Ephemeral Love

“What’s your favorite fruit?” you asked me. I stuttered and stalled. My favorite fruit? How could I ever choose just one? But I have an answer now: satsumas. If I had a box I would sit down right here and eat them all, one after another, the peels scattered like petals on the floor around me, till my teeth felt matte and my tongue stung with the acid. Yesterday at the store I bought only a foolish handful, and ate them all standing at the end of the checkout line, waiting for the cashier to weigh up the rest of my groceries.

Next week, when these firm haychiya soften and glow jewel orange against the light, my answer will be persimmon. And at the end of the long, fruitless spring, when the first tiny strawberries appear at market, how could I not love them best?

But apricots. But mangoes sucked down to loose skin under the equatorial sun, and that first real banana, creamy and fragrant like no Cavendish I’d ever tasted. But blueberries by the fistful. But dense, floral apples and sun-hot figs. But Himalayan blackberries that smell like all the cracked sidewalk summers of my childhood. I’ve loved each, loved the soft hard heavy feel of them, loved breathing in their taste as it opened on my tongue, loved their colors and the textures of their skin. And is my love less for being so bright and brief, for turning as the seasons turn so that it always faces this moment, now, and the perfect fruit I’m holding in my hand?

Sophie
Owner | Baker

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This is the second to last market of the year! We'll be closed from Dec 22 until the Winter Bread Subscription starts up on Jan 22. Place orders for the last market ONLINE with a credit card or at MARKET with cash or check.

Preorders (menu listed below) are due by TOMORROW for pickup at the last market, Saturday, Dec 21

HOLIDAY SWEETS
Gingerbread Bundt
Chocolate Babka
Pain d'Epices (made with honey, rye, and spices, mixed and aged for 18 months!! to deep, sweet complexity.)
Hazelnut & Oat Snowballs
Apple Oat Scones.
Plus Malted Chocolate Chip, Bittersweet Chocolate, Gingersnap, and Shortbread Cookies.

FILL YOUR PANTRY!
Red & White (1.5 kg)
Mountain Rye (2.3 kg)
Vollkornbrot (2.3 kg)
Seedy Buckwheat (1.3 kg)

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WINTER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION
Every Wednesday for 10 weeks, Jan 22 - March 25
Pickup in Birchwood, Downtown, or in Fairhaven

RED & WHITE subscription ($70)
MOUNTAIN RYE subscription ($70)
BAKER's CHOICE subscription ($80)

BAKER's CHOICE menu: all rye all winter long!
Jan 22: Rugbrod
Jan 29: Ring Rye
Feb 5: Apple Rye
Feb 12: Harvest Miche 1
Feb 19: Harvest Miche 2
Feb 26: Black Bread
March 4: Alpine Spice Rye
March 11: Rye & Oat
March 18: Korn Rye or Corn Rye??
March 25: Westphalian Pumpernickel!

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TODAY AT MARKET
Red & White
Mountain Rye
Vollkornbrot
Seedy Buckwheat
CHOCOLATE BABKA

Malted Chocolate Chip Cookie
Bittersweet Chocolate Cookie
Gingersnap Cookie
Hazelnut Snowballs
Apple Scone
Gingerbread Cake
Shortbread
Buckwheat Crisps
PAIN d'EPICES

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I'll be donating 10% of sales this month to organizations working for social and environmental justice.

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