As St. Patrick's Day rolls around once a year, I've decided that henceforth on this day every year - well, maybe not every year, maybe just every now and then - anyway, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, and also in honor of a certain yummy cream-filled pastry from my childhood that I still to this day think about and yearn for at this time of year, I've decided that I would repost a blog that I wrote on March 17, 2019 about this particular St. Paddy's day delight. Happy St. Patrick's Day to all. May your day be as sweet as a St. Patrick's Day Frog. THE SAINT PATRICK'S DAY FROGS Back when I was young, when my family lived in a row house on Barnett Street in Northeast Philadelphia (our old house today, below), ...and I was a student at St. Timothy's school, ...I used to love St. Patrick's Day. I loved the day for three reasons. First of all, even though St. Patrick, beloved Catholic saint as he was, did not merit for his feast day a Holy Day of Obligation on the Church calendar - which would have snagged a day off from school for us Catholic kids - St. Patrick's Day was nonetheless treated as a day of fun at St. Timothy's. We were allowed to wear something green with our uniforms and bring our crayons to school and towards the end of the afternoon our usual classwork was suspended, and we were allowed to instead color pictures of St. Patrick that Sister would hand out to us. The second reason I loved St. Patrick's Day was that the day after the following day was March 19, St. Joseph's Day, which, while also not a Holy Day of Obligation, was important enough a Church feast day that it was a day off from school. But the very best thing of all about St. Patrick's Day was the St. Patrick's Day Frogs. The St. Patrick Day Frogs were a delicacy to be savored only on St. Patrick's Day and found only at Haegele's Bakery, which was a block up Barnett Street from our house. The Frogs were a sort of amphibian-shaped pastry, the bottom two-thirds of which was cake and the top third a mound of vanilla creme the kind of which was used to fill creme donuts. The cake bottom and creme top were covered with green fondant upon which was piped icing eyes and a mouth. Every St. Patrick's Day my mother would buy each of my four siblings and myself a St. Patrick's Day Frog. For me coming home from school to my St. Patrick's Day Frog was on a par with the the delight of waking up on Christmas morning. I truly loved those bright green cream-headed cake frogs. I believe - though the passage of years may have blurred the time line for me somewhat, and if anyone wishes to correct me on the exact year I will stand corrected - but I believe that I was nine years old and in 4th grade at St. Timothy's when I ate my last St. Patrick Day's Frog . It was when I was ten years old and in 5th grade at my new school, St. Christopher's, ...that my Catholic conscience bloomed and, likely inspired by the more advanced doctrine taught in the 5th grade catechism in tandem with the exhortations of my teacher, I became aware that it was required of me to give up something for Lent. I believe I picked sweets because that's what everybody else in the 5th grade of my new school said they were giving up for Lent. So I gave up sweets, too. It was to my joy when I came home from school on that St. Patrick's Day to find that my mother had traveled across town to Haegele's to buy my brothers, sister, and I our Frogs. And to my horror when I remembered that it was Lent and so I couldn't eat my St. Patrick's Day Frog. I wanted so badly to eat that Frog, to bite into that sweet green icing at just the spot where one hit part cake and part creme, my favorite way to eat it. I yearned to eat the Frog, I longed to eat it, but I knew that I couldn't eat it because it was Lent and I'd given up sweets and I truly believed at ten years old that a Catholic could no more put into her mouth something she had given up for Lent than she could eat meat on Friday. And it wasn't just that I longed for my St. Patrick's Day Frog. I grieved for it, too, because now I knew that St. Patrick's Day arrived in the middle of Lent, that it would always arrive in the middle of Lent, and that I'd never eat another St. Patrick's Day Frog for the rest of my life. I don't remember who ended up eating my Frog. But I'm sure I didn't grieve for too long, and I rather think that was the last time my mother made the trip to Haegele's for the St. Patrick's Day Frogs, anyway. Anyway, that was sixty years ago, and in truth I'd forgotten all about the Frogs. Until last night when my brother Joe sent my sibs and myself this picture that he found yesterday on the Haegele's Bakery Facebook page: I swear, somehow, someway, I will eat another St. Patrick's Day Frog before I croak!
0 Comments
...Continued from yesterday: Though I'd had a notion to change things up on this visit to Amish Country, we ended up doing pretty much the same thing we always do in Amish Country: we walked around and looked at the antique barns, thrift stores and tchotchke shops. Soon after we settled in at our hotel, the Berlin Grande, ...we got started, walking from the hotel to the main thoroughfare in downtown Berlin. Our first stop was the Berlin Village Antique Mall. Not that we have any particular interest in antiques, ...except to look at the amazing amount of random and diverse stuff here, ...and ponder who might buy some of these things, ...and how the heck do the managers mange to inventory it all? Next we walked down the block to an upscale-ish home goods store called Country Gatherings, ...the interior of which was soothingly infused with a vanilla fragrance and calming music and filled with all sorts of pretty and appealing items, ...including these stuffed animals that could be heated in the microwave and to which I took a great liking but resisted buying. There's also a cute coffee shop in the store called Buggy Brew. ...where there was a surprising number of younger folks, ...which gave me the impression that this must be a popular local spot to meet up for coffee. Another impression I had of Country Gatherings was that, even though Amish Country stores such as this one tend to offer a great variety of decoratives bearing religious and inspirational messages, it seemed to me on this visit that there was more religious messaging here than usual. The following morning our first stop of the day was at the non-profit Share & Care Thrift store (which was called 61 Surplus last time we were here), ...located on an idyllic country road. The store is always clean and well-organized, and full of nice second-hand housewares, ...and also promotes itself as a Christian establishment, ...as did the establishments that bordered our next destination, the public parking lot in downtown Berlin. We did a once around the country crafts mega-store called Sol's Palace. Next we headed for the German Village Center, ...where we visited the Gospel Book Store. I left the wholesome Gospel Book Store with the same notion as I always have of this place: That my books, rather spicy romantic comedies, ...would not be welcome additions to the inventory. By then lunch time had rolled around, and so we decided to head to the next town over, Millersburg, where we'd had our excellent pizza adventure the night before (see previous post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/the-friendliest-pizzeria-in-the-whole-usa). Our destination was a place I'd seen advertised in our hotel elevator called Jitters Coffee House, where one could apparently procure some lunch as well as some coffee. Upon entering we found ourselves in a pleasant space which appeared to be a popular eating and meeting place. A long table full of folks of my generation reminded me of my own Panera Posse, ...my group of friends who used to meet every Wednesday at Panera until COVID turned us into a mostly online entity. This turned out to be a good place for lunch. Tom ordered one of the specialty hotdogs, which he said was very tasty, with chips, ...while I had a veggie and cheese sandwich on a pretzel bun, also very good. As Jitters had a bakery with some nice-looking offerings, for dessert we decided to sample a couple of the giant, over-filled donuts. Tom had a cream-filled long john and I had a jelly doughnut. On the table markers were written gospel verses. While in Millersburg we caught sight of a few more thrift stores, so we decided to check out one of them, the Save & Serve. This place was quite nice, as well. The shelves held a finity of dishes of all sorts, ...and I saw a set of joy-inspiring multicolored dishes that I couldn't resist buying. (I subsequently ordered from Amazon a bright yellow tablecloth upon which to set them, which I hope to do one of these days). Having given in to the temptation to buy the dishes, I now felt like giving into those warming stuffed animals that had called to me at the Country Gathering the day before. So we returned to Country Gathering and I bought a couple of them. We hit one more thrift store, Mission: Thrift, ...which was more of your standard-issue basic thrift store, ...but we did give it a once-around. Then we stopped at Troyer's Market, where one can find an interesting variety of groceries and other things, ...and where we picked up a ten-pound bag of apples, ...and some salad to accompany the left-over pizza we were intending to (and ultimately did) have for dinner (see previous post). The next morning we checked out of the Berlin Grande, but Tom suggested that before leaving Berlin we have a look at the Berlin Antique Mall, as this was just about the only second-hand store in the area that, in all our years of hitting the Amish Country antique and thrift store circuit, we'd never been to. As for me, I was by this point all browsed/shopped out. But as Tom wanted to browse some more I, of course, accommodated my mate. And so we set out for the Berlin Antique Mall, ...at the entrance of which we were greeted by a most eclectic batch of critters. ...and a rather annoying - but then, not altogether unexpected - religious screed, compliments of the store's owner. And though we'd already toured half-a-dozen stores over the past day-and-a-half, I found myself mesmerized by this one. There was such a plethora of used things of all kinds. I was fascinated by all this stuff, captivated, as if I were in a vast museum of artifacts from the mid-twentieth to the first quarter of the twenty-first century.
"You ready to go yet?" asked Tom after I'd spent forty-five minutes engrossed in looking at things, but feeling a if I hadn't even started on all there was to see. "No, not really," I said, reminding my mate that it was his idea to bring me here. However, I agreed to go and we left Amish Country for home. But I swore I'd be back. Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon: "Equal And Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888 "Tropical Depression" https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY |
"Tropical Depression"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa or from The Book Loft of German Village, Columbus, Ohio Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
Archives
March 2024
I am a traveler just visiting this planet and reporting various and sundry observations,
hopefully of interest to my fellow travelers. Categories |