09-22-2016
My daughter thought maybe I would be bored at home by myself, so she suggested we have lunch together today. I volunteered to meet her at her department to walk to the restaurant together. We choose the out-door seats at the restaurant.
After the main course, we ordered a dessert: apple pie, whipped cream, and ice cream.
I could not resist comparing the delicious sweets, as I am a passionate food processor.
Apple Pies I Tasted
Enjoying the German-style apple pie in rectangle shape, I thought that all apple pies I ate in the States were always in a cone shape. Apple pie with whipped cream here tasted the same as in States, though the appearances are different in the two countries.
I recorded another familiar apple pie, Polish apple pie, I ate lots of Polish apple pie at friend gatherings or department social events while I was in graduate school in CUA in the early 90’s. Ewa, came from Poland and studied under the same advisor as me, was very good at baking apple pie and she also enjoyed to host parties.
More than twenty years have since passed by and I still remembered the look and the taste of Ewa’s Polish apple pie, I am a truly passionate eater.
The look and taste of Polish apple pie are different from what I usually ate in the States. Polish apple pie is sweeter and doesn’t use whipped cream.
A Story about Ice Cream
I don’t eat ice cream usually, as I don’t like cold food. Today, because we had have plenty of time, we observed the ice cream carefully and tasted the flavor of the ice cream slowly.
The ice cream tasted with vanilla flavor and we noticed some little black things inside ice cream which is probable the ground-up powder of the vanilla seed.
My daughter wondered: “What could make the ice cream a light yellow color?”
I said: “Maybe egg yolk. Oh, Waigong and Waipo bought a refrigerator after I went to college.”
My daughter looked at me with puzzlement.
I continued: “I remember in the summer of 1982, after I came home from college, Waipo proudly announced she made ice cream for us. I was overjoyed to hear this, because in the 80’s, ice cream was high end desert, very expensive and very rare! Waipo’s ice cream was delicious, and her recipe was very simple: milk, eggs, and sugar. The color of Waipo’s ice cream was light yellow like the one we are eating right now.”
After I finished my family history story, my daughter was very satisfied with my explanation of the color of the ice cream. We happily ate the last bit of the ice cream.
While waiting for the check at the restaurant, I delightedly said: “Today’s lunch was worth remembering. Later you can told your children: ‘When I was doing graduate study in Wuerzburg, I made a special arrangement to have lunch with your Waipo.’”
My daughter smiled.
I expressed my gratitude: “After I grew up, I never made arrangements to eat out with Waipo. You came out of school to have lunch with me, this made me feel that the younger generation is better than old generation and today is better than yesterday!”