Despite having a fairly crystal longterm memory now, I don’t have many distinct memories from my childhood in England. What I do recall always comes back to me in taste. I remember the briny flavor of cockles on flat wooden forks by the seaside. I remember 99 Flakes in the summer and how the Flake bar would break off in melting shards while you raced to keep the vanilla ice cream from streaming down your fingers. I remember the smell of white bread baking at the grocery store behind my primary school, a yeasty, warm, comforting scent that I can conjure on command to this day. I find comfort in these tastes, smells, and flavors because they represent a fleeting period before moving to America, a place where everything seemed BIG and POSSIBLE and WILD. My taste memories of the UK are smaller, restrained, and relatively provincial. But in a way, these flavors make up most of what I love to eat today. I’m guilty of having an overwhelmingly nostalgic palate.

For reasons that aren’t entirely explicable, I remember very well, almost suspiciously well, a field trip to Stratford-upon-Avon that my school took when I was maybe 6 or 7. Stratford is the birthplace of Shakespeare so we were visiting the hotspots that he might have haunted. Too young to care about a dead old poet, I was enamored instead of the turn-of-the-century candy shop we were permitted to buy sweets from for the bus ride back to Leicester. In my mind’s eye, this shop was Wonka-esque, with glass jars filled to the brim with vibrant delights beyond one’s wildest imagination, in stripes and crunchy sugar and color. At this point in my life, knowing England as I do, I’d trust my memory of the shop to be fairly accurate. Nowhere does frozen in time quite like England.

At the shop, I bought a brown bag’s worth of pink and yellow hard candies — a boiled sweet swirled together, flavored like rhubarb and custard. Coated and buffed in sugar, they were meant to be sucked on and marveled at: the tartness of the rhubarb balancing the lush sweetness of the custard. I remember how it felt like I had come into a bag of secret treasure, and I couldn’t resist popping another rhubarb and custard candy into my cheek before the previous sweet was finished. What a divine sensation, the meeting of sweet and tart.

Years later, I am thrilled that I still love these candies as much as I did then, and every rhubarb season, I think of that school trip and that bag of treasure. It won’t be the same for you, I know, but I’m working on recreating the flavor of this specific sweet in a special frangipane tart that we’ll start on the menu next week. So far, the process of recreating my taste memory with all that I know now and the tools at my disposal, is bringing me great comfort and joy. I hope, when you try it, you’ll experience some of that joy, too.

Stay tuned.

Thursday Loaf

There are two Thursday loaves today: a large number of ramps and Castelvetrano olive fougasse and a small handful of grits, cheddar, and ramps sourdough. Come out and come early so you don’t miss it!

Soft Serve

Soft serve is off to the races this week — Friday, Saturday, Sunday from 12 to 3pm. Next weekend, we’ll be running soft serve in brioche in tribute to our favorite Sicilian tradition of eating ice cream in bread.

Afternoon Pie

We are saying bye-bye to the concept of afternoon pie! Which doesn’t mean there won’t be pie at other times, even sometimes in the afternoon, at the bakery. But it will no longer be on a regular schedule, so be warned.

That’s all for this week. Let me know your Madeleine moment, I’d love to hear about it.

xo,

Dayna