On holiday fruitcake
Somehow I got on the list of a whole bunch of fancy food catalogues, which are coming to me in the mail almost every day. I’m pretty sure I earned my place on that list by sending some fruit to an elderly relative every year for the past few years. The relative is, alas, no more, but the catalogues proliferate.
And of course I look at them. Chocolates galore, even though I can’t eat chocolate because it gives me migraines. Sigh and sigh again. All sorts of other delicious-looking confections, all of them mega-expensive.
And of course fruitcake. Fruitcake has become a sort of holiday joke, but somebody must like it because all these fruitcakes start at around forty dollars a pop. I can’t imagine a fruitcake worth that sort of money, but then again, that seems to be the going rate for an entree in a restaurant these days, so what do I know?
I happen to like fruitcake, too. At least, sort of. Probably more than the average person does. But it’s the neutron star of calories, and it doesn’t seem worth that price, either. So I think I’ll desist.
I thought you were speaking of our celebrations and joy regarding the pause in the fundamental transformation project and those other associated fruitcakes.
I like the baked edible kind, those others not so much.
For the past decade or so Costco has carried a holiday fruitcake in a tin at a reasonable price, i.e. about $30. I happen to like fruitcake. I’m the only one in my family who does, so it falls to me to finish the thing off before it needs to be thrown out, and when I see them on the shelf, I can’t resist.
Since we have moved, Costco has gone from being a ten-minute drive to being an hour and a half away, so I don’t go anywhere near as often. Which is to say I have not been there this year when the fruitcakes are on display. I miss the fruitcake, but my avoirdupois does not. It might not happen this year.
F:
There’s always good old Walmart. I can’t vouch for the taste, but it sure is cheap. See this.
This is a very nice and reasonably priced fruitcake:
Old Fashion Claxton Fruit Cake 3-1 Lb. Regular Recipe Loaves – Individually Wrapped For Freshness in our Signature Red-White Carton – 3-pack
$25 for 3 one pound loaves from Amazon. They are longer than they are wide, so you can cut a couple of slices and they eat like a confection–which is the right amount for something so sweet and heavy. Pairs well with bourbon.
I wait for fruit cakes discounted the day after Christmas.
Flora’s Lebkuchen is great. When a friend tried it, he told me it tasted German. Which it was.
Definitely not the teeth-cracking lebkuchen I grew up on, but still delicious.
Gringo:
Glad you enjoy it. Aunt Flora would be glad too, I think. Her mother was born in Germany and her father in Bohemia.
I baked fruitcake last Christmas for the 1st time. I made 3 of them, two were full octane and the nonalcoholic one for myself (teetotaler) . It was great fun making them, even more fun was giving them to friends and family. I think the non-fruitcake eaters appreciated the homemade cakes, even if they didn’t indulge.