The Poetry of Pastries

wendell berry, the dog game & a bakeshop

May 04, 2023

I love learning about where other people call home. This post is me opening a window into what part of my life looks like where I call home. I hope your curiosity and enjoyment is piqued by this glimpse into one of our family’s weekend rituals.

Pour yourself a comfort drink of choice and enjoy.

The day starts with an early wake up call from our 5-year-old. She’s always the first up and gets promptly sent back to bed. In our house, no one is allowed to start the day until after 7am—especially on weekends.

The house is quiet and chilly. Old houses don’t insulate well and its been a cold spring. I’m next to my husband under a quilt and two thick blankets. The sun is turning the sky from gray to white outside our bedroom window. I hear the kids in their room. They’re checking the clock, ready to bolt like Kentucky Derby stallions as soon as the numeral 7 appears on our kitchen stove’s clock.

Our 8-year-old finally makes the call and they both emerge. I want to continue cosplaying as a hibernating mammal, but then I remember: we made plans last night.

We live deep in the country. The closest grocery store is 20 minutes away. At night, the coyotes yowl through the abandoned cow fields surrounding our home so loud your hair stands up on end. This isn’t a complaint, just a statement of fact. I love where we live. If you’ve ever interacted with Wendell Berry and his stories about the fictional town of Port William, you have an idea of what’s like here. After all, he based those writings off the place I wake up everyday.

“If you were bred to the plains or the mountains, maybe you wouldn’t enjoy it here. But if the Port William neighborhood looks at all like home to you, then you may think this is a pleasant place, or even moving and beautiful. It surely is a place like no other.” - Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

But today isn’t about staying here, it’s about making a short trip—a pilgrimage of sorts—to a place where our family has gotten a new definition of what it means to be welcomed.

Every weekend, we drive 42 minutes one way for pastries. We’re out the door before 10am. We’ve learned from past experience the early bird gets the buttered croissant. This bakery sells out fast (with good reason).

Getting out the door is synchronized chaos. She needs her hair brushed. He can’t find the book he wants to read on the way. My husband fills up their water bottles while I take the dog out one last time. We finally topple onto the porch, lock the doors, trot down our driveway and roost up in the van; Great Dane and all.

The interstate rolls us through old farms and older trees lined up to attend spring’s long awaited parade. We play our family invented game: “Dog of the Day” which is exactly what it sounds like. On every outing, a different family member gets to pick a dog of the day. Any other dogs we spot are worth 1 point, but the ‘dog of the day’ is worth 5. It’s my son’s turn. He picks a German Sheperd.

Soon the views out our window shift to more developed areas and interconnecting roads. A trove of rectangle buildings appear tucked along the Ohio River: Cincinnati.

We exit the interstate and weave back into the foundational neighborhoods of the city. Our bakery sits on the corner of a crooked street holding a thousand forgotten stories. Next door, the cream-white steeple of the catholic church looms overhead, tolling her bells on the hour. The street is lined with gingko trees and people walking their dogs. Rescue pit bulls, doodles and French Bulldogs (we once met two named Maple and Waffles!). No German Sheperds today though.

Parking is hard to find so my husband drops us off on the street corner. Today, there’s a line wrapped around the building and a stiff breeze lashing around our legs. My kids are shivering. The promise of baked goods keeps them from complaining too much.

Behind us in line, a couple strikes up a conversation. “Do you come here often?” the man asks.

“Yes,” I laugh, “It’s the best place in the city for pastries.” I’m being treated like a local, he has no idea home is miles away. He has no idea how we’ve found a bit of home here too.

“Well it’s our first time!” he responds, “We’ve lived here over a year and just haven’t made it here.”

I’m immediately charmed. “You’re in for a treat.” I tell them. “I’m excited for you!”

I don’t make menu recommendations because everything here is good. And the pastries aren’t bad either.

The line inches forward slowly. Due in part to the amount of people crowding in the tiny shop and partly because the staff takes the time to make everyone feel seen and welcomed.

We make it inside and are immediately enveloped by the warm scents of vanilla, rising yeast, melting chocolate and savory spices. Their menu changes seasonally which means you never know exactly what you’re going to find when you walk in. We’ve never been disappointed.

As soon as we’re spotted in line, the staff calls us out by name, waving us closer to the counter. One of them asks my daughter about her stuffed animal alligator babies she brought in her unicorn purse. Another staff member patiently listens as my son shows them which LEGO Stars Wars characters he chose to make the trek with us today.

Here, my children aren’t a nuisance. My kids are treated as equal humans who can contribute value to conversation (even when the conversation is about the maternal instincts of the American Alligator and why Rey is their favorite Jedi). My kids are welcomed here.

We make our selections and continue making small talk while they’re boxed up. I think about the tiny comfort of chatting back and forth. The brightness of it. The safety it can offer to a hurting heart. How it feels like mundane magic (because it is).

The shop is too crowded for our family to spread out in so we always get our order to go; better to leave the dining-in option for less rowdy patrons. After all, my husband and Great Dane are waiting in the van.

We wave goodbye to our bakeshop friends and tote our goods back onto the street. The kids spot another dog. My husband asks me where I want to go next. I’m not sure but I know we’ll need some coffee to go with all this. We still haven’t spotted a German Shepherd.

I open the boxes to find one of the staff has tucked two extra pastries inside with a handwritten note that reads in black marker: “You are amazing!”. I know for a fact she doesn’t do this for everyone.

We might wake up in the place that inspired Wendell Berry to put pen to paper, but I love that one mini-adventure away we can also experience the poetry of pastries and the welcome of hands that made them.

Coming somewhere to experience that, in the words of Mr. Berry “is a place like no other.”.

Every week, we drive 42 minutes (one way) to grab a treat in a bake shop. We play games and have conversations and and store up memories that anchor us together on the hard days. Some people might call that a waste of time and money to go all that way for pastries.

To those people I’d say: it was never really about the pastries.

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