really added to that tropical vacation feel. Like everything about this cake felt appropriate for being in Jamaica on my birthday during spring break with my family.

SPEAKER_06 38:13

There's one other quick little story that I'd like to add if there's time. And this one's a bit more recent, probably only about three years ago. So at the end of 2023, my friend Joel, his partner, and I went on a trip to Europe. It was about two and a half weeks. Tried to hit as many cities as possible. I think we hit seven cities in about two and a half weeks. Now, this is this is close to Christmas. It was definitely December. And I remember one of the big draws was every single city had its own take on a Christmas market. So they were like these sort of pop-ups, like sort of like a farmer's market, but more opulent. I mean, like there's like very classy. And they had baked goods, they had artisans, they had like baked goods, they had people making different different takes on different foods. Unfortunately, I didn't really eat any food at these, so I can't really give you any examples of that. But what I can give you an example of, which was one of my favorite parts of the trip, and actually something that that will always be re reminiscent to me of Christmas, is the Christmas punch that was made at these Christmas markets. Now, a lot of them were very similar, but they all had their little differences too. And I think that I I think I tried one at every single city. It was one of my favorite things to get. It was always after walking a long day. It was it was pretty cold most of the time, windy. So it was pretty wonderful to get to the Christmas market and just like, oh I want to try one of these punches. It has a little bit of a kick, a little bit of alcohol, get you loosened up. But I think my favorite one was in Bratislava, Slovakia. That was also my favorite city. But I believe it had blueberries, it was sort of a this viscous sort of punch, it was delicious. I think it had cinnamon in it. Just the right amount of kick. And to me, that will always be the taste of Christmas.

SPEAKER_10 40:12

Have you ever heard of a Pim's cup? This drink always brings me back to a trip to Cambridge, England, where we were visiting our swing dance friends, Colleen and Patton. Now, for some background, I'm a total sucker for British detective shows. So I was like already beside myself just to be there in England in the first place. And on our first night, the four of us watched an episode of one of the shows that had been filmed right there in Cambridge. So to keep that like vibe going, we went out to a local pub because that's what you do, and they ordered us this massive pitcher of Pim's cup for our table, and it was so delicious and so refreshing, and it just felt so perfectly like English that I decided I had to make this when we got home. So the base of this drink is Pim's number one, which is this like dark amber colored, like gin-y, well, gin-based liqueur, but it doesn't have like a super strong gin flavor. It's infused with some kind of like super secret proprietary blend of like herbs and orange peel, and it has this like I don't know, unique earthy sweetness to it, and you mix it with a citrus pop like Sprite or like I prefer ginger ale or maybe lemonade, and then you garnish it with diced fruit and cucumber and like mint, and you just like shove it all in the drink, kind of like a Bloody Mary, but in the drink and not on top of the drink. And the result is this just like delightfully refreshing summer beverage, and it kind of reminds me of like a cold version of mold wine because it has those like warming spices and some citrus and just like a little bit of bitterness from the clove and the juniper, since it is a gin. But when it's all mixed together, it's just like really light and refreshing. When I make it at home, I like I said, I use ginger ale, but I cut the sweetness and the sugar, so I kind of do like half a can of ginger ale and half a can of sparkling lemon or lime water along with the pins. And it's always a hit at summer parties because pretty much no one has ever heard of it. Like you rarely see it in bars or even restaurants. Patton actually passed away from cancer in 2025. So whenever I mix up a drink, I always kind of think of it as like a quiet homage to him and that great like vacation time that we all spent together in England.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

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