The Tea Cart
May. 16th, 2010 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerMy mom came up to visit this weekend, and yesterday morning we drove out to visit the museum where I’ll be interning this summer. We left way early – I hate hanging around the hotel room when we could be going somewhere – so we stopped on the way at a little café called The Tea Cart.
It’s only open, evidently, on Saturdays, and when we got inside we found out why: above the bare counter hung a chalk board, “Closing May 24.”
Not much choice in the case, the plates of cinnamon rolls and blueberry and cherry turnovers widely spaced. Nonetheless we made our choices – “Would you like them heated up?” the man with the salt-and-pepper mustache asked; sure, we said. “And anything to drink?” Just water, thanks.
We sat at a cherry table below a window lined with flowered china, and he brought our sweets out to us. My mom took a bite of turnover, and then she pushed it over to me and said, “Taste this.”
That was real pie crust: melt-in-your-mouth flaky, the kind both my grandmothers used to make. My mom ate it all up, using the extra filling to pick up the little bits of crust that tried to escape. When Mr. Salt-and-Pepper Mustache came back, she asked him – was it homemade?
Yes it was – “My wife taught me,” he said, pride twitching at the corners of his lips, “I just followed the recipe.” She was at army reserve training today. Where were we from? – and he knew the city when we told him. “I used to put up water towers,” he explained, as his dad had before him; when he and his wife had started the bakery, he’d stopped switched to farm equipment repairs.
I got the impression that, before they started the bakery, he hadn’t known he would love baking.
He went back to the tiny kitchen behind the counter, and I finished my cinnamon roll. The door chimed as we left the café empty again.
It’s only open, evidently, on Saturdays, and when we got inside we found out why: above the bare counter hung a chalk board, “Closing May 24.”
Not much choice in the case, the plates of cinnamon rolls and blueberry and cherry turnovers widely spaced. Nonetheless we made our choices – “Would you like them heated up?” the man with the salt-and-pepper mustache asked; sure, we said. “And anything to drink?” Just water, thanks.
We sat at a cherry table below a window lined with flowered china, and he brought our sweets out to us. My mom took a bite of turnover, and then she pushed it over to me and said, “Taste this.”
That was real pie crust: melt-in-your-mouth flaky, the kind both my grandmothers used to make. My mom ate it all up, using the extra filling to pick up the little bits of crust that tried to escape. When Mr. Salt-and-Pepper Mustache came back, she asked him – was it homemade?
Yes it was – “My wife taught me,” he said, pride twitching at the corners of his lips, “I just followed the recipe.” She was at army reserve training today. Where were we from? – and he knew the city when we told him. “I used to put up water towers,” he explained, as his dad had before him; when he and his wife had started the bakery, he’d stopped switched to farm equipment repairs.
I got the impression that, before they started the bakery, he hadn’t known he would love baking.
He went back to the tiny kitchen behind the counter, and I finished my cinnamon roll. The door chimed as we left the café empty again.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-16 04:17 pm (UTC)And, isn't it wonderful that a life can encompass both putting up water towers AND being a baker? And who knows what else, next.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-16 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-16 09:56 pm (UTC)What a shame if it's closing for good.
I want pie.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-16 11:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 02:04 am (UTC)I think in this case, the problem was lack of parking. There were just two spots in front of it, where you would have to parallel park on a busy road; it would definitely make people think twice about stopping.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-25 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 12:36 am (UTC)