I noted the existence of Moon Pies in a post a few weeks back.  I declared them “two pieces of cardboard stuffed with low-grade putty and shellacked in plastic.”  Lo and behold, on a trip down the Shenandoah Valley last week, I was forced to eat my words.  That, of course, has never happened before.

This eating of words proved to be, happily enough, the most pleasant part of our 20-hour stay in Roanoke, Virginia.  Shannon and I were both excited to visit Roanoke, though neither of us could say exactly why.  Maybe it was because it’s a city in the western edge of the state, a beautiful part of the country, or maybe it was because it shares the name of the famous Lost Colony, and few things get me as excited as groups of people, shrouded by the mists of history, mysteriously wiped off the face of the earth without a trace.  Regardless of the reasons for our excitement, modern Roanoke is a bit of a lost colony itself.  A railroad boom town gone bust, it is a charmingly refurbished and tiny city center ringed by a blasted landscape of empty streets and crumbling housing surrounded by lovely countryside carved into a sprawling network of McMansions.  Want to be depressed?  Drive around Roanoke.

But that charmingly refurbished city center did include the Euro Bakery, which sold us a homemade Moon Pie.  Now, the Moon Pie was born about a century ago across the border in Chattanooga.  It is supposed to be a mound of marshmallow glop sandwiched between two graham cracker-style cookies.  It is, without a doubt, vile.  This Moon Pie, however, appropriated the title for what is essentially a homemade Swiss Roll made in a Moon Pie shape.  Continue reading →