It has always been a mystery to me that the rest of the civilized world doesn’t eat toasted ravioli. I suppose it took three years of travelling to 37 different states to discover that no restaurant, Italian or otherwise, carried this particular appetizer.

The realization that pork steaks rarely exist outside St. Louis occurred much earlier than my toasted ravioli revelation. My cousin moved to … somewhere (either New Orleans or Sacramento) and everyone got a good laugh about how she had to explain the pork-steak-cutting-process to the butcher. I was baffled. I thought “pork steaks” were a cut of meat, along with “pork chops” and “spare ribs,” etc. Go figure.

My favorite St. Louis food, though, is the gooey butter cake. Jen and I discussed it one morning a while back. She thinks it’s like some sort of pudding thing. (The British and Australian discuss pudding and mean some sort of “bread” thing, which I’d not yet discovered.) I told her to just try it and let me know how it comes out.

Ingredients:

One box yellow cake mix

1/2C margarine, melted

2 eggs

2 eggs

8oz cream cheese

1lb powdered sugar

Preparation:

Mix top three ingredients with electric mixer and press into the bottom of a 13″x9″ (rectangular) pan.

Blend bottom three ingredients with electric mixer until smooth. Pour mixture into pan.

Bake a 350F degrees for 40 minutes. Do not overbake!

To serve, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Y’all are on your own for conversions.

Vaguely domestic and very St. Louis,

michelle