No one is too old to chase down an ice-cream truck. But, with age, the taste for rainbow-colored high-fructose corn syrup tends to recede -- which is why it's fortunate that Pittsburgh now has a more adult traveling dessert truck.
In October, Millie Gregor and Jajean Morgan hit the streets in a modified mini-school bus that they bought on eBay to deliver homemade sweets to the masses. The Goodie Truck, as they call it, is a venture the pair crafted while working together at Squirrel Hill's Chocolate Moose.
It carries familiar delectables, such as chocolate-dipped strawberries and Whoopie Pies -- but Morgan and Gregor have also added some unique items to the menu. They created a second cousin to the chocolate-covered pretzel by dunking blue-corn tortilla chips in chocolate. "They're hot but sweet," Gregor says.
The truck's menu is consistent but seasonable. There are homemade pies (including Key lime and strawberry) and frozen bananas. They also sell ice cream and Fluffernutter sandwiches.
The Goodie Truck is hard to miss. Like any respectable ice-cream truck, it plays music as it rolls through town, and sports a shiny red coat of paint highlighted by a small galaxy of white starbursts.
This reporter caught up with the truck Downtown and spoiled his appetite with a delicious ice-cream sandwich: brownie chunks floating in homemade chocolate ice cream wedged between two chewy chocolate-chip cookies.
The Goodie Truck is available for private events, and Morgan and Gregor are also on call to deliver baked goods to any office. "We started out just targeting the nighttime crowd," Morgan says. "Now we're broadening."
And they've actually found a useful application for Twitter: The Goodie Truck tweets its current and future stops at twitter.com/thegoodietruck.
The posts are sometimes disappointing ("Poor Goodie Truck ... getting the brakes fixed means laying low ..."). But more often, the tweets are sweet: The Goodie Truck "is slathering bacon in rich Belgium chocolate and heading to Chatham College on Wednesday ... come find us!"
The next time your sandlot baseball game is interrupted because the centerfielder was seduced by the tinkly siren of summer, you can hope it's the Goodie Truck, offering something more than syrupy Popsicles.
412-404-6626
www.myspace.com/thegoodietruck
