day 20
Today I found heaven, and it’s a Jewish bakery in Stamford Hill. Every lunchtime, I’ve started walking in a random direction and seeing where it takes me. It’s a great way to stave off the monotony of lockdown walks and good LORD. When I say it’s the best bakery I’ve ever been into, remember that whenever I go anywhere new I make it a personal mission to find a pastry/coffee place within 10 square metres, so I’ve been to a LOT of doughy establishments. And well, this has got to be in my top 3. We were the only non-Hacidic Jews in there, and that gave me a lot of faith in the quality of the challah.
We’d been walking for a while, past many a chicken shop, mini supermarket with tiny packets of cocktail sausages and pot noodles but we had a vegan with us, so that was a bit of a no no. We were about to give up and just head to Sainsbury’s when we turned down this unassuming road that just looked like it led to suburbia. I thought we should turn back, head to Stoke Newington, at least I knew what we would find there and the hanger was starting to kick in.
Then we rounded on this place. It looked pretty corporate from the outside, big windows, an impersonal looking green awning, a layer of frosted glass ran around the outside making it look like a tax office, rather than the establishment which would fulfil all my hopes and dreams. Walking in, it felt like that scene in a movie where they go through the wardrobe, the tiny door at the back of a pub, down the rabbit hole and puff out into this shiny, sparkly, bustling new world. My jaw hit the floor in a cartoonish fashion. I’d been googling pastry places all morning in this area, and had found nothing about this place.
Everywhere you looked were different kinds of deliciousness. On the left, tubs of ice cream with crayon inspired colours of bright pink, dark mango and the caramel/ chocolate selection. Eurgh. Tiny little mountains of vanilla doused with spun gold of chocolate and caramel. On the right, their cake selection and bread selection. It was glowing, in that way that only challah can. How do they make it so shiny? I wanted to grab it with my bare hands and lick it clean.
Every pastry or bread roll was laid out in a beautifully haphazard fashion as if it had been tipped from a hot oven dish only seconds before. I had to buy a whole loaf of bread, just to have something to dip into the fresh baba ghanoush I bought. It felt necessary, nay essential at the time. My no chocolate shtick felt like a particularly boring move that day. Very unsatisfying. You bet your bottom dollar I’ll be heading back there come March 31st.
I could attempt to make some drawn out analogy here, that when you’ve lost all hope, keep searching and you’ll find your own slice of heaven. But really, what I think we’ve all learnt today is when you’re hangry enough, the good lord will provide.