You know your area is on the way up when your neighbours develop an overwhelming desire to spend too much money on croissants and sourdough It was our neighbour, Richard B, who first mentioned it. “Sourdough wars,” he said ominously to my husband, down at the pub. “The new place versus the old place. There will be blood.” Later that night, T passed the news on to me. “Sourdough wars,” he said, rolling the words round his mouth experimentally. “Or so Richard says.” A few days passed, and then T went to buy Saturday morning croissants. When he returned, there was – to pinch from the divine Kay Burley – sadness in his eyes. “The old place was empty,” he said, handing over the booty. “But the new place was heaving.” In the silence that followed, my heart began to beat a little faster, and not only at the thought of the buttery carbohydrates to come. When we first moved into our house a decade ago, the area was not gentrified, by which I mean that it hadn’t yet been socially cleansed. There was still a greasy spoon, a chip shop, and a Greek place so gloomy, patrons needed Clarice Starling-style night-vision goggles if they were to read the menu. But there was a very good patisserie, a beacon of hope for those (not me) who fixate on such things as house prices and the availability of the babycino (don’t ask), and a treat for the rest of us – or at least those of us lucky enough to be able to afford to patronise it. Let us call it, for the sake of argument, Le Grand Cafe de la Moyenne Bourgeoisie. Its owner is French, and it sells really excellent loaves and pastries, including the best coffee eclairs it has ever been my good fortune to taste. Continue reading...
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