Life is full of spam. On your cell phone, on the sidelines of every email, in Facebook and more. And I thought I knew spam. Nope. Here’s what happened. Richie Coldcuts and I were lucky to be included in a big Thanksgiving gathering of close friends in the ‘burg. Our contribution was to be dessert. Thanksgiving dessert is usually pie, right? Pumpkin, pecan, apple, mince. Now, I’ve frequently waxed poetic about Richie’s skill in the kitchen. Great Italian food, roasts, soups, delicious veggies. Notice no sweets in that line-up? And my baking skills are quite limited. I DID make pecan pie once. I have no idea which step I skipped. It looked and smelled fabulous when it came out of the oven. But. It. NEVER. set. Folks were licking their lips as I prepared to cut into it, until the filling literally spurted out of it. The hosts started referring to it as ‘pecan soup’. I was mortified. Since then, my go-to dessert is ‘Miracle Bars’. Graham-cracker-crumb boxes and sweetened-condensed-milk labels, call them MAGIC bars, but I call them MIRACLE bars because I can make them perfectly! Every time. And people really like them. REALLY!
Ok, okay, so they’re really just the dessert version of 7-layer dip. You literally layer the 7 ingredients and bake them. But I do have a special touch with them!
And I digress. Back to pies. Richie and I decided that Village Inn was the way to go. I mean, there were to be around 30 people, and pecan soup was NOT on the menu. And in this wonderful digital age, I didn’t even have to call Village Inn. All I had to do was order the pies online, and they would have them ready at my near-by Village Inn and send me an email confirmation. I had solved the dessert caper in a flash. Next day, no email confirmation. Hmmmm. I was distracted with other matters and forgot until Thanksgiving eve. Pick-up day. Still no email, and sweat broke out on my upper lip. How many Miracle Bars would I have to make if the pie caper failed? I doubted that I could re-order pies at such a late date. And then, THEN! I remembered. How many times had I been advised to ‘check my SPAM folder’ for email I was waiting for? You know, email providers try mightily to spare us from useless (and worse!) email. Well, I guess I hadn’t perused the spam folder for quite some time. As I began looking through, I found myself blushing a deep red. Oh MY! There were Asian ladies, pills for sex, and life-like ‘contraptions’ all out there for my pleasure. Oh my goodness. I remember back when spam was merely diet pills, burial plots, and reverse mortgages. I guess I’ve been in a cave. Thank you Google, Yahoo and AOL. Thank you for sparing me the salacious, graphic and seedy offerings filling my Inbox each day. And YES! — Somehow, poor Village Inn triggered the spam-police, and they were relegated to the same folder with all the sex and porn. I rescued them — moving them back to my inbox. And Village Inn rescued ME with a pumpkin, pecan and apple pie! All is well. Happy Thanksgiving!
this lady's life 
Leave a Reply