bread pudding

last friday,  i met with a friend for breakfast and a little bit of painting.  we decided to meet this time at the new ironworks cafe which is run by local highschool students.  i don’t often include logos here on my blog, but i just love their logo and in fact, i loved all of the decor in the cafe and was irked that i’d forgotten my camera in the car, but not so irked that i actually went out and got it.  plus, it’s a really small place and i thought it might be a little bit weird for me to be shooting photos in there, so instead, just admire their lovely logo.

anyway, we walked in and they have a glass case filled with scones and cookies and other such sweeteries, but i wanted some real breakfast, so i looked until i found the menu on a chalkboard above the counter.  they listed eggs, toast, bacon, a breakfast sandwich (with eggs, cheese and bacon), sourdough waffles or bread pudding with apricot sauce.  now i’ve never been all that excited about bread pudding before, but i think i’ve mentioned here before how i feel about apricots (love, love, love), especially whenthey’re stewed (yum!) so i was intrigued.  i asked the kid behind the counter to tell me about the bread pudding.  he looked at me funny and said, “bread pudding?  where’d you get that?!”  i pointed out that it was the second item on the menu above his head and he looked at one of his co-workers and said, “we have bread pudding?”  she said “yes.  it’s like a baguette with a vanilla custard and the apricot sauce is really apriums (you know, those apricot plum hybrids) and it’s less of a sauce and more like they’re just stewed a little bit.”  sounded great to me, so i ordered it!  the cashier wrote down our order and handed it through the little window to the kitchen where the cook looked at it and said… “bread pudding?  what’s that?”  this did not bode particularly well for the future of my breakfast, but my friend and i were having an adventure, so i decided to stick with my choice.

after a long wait (don’t go there if you’re in a hurry.  unless you just order a scone maybe.) we got our breakfasts.  and oh man was it awesome.  the stewed apriums were flecked with chopped lemon verbena from the cafe’s windowsills and were stewed enough to be sweet, but not so much that they’d lost their shape.  they were tart and a wonderful contrast to the sweet, creamy, toasty bread pudding.  in fact, it was almost enough for me to declare bread pudding my new favorite breakfast.  and i’m definitely going to have to find myself some apriums.