The day I got a call from Alan was a day I’ll never forget. He saw a mention of my baking company in a national food magazine, which shall remain nameless, and decided to give me a call to see where I was located, what my hours were, etc…except he lives in Florida. He wasn’t planning on coming to CT just to taste one of my alfajores – he was coming to visit his friend Joe, another retiree living almost full-time in the Sunshine State. But I guess tasting a cookie that was recommended by a national magazine seemed like as good a thing as any to do while he was here, so I agreed to deliver some to him. The trouble was, he was not going to be traveling anywhere near Sandy Hook.

“We’re going to the casino!,” he said, “you can deliver them there!”

I replied that I wasn’t much of a gambling man, and wasn’t really looking forward to driving for an hour to lose at slots.

“Well,” he said, “we are going on a tour of Yale and then going to Pepe’s Pizza for dinner…why don’t you meet us there?” (Pepe’s is a landmark pizzeria in New Haven).

Immediately I thought this could turn out to be a cool experience and agreed to go. My wife Ximena agreed too (she is not one to refuse pizza), so I hurried home on Monday night to drive down to New Haven for pizza, and to deliver the cookies.

As soon as we said hello, my wife and I could both tell that we were going to have a great time. The first question was, “how long have you been married?” We talked and joked about married life (both couples have been married for more than 40 years). “Why did you decide to start your bakery?” came up as well as “how do you prounounce the name of your cookie?” made my wife and I laugh – the name sounds a little silly in English.

Ximena and I said together, “It’s pronounced like ‘alpha’ and ‘whore'” which brought out some snickers.

The rest of the night they called it “your cookie”.

The evening flew by. The owner of Pepe’s came to our table to introduce himself because Alan had called him before coming to Connecticut to tell him that the guy whose cookies were named “what to buy in Connecticut” was coming to Pepe’s to deliver! I gave him a box of cookies to share with his staff. As we walked out of the restaurant I was sad that the evening had come to an end, but we exchanged emails, handshakes and kisses and left, each leaving with a new friend.