Coffee, cakes and scones anyone. Fresh baked breads?
Coffee, good 12oz cappuccino, with a free buttery shortbread £2.30 and prompt service with a smile.
As I waited for my coffee - takeaway only - I couldn't resist the fresh scones this week, last week it was the soda breads.
The smells and the savoury and sweet baked goods are sooo inviting to a discerning sophisticated shopper and the hoi polli greedy snorkers like me.
From as far back as I remember our town had 'home' bakeries despite most homes baking their own bread and fancies. My mother didn't bake bread as her neighbour made 3/4 different breads daily for all neighbours nearby who paid toward costs. Fresh baked breads by 7am every morning.
An old aunt lived right next door to a home bakery in one of the towns two main streets a 10 minute stroll from our house.
As my mum visited auntie frequently I was usually to be found in next doors home bakery - Buddy Holly was still singing live on stage and John Lennon was still at school.
If the bakery was closed then I was off around the corner to the steam trains being spoiled rotten by train drivers and the firemen.
Quite literally the Mc Alinden family converted the downstairs of a terraced house into a shop with a bakery out back. They had industrial mixing machines and ovens that were bigger than me and they created their delicious food in a hot compact space with floured hands and faces, and always smiling.
They spoiled me rotten as Mrs Mc Alinden knew my mum well. Small wonder I'm still a greedy pig.
The railway tracks were close by with steam trains going by through our town to seaside Warrenpoint six miles away.
Fast forward to today Buddy and John are long gone in tragic circumstances as are almost all the Mc Alinden family. The trains are gone too and home bakeries like this one survive and it seems thrive.
They are so vital to our community and our health. Good fresh food not adulterated with cheap fats and processed sugar is medicine. read more