Cakes, Cookies, Donuts - Si!

WARNING: This may appear that I am profiling. Well, I guess it is. We are always interested in other cultures and we developed our profiling from what we see or read.

A Disclaimer: I don’t think I am any better than anyone in the Latino community. And I admire their work ethics and I do believe their large numbers, and being frugal by nature, is holding down inflation. My only gripe is that I wish more of them would pay in the system to help pay for the benefits they enjoy and buy auto insurance.

Yesterday we were near downtown Marietta. Across from The Big Chicken is a La Suprema Bakery. I think it is a chain owned and operated by Latinos. And apparently, its target customers are the Latinos of the community.

Since it opened we have been curious about what kind of bakery goods the local Spanish people were attracted to, so partly out of nosiness and partly to quench a sweet tooth we went in.

It probably had 50 feet of counter space, shaped like a big horseshoe with squared corners. It was manned by one Spanish speaking woman… or I guess it was womanned by her.

We noticed some beautiful tiered wedding cakes; big fancy colorful cakes. On one cake instead of the normal little figurines of a wedding couple was a figurine of hot flashing Latin dancer with something bright red on, the way her clothes appeared to have just bounced in the air, it looked like she was solo in a flamingo dance – what was that, the groom's cake?

By the looks of the cakes, it looks like they really party down at a wedding.

One item behind the counter looked interesting. It was a sheet of little blocks of something. We asked the lady how it tastes and she tried telling us but there was a language barrier – she just hauled off and gave us a big block so we could taste for ourselves.

While we were there a black lady, very modish dressed, came in and went through their pictures of cakes, apparently she was planning a big bash. Then a Mexican family came in, which maybe there were maybe 5 or 6 of them. The father just sat down in a chair and watched his wife, his mother or mother-in-law, and maybe a sister scatter about getting things. On one wall was different types of baked bread. That is what they mostly got, but I think they picked up a few sweets too.

When they got their shopping done he came up and paid. I guess in the family he handled the money. Then they all piled into a nice looking van and left.

After they left I noticed where he was standing by the counter paying was a credit card looking card on the floor. I picked it up and looked at it. It had a picture of the man who was just standing there. It was a debit card. I called the lady over, interrupting her from going through the picture-of-cakes books, and gave her the debit card. She smiled and graciously said, “Thank you suh!”

We bought some little cookies that looked to be the sweetest thing they had. We soon discovered they were kind of dull tasting… not much of a good sugar rush at all. They were kind of like Lorna Dune cookies. I thought Latinos liked food with a bite – you bite it and it bites you back … like good spicy Mexican food should.