When I was young, my mother would pick me up from school in the afternoons and stop at the little market in our town on our way home.  I was usually famished, and she would typically let me choose a candy bar or some other snack.  I almost always had a Snickers bar or a Hersey’s milk chocolate with almonds.  If the Hersey’s bar didn’t have almonds, I wouldn’t eat it.  It was too sweet for me if it didn’t have the flavor and crunch of almond to break it up.

Now that I am pretty much a grown up, I stop at my own choice of businesses, and the stores that I choose have an array of indulgences I could not have imagined as a child.

There’s tiramisu for when I really need to be picked up.

There are all manner of chocolate goodies.  I alway like to look at the ones with the candied violets on top.  Horticulture + chocolate = heaven.

An ode to the nuts in the Hersey’s bars I used to eat.

Okay, now we’re talking.  A merenda made with fresh berries!  Woo hoo!

A couple of amaretti with a caffè macchiato.  Perfection.

Meringhe, or in inglese, meringues.

A pretty cake with the Florentine lily on top.

After school or after anything!