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I’ve always had a soft spot for a cake shop in the UK and at one time just about every small town or even village had one. That wonderful place where you could get fresh baked cakes and confectionery. A great little shop on your doorstep and simply not subjected to sell by dates and transport costs and time and multiple handling and over packaging and weird and wonderful (awful) preservatives and all the rest of the ghastly business of the large retail baking factories that supply supermarkets and the like today.
The Patisserie
A place where you could take your time, chat to the owner and assistant – maybe even have a cup of coffee and read the local paper at your leisure. No blood pressure rising traffic, difficult and costly parking and in fact in many instances no car needed as it was a very locally located shop.
This is a nice one local to me in France and it is actually a Boulangerie & Patisserie and both a bread bakery and a cake shop in one. The beauty of course that here in France it is actually a legally controlled title that may only be used by bakeries that employ a properly licensed maître pâtissier (master pastry chef).
Unlike in the UK where anyone it seems to me can suddenly call themselves a cake shop or a bakery even, but even when there were true versions of these it is unfortunately true and sad that they have been forced out of business over the years. With the decline of village and town centre shops that actually mean something or contribute anything to the local folk, either by the aggressive property purchasing of large supermarkets (with the connivance of many Councils) and the prohibitive building rents charged to small business. The incredible anti-car attitude of Councils, high parking charges and often the unbelievable parking restrictions simply means that our village centres and towns are looking more and more like slum areas – like bad dental care – all gaps and rot.
So it’s great to able to stroll down and in this case along the river bank, turn left through a small quiet street and to the village centre itself, where you can as I say, enjoy a coffee and bit of conversation, buy a few cakes, some bread and ALL of it fresh that day – and I mean that day and not this misleading and IMO utterly abused phrase “fresh baked” that we see on many days old supermarket fodder.
I can either have something there or wander back to my garden in the sun and have a little brunch there – absolutely ideal!
Anyway I thought I’d put this one to canvas and here it is. Used color washes and dry brush effects and kept the washed brick and wooden beam saturated coloring of the typical french building detail where required. It was fun doing it and at the moment I see it for real every week.
Wonderful!
