How A LI Woman Became The 'Pudding Lady' With A 'Pudding Posse'

LONG ISLAND, NY — One day last year, Stacey Aluc had a serious craving. She tasted a friend's banana pudding and when her friend was too busy to make her more, Aluc decided to try to make her own. A year later Aluc is now Long Island's unofficial "Pudding Lady," selling her puddings at farmers markets in Nassau and Suffolk, and soon from a food trailer.

Aluc, who lives in Bohemia, works in health care and has no formal cooking or baking background, but, she told Patch, "I always did my thing in the kitchen."

She experimented with recipes and flavors, and when her husband — "my taste-tester for life" — tried her banana pudding, he was wowed. Friends told Aluc she needed to sell her dessert, so she began taking orders for Friday pudding pickups.

"I went from three or four to 30, 40 a week," she said.

Now Aluc employs her four sisters, who help her make and sell the puddings at farmers markets and for catering orders and private events. She has five flavors always available, and a rotating selection of special offerings. Right now there's apple pie. But banana pudding is a favorite option, she explained, making up half of all her orders.

"Banana pudding is a staple" in the Black community, Aluc pointed out.

"It's an underrated dessert that deserves more attention. It's a restaurant-quality dessert if you do it right."

Next week Aluc picks up her first food trailer, and she plans to bring it around Long Island as well as find a stationary home to park it.

Adults and kids who love her pudding are her "pudding posse" and when kids started calling her the "pudding lady" the name stuck.

For now Aluc is juggling being a full-time employee, mother and "pudding person" but she says maybe one day her pudding business could be her main gig.

"I never imagined I would be doing this," she laughed.

"This all started because I was determined to have banana pudding whenever I wanted. I'm a banana pudding fanatic."