His: Time for cake!

Yummy fruit cake!

      Amanda and I enjoy going to the craft show at the high school nearby each December. It allows us to kick start our holiday shopping and often we find great gifts and can cross a few names off the list. Amanda's favourite things at the event are all of the arts and crafts. The exhibitors put a lot of time and effort into their crafts and they are very pretty and make good gifts.  It also is a way for us to shop local and help small businesses and people in our community.

     The items I look forward to most at the craft fairs are all of the edible treats on offer. We often end up buying a decent amount of food items each year to stock our pantry and some treats as well. In the past we have bought some great items like BBQ sauce for ribs, soup mixes and kettle corn but my favourite item was a fruit cake that I bought from a nice eldery couple last year. I am a huge fruit cake fan and that is likely due to my upbringing. In Australia fruit cake is very popular and is served pretty much all year round but is very popular around Christmas time. It is also the traditional type of cake served at weddings which is not the case in America. Fruit cake is not popular in America and is only seen between Thanksgiving and Christmas. When I first saw the fruit cake last year I was a little wary about spending $10 on a cake that I didn't know if I would like. I had not tried an American fruitcake before and didn't know how different it would be. They may be made to a weird recipe and would explain why no one eats them. Luckily she offered samples of the fruit cake and I was pleasantly surprised. It was like taking a step back in time to when I was younger as it tasted exactly the same as home made fruit cake at home. I immediately scooped up a cake and told the lady that she made an excellent fruit cake and that I would greatly enjoy it. I believe the cake lasted about 48 hours before it was nothing but a few crumbs.

Amanda loved the Banana Nut bread she bought.

         We had been at the craft show Saturday for about 45 minutes and I was starting to feel a little peckish. We had stocked up on soups from another vendor and then I remembered the great fruit cake that I bought last year and hoped that the couple would be there and selling it again this year. I was pleased to see that they were and I headed straight over to their table. The gentleman at the table took one look at me and said that he remembered me from last year and that I was the man that loved his wife's fruit cake. He also told me that they only had one fruit cake left and I replied that there were none left to sell since I was buying the last one. I wondered why she had almost sold out of the cakes by the time I had arrived and Amanda pointed out the likely reason to me once I got home. They had labelled the fruit cakes as "Holiday cake" which likely encouraged people to try the sample and not bypass it just because it was labeled as a fruit cake. Pretty good marketing right?

       Amanda is not a fan of fruit cake and I am happy about that because it means more fruit cake for me. She picked out a banana nut bread and she loved it just as much as I loved my fruit cake. We will definitely have to visit their table again next year and visit them near the beginning so I can get my holiday/fruit cake before they sell out.