Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Shave and a haircut

I lasted a whole day before heading back to Summerhill Market with friends, but when I got there I kinda panicked from the overwhelmingness and pretty much only bought cookies:


Florentine cookies are an excellent choice for evaluating a bakery - they're a bit fiddly to get right. The Belgian bakery near me makes them in a silver dollar size, with rich dark chocolate and a still-chewy lump of nuts and dried fruit and goo, all of which makes them hard to top, so why look elsewhere?

Because that shop isn't open on Mondays, and sometimes Monday is the day I need Florentines most, and if I buy them on Sunday just in case they will be gone ten minutes later. I have no self-control when it comes to Florentines.

Buying these was a lesson in the importance of reading labels though: if I'd known they had soy nuts in them I wouldn't have taste-tested them at all. Soy nuts have no place in a traditional Florentine cookie. I might add that really good chocolate does, because apparently that is also news.

Still, such a relief! This market isn't all that easy to get to and what if I got totally addicted to their baked goods? I'd find a way, and it wouldn't involve walking over to burn the calories I was about to consume, either.

Later today I'll be introducing the chocolate marshmallows and the pretty ginger cookies to friends who are experts on those and see what they think. And later still I'll be trying one of the market's chicken pies: everybody I know who goes there raves about them, and it would be awesome if I loved them too because they are a lot more accessible than my current source for same.

I think I mentioned that I have been by this store a zillion times on walks and runs but probably not why: it's near a pedestrian bridge that crosses a train track. We got there just a minute or two before a long freight came through.

I hoped the engineer would honk or something if we waved but whoa: Shave and a haircut, and the two bits? That's a pretty good evening right there.

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