The Great Carrot Cake Chase

A day that started with a list and ended with laughter with my mother.

Some ideas arrive fully formed. This one started as a single sentence in an article, slowly took root, and somehow turned into a lightbulb moment, a full tank of gas, and more calories than I budgeted for all in pursuit of the best carrot cake the Hudson Valley had to offer. It was the list that did it.

The list in question came from “Your Guide to the Sweetest Carrot Cake in the Hudson Valley” by Kayla Sexton and Alicia Higgins — the kind of piece that reads like a suggestion but functions more like a dare. I read it on a Wednesday with nowhere to be, and by the time I finished it, I was already in the car.

The sun was out. Temperatures hovering in the 50s. No real plan beyond the list and the kind of stubbornness that likes to call itself spontaneity.

My first stop was Baked by Susan, one of those Hudson Valley bakeries that feels settled, lived-in and a cherished town’s favorite. The young man behind the counter mentioned almost in passing that he grew up next door to the owners, which told me everything I needed to know about the kind of place it was. Before I decided on the carrot cake slice, my eyes were already lingering at the assortment and variety of buttery, sugary decorative pastries, cookies and cakes. The holy trinity of decisions I was going to make regardless.

I stayed just long enough to begin the day. There were more stops ahead.

North to The Pastry Garden.

I ordered a carrot cake muffin presented in a neat little cut box, very respectable, very on-mission. Then I got a chocolate cookie for my son, who is, to put it diplomatically, intensely particular about cookies. The woman behind the counter offered me a mini one to try. I, in a move I will be thinking about for weeks, did not eat it until I was already back on the road.

It was extraordinary. I nearly turned the car around. I did not. But consider another trip already in planning. Strictly in the name of thoroughness.

From there I continued to Hudson Valley Cheesecake with one directive: stay focused. Carrot cake. That’s it. Eyes on the prize.

Hudson Valley Cheesecake was sold out of carrot cake. (Note to self: Call ahead of time to make sure selections are available on next road trip)

I stood there for a moment. Just standing. Processing. Then I ordered the guava cheesecake, because flexibility is a virtue and also because it looked like something I would regret passing up. And later that evening, I discovered a nice ending to a full day. The cheesecake was soft, lightly sweet, with just enough tang to stay interesting. Not the carrot cake I was hoping to sample but absolutely earned its place in the day.

By then it was time to sit down properly.

Lunch took me to Shadows on the Hudson, one of those Hudson Valley dining spots where the river does most of the talking before the food even arrives. I took a table facing the water. Outside, Metro-North trains moved steadily along the tracks. I spotted a Contrail wrap heading toward Grand Central and an employee tribute wrap heading north. A CSX freight train crossed the Hudson on the far side, hauling what looked like a city’s worth of rail cars, steady and completely unbothered.

Calamari to start. Crisp, light, brightened with lemon. Sparkling water. Then a ribeye that arrived exactly as requested, tender, with fries that still had their crunch and onions that had softened into something almost sweet.

I stayed longer than I planned. The restaurant was mine for the afternoon while the staff quietly prepared for the dinner crowd. Nobody rushing me. Nowhere I had to be. That is a rarer feeling than it should be.

I opened my notebook and started writing. Then I called an old college friend. We picked up like no time had passed, which is the best thing a friendship can do. We talked about our kids, how fast they are moving now, how much less they seem to need us in the ways they used to. It is strange, watching someone you raised start to navigate the world on their own terms. Not bad strange. Just the kind of strange that makes you reminsicence for a second.

I was sitting by a river watching trains pass, and somehow that felt like exactly the right place to have that conversation.

I thought about making one more stop. The Cakery. I checked the time and knew I wasn’t going to make it before they closed. So I let it go. Added it to the next trip list, which was growing by the hour.

My last stop of the day was McKinney & Doyle. I ordered two carrot cakes, one with nuts, one without, both packed in small containers. Out of everything I tasted on this Hudson Valley bakery crawl, McKinney & Doyle was the one that stuck. The balance was exactly right. Moist without being dense. Sweet without going too far. The kind of thing you finish before you remember you were saving some for later.

There were other bakeries on the list, Shandaken Bake, Overlook Bakery, each one worth its own trip. I let them go. The day had already given me more than I came for.

I brought the guava cheesecake home to my mother.

We sat together and shared it, and she announced, with the full authority of someone who has eaten a lot of cheesecake over a lot of years, that it was the best she had had in a while.

I am not fully convinced.

My standards require more data points. That likely means another trip to the Hudson Valley, another round of bakeries, another reason to get in the car and follow a list.

I can think of worse reasons to leave the house.

We spent the rest of the evening laughing and slipping into old memories, the kind tied to sugar and celebration. Birthday cakes that marked the years. Last minute dessert runs. And a familiar trip to the Bronx, where her loyalty still belongs to a small local diner known, in her mind, for doing cheesecake the right way.

Some tastes stay with you. Some places do too.

Somewhere between the miles and the meals, I spent nearly six hours with Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney. If you haven’t read it, stop what you’re doing. The tension is surgical. She drops you off a ledge at the end of every chapter right when you need to get out of the car and walk into a bakery, which means I spent a lot of time sitting in parking lots finishing scenes. Full review coming to Substack next week. You’ve been warned.

But the book wasn’t the best part of the day. Neither was the food, honestly and the food was very good.

The best part was everything in between. The drive with no agenda. The lunch that stretched for hours because nothing was pulling me away from it. The phone call that reminded me how much time has passed and how little some things actually change. The evening sitting next to my mother, close, sharing something sweet, circling back through stories we both already know but somehow never get old.

I think about how often I move through a day without actually being in it. Eating fast, rushing through the day, half-listening during conversations I’ll wish I’d paid more attention to. That Wednesday in the Hudson Valley didn’t ask anything dramatic from me. It just gave me enough space to slow down and notice the river sitting still while everything else kept moving, the sound of a train in the distance, the way a good meal tastes different when you’re not rushing through it. A phone call you are always too busy to make but eventually find the time for.

None of it was extraordinary. All of it was easy to miss.

And like most good road trips, it left me thinking about far more than I expected starting with how beautiful the day had been, which, for the record, was very.

Note to self: next time, get two of everything.

— Yoyo