Those S-shaped pastries are delicious Dutch letters -a flaky dough filled with almond paste. The cookies were traditionally made in Holland only for Sinterklaas Day, December 6th. In central Iowa they are available year round.
There are two bakeries on Franklin St. in Pella that make Dutch letters. The lines to get into the bakeries were insane! Good thing I had the foresight to sample one in Des Moines a few days earlier.
Do you like reading about life in the Midwest? Of course you do! In that case you might be interested in Flyover People: The Book by Cheryl Unruh, our favorite commenter from Kansas. Cheryl's very excited about the book. Congratulations!
On a completely different note... Stories in The Onion are often an afterthought to the hilarious headlines that precede them. The story about Martin Scorcese attending a free iMovie class at an Apple store, however, was pitch perfect from start to finish.
I guess I'll have to go to Pella - and buy a letter "S."
Thanks for the nice plug for my book, Joe!
Posted by: Cheryl | 01 September 2010 at 11:41 PM