One lovely day I was walking Downtown and, for the sake of doing something new, decided to check out a gelato/pastry shop that I happened to pass by along the way back. With no decision in mind, I pulled the door handle and stepped in. As soon as one of the lady clerks in black spotted me, she greeted and stationed behind the grand display cases full of cakes, pastries and Italian ice cream. Not knowing what I should get, I scanned quickly through the transparent glasses, seeing if anything would appeal to me. Now, even though it was my first time in that particular store, I had been to many pastry shops before. But, in this case, for crying out loud, I had a hard time reading the damned labels to figure out the names of those things. Because the labels were way in the far back behind the products and because the trays were slanted forward AND BECAUSE a group of, what looked like to me, curious and energatic European tourists just came marching in the store, I was put on the spot and had to make a quick decision right away. I looked back and forth between the clerk and the display and then one of the ladies cried " It's showtime! " addressing to the crowds. I decided to use my index finger to point at the ones I wanted and used a phrase like " the black square thing " to describe the pastry. And, at one point, she said to me with tired face" Sorry I can't hear you. " When this was done, I paid and I walked out.
On the way back, I felt a bit silly that I didn't have the basic pastry knowledge and somewhat angry that I couldn't read those fucking labels. And, for convenience sake, shouldn't the salesclerk be a little bit more courteous? After that I thought that I would do something about it one day and then one day, I thought, why not combine the learning about bakery with art. That way I could make the learning seems fun and at the same time practice my art skills( as I'd never painted watercolor before). Thus, the new project came to life. I will start off with the French bakery and then I'll go into another country's as many as I can( Italian, German, Japanese, Thai, India, etc. ). One day I'll go back to that store and I'll point and yell her the names of those things, and tell her something she don't know about pastry. Well, I'm too sweet to hold a grunge that long anyways.
FRENCH KIND - Vol. 1 ( ongoing )
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