St Louis family style

SP and I parted ways for a few days – she went to Chicago to check out their galleries (as if NY wasn’t enough) and I went to St Louis to catch up with my relatives (uncle, aunt, three cousins [aged 4 to 7] and my aunt’s mum).  It was fantastic to be able to see them in their new home and to be able to really relax for a few days ( I didn’t even have to set my alarm – every morning my three gorgeous cousins would run into my room for my wake up call).  They were kind enough to show me the sights around St Louis.  These included the gorgeous historic town of St Charles, Santa’s Magical Kingdom (no exaggeration) in Jellystone park, Castlewood State Park, the St Louis Zoo and the St Louis Arch.

From a culinary perspective it was great too, to be able to have some fantastic home cooking and to try out some local places.  In terms of home cooking I was spoilt with lots of lovely fresh vegetables and great meat and some Norwegian salmon too.  My aunt cooked a lovely breakfast of bacon (beautifully cooked – not overdone as is the custom over here) with both pancakes and waffles.  Another morning my uncle made me one of his specialty omlettes packed with a selection of veggies and some of that great bacon too.

Bacon, pancakes and waffles

Omlette with vegetables and bacon on the side

In St Charles there were heaps of interesting shops, including a shop with about 35 flavours of popcorn, a doggie treat shop (e.g. pepperoni flavoured dog popcorn) and a sweet shop.  I indulged only in the latter (Riverside Sweets) with a massive selection of chocolate (e.g. chocolate pretzel, chocolate covered oreo, chocolate covered s’more) and fudge (shared with my relatives of course!).

Chocolate selction from Riverside Sweets

For lunch one day my aunt and her mum went to Miss Aimee B’s, a quaint restaurant located within a converted house.  This is definitely the place for the ladies to go to lunch (not a man in sight) and we were served by a lovely lady who reminded by aunt of Betty White from Golden Girls (I concurred).   I ordered their lemonade with mik (yes, with milk, that’s the way they make it here) which was tasted unusual but was actually quite good.  I had their spinach crepe with a cheese sauce, with macaroni cheese on the side (can’t have too much cheese can you?).  The crepes were incredibly bland but the macaroni cheese was delicious.  I finished with the dessert platter – pumpkin pie, moon pie (an open eclair) and chocolate cake.  The pumpkin pie was excellent but was bested by my aunt’s choice of bumbleberry pie (no such thing as a bumbleberry I discovered – just a “bumble” of various berries).

Spinach crepe with macaroni and cheese

Dessert platter

One afternoon my uncle (who shares my fondness for sweet delights) took me to Maggie Moo’s Ice Cream and Treatery, where you pick your icecream and toppings and the staff mix them altogether to create your own special concoction.  Too bewildered to be able to come up with my own selection I ordered one of the standard combinations – chocolate icecream, chunks of Reese’s cups, Reese’s pieces and peanut butter.  Oh yeah.  My uncle ordered the marshmallow icecream with M&Ms, oreo chunks, chunks of Reese’s cups and sprinkles.  Both were delicious.

Maggie Moo's icecream delights

I finally tracked down some Twinkies at a Wall Mart.  Sadly these did not live up to my memory of them from my childhood.  They looked great and the texture was fantastic but the artificial aftertaste was a real turn off.

For my final evening in St Louis we all went to the Home Town Buffet.  It was great fun and I indulged in the following four “courses”.  The best things were the steak and the apple crumble.  The worst (not shown here) was the bumblegum slushie.  Not recommended for human consumption.

Course 1 - pizza, fried chicken, coleslaw

Course 2 - barbecued ribs

Course 3 - steak, wedges and beans

Course 4 - apple crumble, chocolate pudding, bread and butter pudding, vanilla snow freeze

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