397. Moose or Truffles

My grandparents, Grace and Gene Noble, were bakers. They owned and operated bakeries at Central and Colorado avenues in South Louisville and later in the Strickland Shopping Center on Poplar Level Road in the Newburg area. The last year of business for the old Noble's Bakery was 1972, when my grandfather turned 65. I was 11.

Having grandparents in the bakery business as a kid seems like a pretty good gig. And it was. My brother and I always had the latest, coolest, and biggest birthday cakes, and other family celebrations were faithfully accompanied by the freshest baked goods of many different varieties. Oftentimes on Sunday mornings, my brother and I had the run of the back part of the bakery, where the icings were made, the doughnuts were fried, and the bread was sliced. What a life.

A few years later, as a fourteen year old, I went to work in my frist job at the old Tas-T-O Bakery on Blue Lick Road. It was my first of several jobs at different entities in the Silver Heights Plaza, an older shopping center which grew up as a commercial center for the Blue Lick Road subdivisions of Silver Heights and Treasure Island, developed by David Dulworth and Ed Caven, respectively. There I learned the delicate art of when to turn the doughnuts in the deep fryer and - a lesser job - how to use a broom. The bakery was housed in a trailer which is still there out in the northern end of the shopping center parking lot thirty-four years later.

Eventually, being around all of those sweet things took its toll on my tastebuds. For several years - nearly two decades - I've been missing a sweet tooth. I've actually been ,issing several teeth, but that is a different story. On my birthdays, my mother has always provided me with either a cheesecake or a butter kuchen - not a cake. I don't like cake and I don't like icing for the most part. I do like chocolate ice cream but not most chocolate candy - especially anything made of milk chocolate. Hallowe'en always posed a problem.

But there are times when sweet things find their way into my food chain. Such was the case earlier this summer when I was invited to a friend's alleged "28th" birthday party, notwithstanding the fact that he was born 31 years ago. Whatever. Among the many food items available for consumption was a kuchen/pie looking gastronomical creation, brought to the bacchanalia by the former Vice Chair of the Kentucky Democratic Party, State Representative Joni Jenkins, Democrat of the 44th House District, representing Jefferson County precincts along the west side of Dixie Highway from Millers Lane all the way out to damn close to Watson Lane. Joni was first elected to her Frankfort position in 1995. She is the daughter of the former mayor of Shively, the Hon. Jim Jenkins, and the aunt of one John Andrew Jenkins, better known as Drew, who is a very determined young man helping to elect Democrats here along the Left Bank of the Ohio River near Milepost 606. She is currently seeking a leadership post in the Democratic caucus, hoping to defeat the current Speaker Pro-Tem Larry Clark of Okolona for that position. But, I digress.

Joni's food offering for my friend's party was what I called a Chocolate Mousse Pie. She calls in a Fudge Truffle Pie. We joked in an email exchange about the Chocolate Mousse Pie sounding like a Sarah Palin concoction, while Fudge Truffles definitely has an Obama-possibly elitist sound to it. Imagine, the entire election reduced to dessert descriptions. Except that Sarah is into Moose pies and not chocolate mousse. Sarah is probably into some other odd habits, but we'll leave those revelations to her actions and your imaginations.


Representative Jenkins has promised me one of these chocolate mousse/fudge truffle pies of my own - for my birthday - which was last month. Joni herself is celebrating a birthday soon, one of those "big ones" coming up on the Feast Day of Saint Nicholas. Hopefully, we can celebrate together with a slice of pie.