Boston and the balloon girls

After the conference, I took a play day in Boston with my long-time friend Barbara Keiler, also known as Judith Arnold, who braved the Byzantine streets of Boston to pick up my eldest son and his beloved, who rode the bus up from Manhattan to spend the afternoon with me. We had a great time. Eating, of course, then wandering around the area by the waterfront, and down the narrow streets of the Italian North End, which made me think nostalgically of my first hardcover for Ballantine, No Place Like Home, about an Italian-American woman going back to Pueblo to make peace with the family she left behind.

A few photos for your enjoyment. I traded in the old cell phone (which had a battery that lasted five minutes) for a new one with a better camera. At least you’ll get illustrations that are a little better. Maybe.

This one was inspired by all those Paris Breakfasts photos. She makes it look easy.

It wasn’t.

It was, however, lots of fun.

We ate cannolis, which I’ve never tasted because I thought they were filled with whipped cream (which struck me as boring) and they’re not. Which I’m sure everyone in the world knew except me.

The reality was one of those hallelujah moments–how could I not ever have tasted this in my entire life? Wow. I’m fairly certain that I’ll taste them again. Many times.

Have you ever had a hallelujah moment with food? Something you thought you knew and found out it was…something else?

EDIT: oops. I forgot to post the balloon girls photo. It’s too blurry, but it was so cute that son’s beloved and I both took one. A bunch of teenage girls with helium balloons tied in their long hair, so the hair was a link to the balloon floating above their heads. Really adorable. I still have things to figure out with camera phone, but I’ll see if I can get another one from S.B

4 thoughts on “Boston and the balloon girls”

Julie

April 5, 2007

I’m thinking that’s GOT to be Mike’s Pastry in the North End. Yeah, I had my first cannoli there, too. Well, I should say, I bought my husband his first cannoli there, and I ate most of it. We fought over it.

I went in there, and had to sit down for a while, my senses were so overwhelmed.

I pointed to something in the showcase, and said to the lady, “What do you call those things?” and held my breath.

“Whoopie pies?” she said, in halting English, for those girls are REALLY Italian.

My grandmother made these for us every time we visited her, and I’d never seen them anywhere else. They were only half as good as hers, but still. Apparently, they are an East coast delicacy, originating with the Amish. When you eat them, you say “Whoopie!!”