| February 25, 2007 | Shows | Recipe Calendar | Archives |
The little white box of joy.
The bearclaws come out of the oven at Hillman's at about 7:45 am. Don't ask for them a minute before.
At 61 cents each, they are a bargain from an old fashioned bakery in Fairfield that I pass on my way to Augusta. On Fridays they also make molasses doughnuts. I park in between DOT trucks and stand in line behind plumbers and carpenters. The counter help is just a little gruff. One summer when it was very hot in the bakery and there was almost a glaze of steam in the place, my favorite gruff baker had cut her red hair to a half inch long and was wearing a spaghetti strap top and glistening and I saw that she was the Goddess of the Bakery. Here in winter she is merely in disguise.
When I walk in to work with a Hillman's box under my arm, the word goes out that the little white box of joy has arrived. Did I mention that my new camera has a cuisine setting. 
The ambience in Hillman's is nowhere near as proletarian as Mulligan's in Manchester, a Citco station with a sandwich/pizza counter and a Dunkin counter, where I occasionally have a BLT on grilled whole wheat and Dunkin's pseudo latte for lunch. Here the Dickeys and Carharts have holes worn in them. Wireless? Wuzzat. These places are a relief from a certain middle class social pressure I feel in Panera, although the coffee is better there. On Mardi Gras Monica at CrossTrax had four king cakes lined up for us. She gets better at it each year. Each braid had a different filling. And at work I don't have to warn much about the baby; they know the drill. CrossTrax is my usual bagel sandwich stop on the way to work and just for Mardi Gras week there was something special in the coffee selection. Monica said she spent her whole day explaining things to people. |