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I was at a roaring twenties party last night and with whiskey sours, gin gimlets and highballs on offer we definitely were defying the prohibition, taking full advantage of the speakeasy in my friends living room. With light jazz bringing out the inner flapper in us we chatted, drank, danced and some even smoked cigars till the wee hours of the morning.

It was past four when I crawled into bed, my head and limbs a little bit heavy but with a happy heart and a prize sitting on my kitchen counter ready for me to devour this morning: pop-tarts, the frosted strawberry kind!

The birthday girl and flapper instigator is American and a good while back the two of us were in a specialist sweet shop in town, which was stacked to the rafters with American goodies. At the time I remarked at how in films or sitcoms people always seem to eat pop-tarts for breakfast and that I had no idea what they were and that I was curious what the whole hype was about. Sadly the shop only sold ones that my friend didn’t approve of declaring that if I was going to try them they had to be the right kind: frosted strawberry.

Time has past and I have to be honest I haven’t really been losing sleep over my pop-tart inexperience. But last night my lovely, quirky and very special friend presented me with a box of pop-tarts imported all the way from the USA. So this morning my palate has enjoyed the sweet stickiness of pop-tart delights.

I did what I was instructed to do, try them in both the toasted and un-toasted variety and I was warned that they are quite sweet. But I have to admit pop-tarts taste better than I thought they would, even if the sweetness does make your teeth crawl and a sugary aftertaste lingers on the back of your tongue, stuck there no matter how many sips and gulps of tea you take.

The un-toasted variety seems to be less sweet but also less strawberrish, although I would argue that there probably aren’t any real berries in the pastry, just more brightly coloured and highly flavoured synthetic look-a-likes. But then when has that ever bothered the American food industry?

So with a new day starting off with a new experience I think it is safe to say that it has not been wasted, even if I decide to stay at home and not do much. And while I enjoyed my excursion to pop-tart-ville today, for tomorrow I think I will revert back to good old toast and jam, the more traditional and less sweet breakfast of choice.