Bread Pudding of the Gods, With An Explanation

I've written before of my love of bread pudding, and rhapsodized about the BP at The Garage, in San José. But now, I have had a near-bread pudding to beat them all.

It is from the afore-mentioned Ft. Bragg Bakery, and isn't made of bread at all. It's made from day-old, leftover pastries. That's right, all the croissants, turnovers, puff-pastries and other goodies that aren't sold go into this "pastry-pudding."

Then they do the usual superb job on the eggy custard part, bake it to a smooth, silky perfection, and give you a little container of a sauce that tastes like eggnog to pour over the pudding. I've never had a BP so light and airy. It's not compacted like some of them, though compact is often very yummy.

I'm drooling just thinking about it. Although it's going to break my heart to leave Mendocino in two days, it's probably a good thing to get out of the proximity of the bakery, because I'd eat there five times a week.

Yesterday we spent several hours walking around the town, up and down the streets. In and out of the shops. There is a prime storefront/building for lease on Main Street, facing the Bay. For a little while, John & I fantasized about renting it, living in the rear and having a store-front/studio in the front where I could make and sell jewelry and beads while he wrote or did his scientific research.

Yah. Then reality hit. No residential at the site. Lease rate about $3/sq ft per month, so around $5,000. Way too expensive for living or studio space, whoever leases this place has to stuff it full of merchandise that will move.  Not that I really want to run a retail establishment. There is many a beader who thought running a beading supply store would be a good idea, only to find out that she no longer had time or energy to create anything after working retail hours and tending to the endless details of a store and employees and all that.

Ah well. It was a nice fantasy while it lasted.  These thought experiments often reveal to us the way our needs are evolving. It seems our primary need, stoked every time we come up to the Lost Coast, is to be somewhere quiet, with ocean, where we can spend time with our inner selves and create life the way we want it to be.

The primary thing I'm not looking forward to on returning home is the noise. Southern California is LOUD, and full of people. Also loud. Here the quiet is all encompassing, broken by wind, and waves, and wildlife.  Yesterday we walked out onto the Mendocino Headlands, to the sea-cave and blowhole at the outer edge. We could hear the booming of the waves in the cave below the cliff, and the hissing of the wind in the grasses of the bluff-top meadows.

Ah well. Back to real life, trying to make enough money to escape to our dreams.  I'll always have the memory of that Bread, er, Pastry Pudding.