Food of St. Louie Louie!

After a long Thursday and rehearsal dinner, the bridal party went to Cunetto's House of Pasta, and I ate a positively scandalous amount of garlic pasta and chicken parmesan.  After a month of no pasta, wow, did that ever taste great. 

The next day, we headed off for tacos at Fuzzy's (award for the most awkward food business name, but their tacos were good!), and stopped by some St. Louis classics for dessert.  Next, we headed down the street to try Ooey Gooey Butter Cake, made famous when invented in the 1930s when a baker added too much sugar to his cake.  Rarely seen outside St. Louis, the best place to find it when you're in town is the Gooey Louie company (earning the best of St. Louis award three years in a row). 

So unassuming...but so delicious!  If you're interested in making it at home, Smitten Kitchen has a somewhat less-sweet version is here.  It tastes like a lemon-less lemon bar, or in other words, delicious.  Use good butter, since this is the main flavor of the cake.  I did bring back an original flavor and the peanut butter for the labmates that took care of my parasites.  For someone who talks about parasites all the time, I sometimes forget that the subject is actually not appropriate when talking about food.  Oops.

The next dessert stop of the day was Ted Drewes for frozen custard.  Boston doesn't do custard, so this was a rare treat.  And I smothered mine in hot fudge.  What a good idea.

You can't really tell, but it's freezing and rainy out.  But people are still lined up for their custard!

Hodak's was my final eating stop of the trip, right before I went to the airport.  Fried ravioli, another St. Louis staple, was enjoyed by all, and I ate what felt like eight pounds of fried chicken and french fries.  If you're going to go out with a bang, that's the way to do it.  I didn't need to eat again until the next day at lunch.