My mother would buy the square Tea Cake from Amy's Bakery in Montebello, CA since I can remember. They still sell them. You can see the image of it on their website. Take the 60 fwy, exit Wilcox or Garfield Ave. Go south to Beverly Blvd. and Amy's Bakery is on the NW corner of Wilcox & Beverly. Make sure to grab a number as soon as you enter. Once when I worked in Lancaster, CA a rep came in and dropped off a pink box of little pink & yellow tea cakes in our lounge. I knew exactly what they were but no one else did but the box did not have a bakery name on it. They went for the other box of pastries and needless to say by the time the day was over I had eaten the entire box! (good for me) :) Last time I bought a tea cake from Amy's (in the 80's) I ate the whole cake before we got it home. (with my bare hands) No, I don't do that kind of stuff! It surprised me too! Yes, these cakes are that good. The cake from Amy's Bakery is like a 9x9 and has the light brown colored glaze/frosting on it. In my opinion, it's the best.

My grandparents were all born in the 1880s and my last grandmother died when I was 12. She'd been in a nursing home for some time by that point so I was very young when I was visiting their homes. Both of my grandfather's passed before I was born. My maternal grandmother lived in an old duplex on Toledo, Ohio's south side--right near the big Haughton Elevator plant where my grandfather worked. Very industrial and I remember the neighborhood being very gray--dark, charcoal gray. There were railroad tracks that basically ran behind the house. During the depression, the homeless men who were traveling as hitchers on the train would stop and my grandmother would feed them--whatever she had--which wasn't much. Mom said that it was a daily occurrence. And there was a bar called The Showboat just a few doors down. Some time during my young adulthood, it morphed into a drag club. I never went there, but it was VERY important to my grandpa. LOL That grandmother had a small, dank kitchen with a freestanding gas (heating) stove, lino countertops with the banded edge, and (I think) green painted cabinets--and not many. It just felt dirty and old to me--much like that neighborhood. My uncle lived in that duplex apartment for more than 60 years. He had cerebral palsy and lived at home and never married. What I remember most about that house was the smell of his cologne, believe it or not. By the time he moved in the early 80s, the apartment had fallen into horrendous disrepair. My paternal grandmother was a charcter--my last remaining grandparent. Some time between 1915 and 1920, they sold their large farm in Tontogany, Ohio and moved to the "big city" of Bowling Green. Their house was a traditional 2 story, white, with a big front porch and two catalpa trees out front. I spent hours playing with the seed pods--"Indian cigars" as she called them. Her kitchen wasn't big, but it wasn't small. There was a wall of cabinetry that faced the country road to the east with a sink and symmetrical white painted cabinets. Certainly no dishwasher. LOL The floors were a speckled lino--all kinds of colors but basically white and the cabinets had black rubber toekicks. There was a typical 1930s wallpaper, red, blue, yellow with forks and spoons motif on all of the walls above white (?) ceramic tile. I want to say that it was banded in black tile, but...I don't know...maybe... There was a breakfast alcove with a wooden table and 4 chairs--always covered with a vinyl tablecloth. I remember a lot of red and white checks...LOL The stove and refrigerator stood by themselves on 2 walls, and there was a door in the back corner that led out onto a breezeway with a dirt floor that housed the old wringer washer and beadboard cabinets full of home canned goods. I grew up eating her quince jelly and peanut butter sandwiches. We had her jelly YEARS after she passed away. I can STILL taste it. And lebkuchen. Always lebkuchen. And on your birthday, she would sit down at the big upright piano in the living room and belt out the most raucous "Happy Birthday" you ever heard. She'd been a piano player in the silent movie houses and was quite good--sitting there in her flowered shirtwaist and gingham apron with her white-white hair pulled into a tight bun.... My mom always told me that I reminded her of that grandmother.... I like that.

If you like moist, rich, almost-custardy, almost-black foresty chocolatey cakes with cherries, here's a winner: CHOCOLATE-CHERRY MASCARPONE BUNDT CAKE Serves 16 Ingredients 2 sticks butter 1/2 cup cocoa 3/4 cup water 2 cups granulated sugar 1 cup mascarpone cheese 1 Tbs vanilla extract 2 large eggs 2 cups all purpose flour 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1 can cherry pie filling Glaze 3/4 cup chocolate chips 1/4 cup heavy cream 1/4 cup good dark brewed coffee 1/4 cup light corn syrup 1 tsp vanilla extract Directions Grease and flour a 10-12 cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add cocoa, stirring until smooth. Whisk in the water and remove from heat. To the warm cocoa mixture, add the sugar, mascarpone, vanilla and eggs. Whisk until smooth. In another bowl combine the flour, soda and salt. Add all at once to the first mixture, whisking until well blended. Stir in one can of cherry pie filling. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour, or until it feels firm to the touch and has slightly pulled away from the sides of the pan. Cool in pan on a rack for 20 minutes. Carefully loosen the cake with a knife and invert onto a large plate. While it is cooling, warm the milk/cream, coffee and corn syrup on medium heat until it boils. Remove from heat. Add vanilla. Pour over chocolate chips and let sit until chocolate melts. Whisk until smooth. Let cool to room temperature and then spoon over the cooled cake. If too thick, thin with a little more cream. Joe

Zalco, I haven't been to Terun, their crust looks delicious! Thanks for the rec. FYI, I don't consider Round Table to be great pizza, but it's close to my house and nostalgic. Pizza Delfina is really good and Vesta in Redwood City is where I go for creative toppings. Now that I think of it, Menlo Park doesn't have any great pizza places but I live in the next town over so if I'm lazy it's there or Redwood City. I grew up in Palo Alto and love to reminisce about all the great restaurants up and down El Camino, University Ave. etc. that are now gone. It's amazing that Round Table is still going strong. I especially miss the "old" Mings before they switched to mostly dim sum. I think we went out for dinner more than a lot of families. I could name 50 restaurants from Mt. View to Menlo Park that are now gone. I miss the good old days! I bought a small pizza oven but making the dough from scratch seemed more trouble than it was worth. Never tasted as good as the better pizza places.