The old saying is, something to the effect of, you can never go home again. And that saying, I'm here to tell you, is wholly incorrect. The fact is, often times one can go home again-- it just might not be quite the same as when you left it-- or more likely: how you remember. You may have to do some pruning, patching, paint, and plaster. And other times it just won't work-- gone.
Unfrosted Blueberry Pop Tarts brought me to this understanding. When I was a kid, Blueberry Pop Tarts were among my most favorite, and least available, food treats. (You'll note: just Pop Tarts. Frosting the little bastards was a nasty idea still lying well ahead in the youth of this country's over indulged future.) Heated in the toaster or right out of the box, I loved those Blueberry Pop Tarts.
The bond was strong. Over the years, while walking through grocery store aisles filled with cereals and breakfast bars and snacks, I have cast many a guilty glance toward the Pop Tart selection, a selection that has grown to the point the product is almost unrecognizable from my youth. (I'm pretty sure though-- looking at the assortment of hideous flavors, all slathered with some type of frosted surface-- that a stoner from my generation has been in charge of product development for some time now.) Whoever it is that is in charge of product development, I have noticed in all those visits, someone at Kellogg's holds unfrosted Strawberry Pop Tarts dear to heart as they seem to always be available. (Again, more support for the stoner theory of product development.)
And then it happened: A week or so ago I nearly bumped into a large displaystand filled with boxes of unfrosted Blueberry Pop Tarts. The clouds parted, the sun shone down in great Jesus beams, and a box of unfrosted Blueberry Pop Tarts levitated to my shopping cart. Hallelujah! I proceeded to tell my daughter about just what great fortune this was, that plain Blueberry Pop Tarts were one of the finest breakfast pastries ever conceived. And now my daughter knows, I too, was a stoner.
But I digress. After getting home from the market I immediately unpacked one of the foil pouches, snipped open the top, and admired the unchanged appearance of that micro thin delicious pastry, appearing unchanged, after all those years.
Of course, being of my age and generation (I know, it's redundant but it sounds so erudite), I had to read the nutritional information. (Another annoying development since the golden age of Pop Tarts. Who in their right mind wants to know the fat and calorie content of a Pop Tart, for crissakes!) Ignoring what should be a black box warning, I put one of the pastries straight into my pie hole-- no need to toast 'em, I told my daughter as she looked on somewhat bewildered but, by this point, certain of her father's history of drug use. And that's when it happened. The filling was right but the pastry itself, all anemic looking, cold and dense, tasted like, well, lard.
To say I was disappointed goes only half the distance. I felt cheated, lied to, frightened and confused all at the same time. How could my memory be so wrong? How could I have fooled myself so completely in creating such an unrealistic expectation of eating a mass produced slab of pastry with more perforations than an acoustic tiled ceiling?
To her credit, my daughter was surprisingly sympathetic. She doesn't like to see her dad suffer. To my credit, I didn't give up. About two days later, home alone, I slipped another Pop Tart in the toaster and warmed it through. Success! The aroma, the pastry, the filling-- it was all there.
Yep. Sometimes you can go home again. Even if it's just to enjoy a moment with a 240 calorie, 6 gram of fat pastry; filled with blueberry jam, buttered, not frosted.
