Go to Sam's Bakery in Fall River

Growing up, my "second mother" used to bring meat pies and spinach pies from Sam's Bakery in Fall River to the beach. My seond mom is actually my mom's best friend, who lived with her family on the third floor of an apartment building in which we lived on the first floor.* My sisters and I grew up with her kids (one of them is Big Daddy Thug) and used to frequent Horseneck Beach waaaaaaaaay back in the day.

Sam's is a Lebanese/Syrian Bakery, so the meat pies are soft Syrian bread folded into triangles and stuffed with deliciousness. As I said, they come in meat, spinach and something called laben, which is meat with some yogurt mixed in. The laben is incredible. Much better than you might think. They have chourico pies, too, but we never got them.

We used to get something else from there called maneesh (found it online mentioned as manakeesh) and a sweet pie. The meneesh we used to call birdseed pizza. It's a large, flat, round syrian bread covered in sesame seeds with a paste featuring olive oil and thyme. Very strong taste, but out of this world if you have, or aquire, the taste for it. The sweet pie, I think, uses honey, sugar and cinnamon instead of the oil and thyme. It is also made on a large, flat, round syrian bread and has lots of sesame seeds sprinkled on top.

My sister was stopping by Sam's on her way back north of the city yesterday and was kind enough to pick us up a big bag of stuff. Delicious. I had a sweet pie last night and some today. Dinner tonight will be meat pies, spinach pies and laben, with salad and maybe some maneesh/manakeesh also.

If you're in the Fall River area, make sure you head to the Flint section of the city and stop by Sam's for some meat pies, etc. It's all good hot or cold, but I think it's best lightly warmed. The pies are about the size of your full, open hand, so you should order lots. They freeze well.

*Sadly, Rolling Green is no longer Rolling Green. A few years ago it was sold by one real estate company to another large real estate company who felt the need to rebrand it.