Pudding Club

Strawberry Cheesecake, Millionaire Shortbread, Coffee and Walnut Cake and Nanaimo Bars: those all get sampled by me on a regular basis, during Pudding Club. One of the  nicest rituals of my Swiss expat life.

It's Friday morning and some twenty women are gathered around a table, spread lavishly with cakes, biscuits and other home made goodies. We do chat politely - you can hear snippets of conversations in English, American, Dutch and Italian - but all the while keep our eyes on the table.  Most of us will have skipped breakfast, to better enjoy the feast.
Before we attack though, the bakers of the month tell a little bit about their treats; often touching stories about recipes being hand down through generations. Or lovely tales about particular cakes tasted while living abroad for the first time.
Flap Jacks, for instance, still evoke memories in me of stately homes and their ubiquitous tea shops, of rainy walks and welcoming log fires. Of hours and hours spend with my friend H. in soft play area's and muddy parks. And since I found a shop in Zurich that sells Golden Syrup, I have my regular Flap Jack fix.
Back to Pudding Club though. It's ten 'o clock and we all dig in. Every single woman in the room tasts every single cake. For the two hours that we're together no one worries about their waistline. Such a relief. I have sat through too many coffee mornings with women munching on a bunch of grapes or a clementine, trying so hard to ignore the more calorifically scary offerings.
I find our monthly Pudding  Club get togethers very uplifting. Uninhibited cake eating really brings out the best in people. After the first round we laugh just a little bit louder and talk just a tad more animated. It doesn't matter that we come from very different backgrounds, have a completely different outlook on life and sometimes haven't even been born in the same decade. We just eat cake. Heaven!