I’m Not a Foodie; I’m a Baked Goodie

Enjoying delicious treats, at home and on the road

“If you eat enough of these, you may just turn into one.”

Is what a random person at a friend’s birthday party in college told me as I proceeded to enjoy my third piece of the homemade chocolate & walnut brownies someone’s mom had made.

I think she meant it as an insult. I took it as a challenge.

20+ years later, I still love a freshly baked treat, not just brownies — and not just baked goods, either, as a matter of fact.

And as far as I can tell, I still haven’t turned into one. :)

Baked goods — and sweet treats of any kind— represent home to me.

Growing up in the countryside of Bulgaria, food equaled nourishment, a necessity for life, an everyday requirement. Baked goods, desserts, and sweet treats, on the other hand, meant a celebration, a special occasion, the opposite to the everyday.

For birthdays, name days, and holidays (Christmas, New Year’s, and Easter especially), my mother and aunt would spend hours whisking, beating, mixing, grating, sieving, stirring, kneading, greasing, melting, drizzling, whipping, glazing, and icing all manner of mouth-watering goodies.

All the sweet and savory baked treats I ate as a kid were homemade, from scratch, and by hand.

These days, plenty of options exist to purchase any sweet treat one may desire at any time of the year, holiday or not, but I still treasure going back to the countryside of my childhood.

To spend time with family, of course, but also to stuff my face with the delicious edible artworks my mom and aunt continue to create.

Just because I love baked goods, however, especially the sweet ones, doesn’t mean I’ll just eat any and all of them. If I have to buy them, I prefer mine freshly baked, from a bakery. Even if it’s a bakery in a grocery store.

That said, when I travel to new and familiar places, nothing brings me more joy than scoping out the area for local bakeries to check out. And if I find a place that delivers on quality, you can bet I’ll be coming back.

Once such place in Plovdiv (where I currently find myself) is a bakery I remember from when I was a child. It doesn’t really have a formal name and can easily be missed if you don’t know it’s there.

Not really, though, because there’s always a customer or more waiting to pick up a freshly baked item. Especially in the mornings.

The city has changed a lot in the last 30 or so years, with one set of restaurants, stores, and cafés replaced by another set and then by another and another and so on.

This one bakery, though, has withstood the test of time, and I, for one, cannot be more thrilled that is the case.

Everything is baked daily on location and there are only a few traditional Bulgarian staples you can choose from, including banichka (a savory pastry pie with cheese, yogurt, and eggs baked in filo dough) and mekitsa (a deep fried pastry made of kneaded dough).

If you are ever in Bulgaria and have a sweet tooth, you must try at least one mekitsa, though you’ll probably want to eat more than that. It truly is the softest and most delicious treat ever.

A mekitsa is traditionally eaten plain, with maybe a bit of powdered sugar on top, but as you can see in the photo above, at a relatively new café by Dzhumaya Square, you can order a mekitsa with a choice of toppings, both sweet and savory. Yum.

For those curious, I ordered both of the above for myself. I couldn’t choose between the savory and the sweet options, so I resolved the dilemma by getting one of each. Winning at life, I am!

Another favorite spot for a sweet treat in Plovdiv is Bluestone Doughnuts, the first specialty donut place in Bulgaria. Everything they make is delicious, and I’m not even a donut person, but my favorites include the pistachio donut (pictured above) and the crème brulée one.

I also recently discovered an Italian café in Plovdiv — Dolce Fellini Pasticceria & Gelateria — and already craving cannolis thanks to JoAnn Ryan’s submission to this month’s In Living Color challenge, I decided to stop by the other day and treat myself to one of theirs.

Perusing photos from my travels, I come across very few — if any — of food or meals. Almost none, in fact.

I do have some of the desserts and baked goods that have sweetened my travels, though. It’s the first thing I check for when I arrive in a new location: where around here can I get a pastry or bubble tea?

A memorable experience from visiting a friend in Liverpool, for example, was her surprising us with a reservation for afternoon tea. I liked the tea, but I LOVED the treats that came with it. You can’t see it in the photo below, but the spread included the most delicious scones I’d ever eaten.

Liverpool is not a place I expected much from in terms of sweets, so I was pleasantly surprised when I went back last year, for a week of Eurovision fun, and had tons of sugar. My favorite stop was the Rough Hand Made, which seems to make the biggest pastries I’ve ever seen. It’s located at the Royal Albert Dock and I highly recommend it.

And what’s better than mini donuts from a food truck on a rainy day?

Some other memorable sweet treats from my travels include the churros and hot chocolate I enjoyed at the Mercado de San Miguel on one of my long walks around Madrid.

And the crema catalana I enjoyed after a long day of adventuring around Barcelona. This dessert is divine and I am so grateful to a professor who recommended I try it, emphasizing that it’s times better than crème brulée.

I have to agree. I can’t wait to go back and have it again one day.

Similar to Christina Daniels, I am not a “food” person, though I appreciate trying new items and exploring cultures through food when traveling.

It’s why I enjoy traveling with friends who are foodies because I just let them pick where we eat.

When it comes to sweet treats, however, I’m the one who has it covered.

This story is part of the February foodie challenge here on In Living Color, brought to us by OCTAVIA EVER AFTER. Check out the guidelines here: