#8. Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas.

I'm convinced that people who say they hate fruitcake have never actually eaten fruitcake. It's like people saying they don't like Italian food because Spaghetti-O's are gross. If you've never had a fruitcake from Collin Street Bakery, you've never had fruitcake.

I think it was my grandma that used to order fruitcakes from Collin Street Bakery and send them to us at Christmastime or bring them with her in her suitcase, but I could be mixing up my Christmas memories. It's been known to happen. I do remember the tin they came in with the cowboy superimposed on the Currier & Ives-ish scene on the lid, because my mom kept them and used them for other things, cookies, etc. They still come in those tins.

I didn't get to Texas until I was almost 40 and J and I were touring down here so much and visiting his family. We stopped at the Dr. Pepper plant in Waco and the Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, just off I-45 about an hour south of Dallas. We sampled everything and bought an apricot pecan cake. I highly recommend it. If you like sweet things -- if you don't, well, then, you're a lost cause, and besides I don't believe you -- you will like this fruitcake. It's tender and very flavorful and something like 25% pecans.