Since I became a runner and lost a good amount of weight, sweets went by the wayside. This was the toughest part for me when I started this lifestyle change about seven years ago. I love sweets. They are my favorite part of any meal. There is always room for dessert.

Recently I have found ways around it now. There are plenty of ways to make low carb or keto treats. Atkins has their own line of dessert or snack foods. There is a group of sweet treats that are called Keto Bombs that I buy plenty of when I go to the store. I put fake sugar in my coffee, which I am trying to rid myself of at the moment. None of this stuff is good for me either. I know this. All the fake sugar is bad, and the real sugar is one of the many reasons why I got so heavy in my 20's.

When I do splurge nowadays I make it count. If I am going to eat a dessert or have a full sugar treat I want to make it count. I love doughnuts. So if I am going to have a doughnut, I want it to be as bad for me as possible. It gives me that satiated feeling that I miss. If I am going to have ice cream, I go for a Blizzard from DQ or a waffle cone from a local spot called Serendipity. If my wife makes a cake or a pie, you better believe I will have a few pieces because she is a damn fine chef. When I indulge, my favorite time to have sweets is the morning. I love a nice sweet breakfast. I should eat something savory, and with Atkins I have eggs and sausage. But if I want to go for it, if I am not counting carbs, I will go for something sweet nine times out of ten.

This morning I decided to treat myself for breakfast. Once a week my father and I go and get coffee from a local shop. This started prior to the pandemic, has continued with us picking up and drinking it at one of our houses, and it will continue for as long as my dad wants to do it. Today was our day to go out. I also brought my daughter along with us and my mom even decided she wanted in. It was great. We went to one of my favorite spots called The Living Room Café. Their regular drip coffee is outstanding, and they do some wild stuff that works. Today I had a Sproda. That is cold brew coffee with root beer in it. It's outstanding. They also have cold brew with orange juice and with tonic water. Both are great. Their lattes and cappuccinos and tea, it is all exceptional. They also have steamed milk and horchata and tons of other great, non coffee or tea drinks. Coffee is not the concern for me. But I have only ever had their food twice before. I had a breakfast sandwich once, which was really good, and their house made granola with their yogurt was fine. Today I decided that I was going to try their coffee cake. It looked really good on the online menu. It said it goes great with coffee.

I love coffee cake in general. I was on board. I went and picked up all our stuff and my coffee cake was in its own bag, wrapped to keep it warm. When I got to my folks house I unwrapped it and grabbed a plate and fork. First off, the piece was humongous. My dad said it looked like they gave me a quarter of the sheet pan. I also did not think I was going to finish it because it was so big. Then I had a bite. Then another and another. I gave my daughter a bite. I had my folks try a piece. But I made sure that I ate 90 percent of this all by myself. It was so dense, but felt light. The crumb topping was out of this world. The swirl of cinnamon sugar was such an added bonus. This was like a mix of a coffee cake and cinnamon roll in the best possible way. I kept eating it, without realizing how much of it was disappearing. It was so good. It was so easy for me to keep going back for another bite. This might have been the best piece of coffee cake I have ever eaten. It was the perfect amount of sweet. It was overly sweet, but it wasn't too savory. The piece was enormous, but I could have eaten two or more if I tried. I kept commenting on how tasty it was. I told my folks that if I am going to eat real sweets, this is what I want. This helped with every craving that I still have to this day when I stopped eating sweets daily. It was, quite simply, the perfect piece of coffee cake.

If you are ever in Saint Louis and want to go to a different, yet very good and very cool coffee shop, go to Living Room Café. Not only is the coffee amazing, but the coffee cake is one of the best in the country. Well done.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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