Baked goods & old friends

Small towns that have good bakeries, or bakeries at all anymore for that matter, seem rare in Minnesota. The Spring Valley Bakery may not count as a "good" bakery to people with European-flaky-buttery-layered taste, but for those of us who like a good cake doughnut with chocolate frosting, nothing beats little Spring Valley. I'm a fan of their cinnamon twist doughnuts and frosted cinnamon bread. Angie likes the cinnamon bread, too, but with raisins. Annie will eat the apple cinnamon bread, and this week is going to make some into French toast for Miles (a.k.a. Mr. Pooper). Tanner is the crescent doughnut guy. If you look on Google images for a photo of a crescent doughnut, you'll be disappointed. I should have taken a picture. This week I delivered crescents to O-Town in abundance. Gpa CReps loves them, too, and I bought one for him yesterday to enjoy while we were waiting outside his room for his roommate to get situated by a couple of attendants. 

Here's a picture of the bakery, taken yesterday with my phone camera. I didn't know how to send pics to my computer via the phone, assuming I needed to get signed up for email through Blackberry, but AngieTechWoman told me how, and now I'm in business. I don't know how many times in my life between babyhood and age 18 I went into that bakery, but pretty dang often. Usually it was to get a loaf of white bread, sliced,  or some hamburger or hot dog buns, and the occasional doughnut. My mom loved Bismar[c]ks, and so did I but I avoided the jelly. Why eat a doughnut part that has even a hint of nutritional value when there is all of that lovely brown icing to be savored? 

Back to getting the crescent doughnuts yesterday. I left St. Peter about 9:15 on my way to Rochester to meet some friends from high school for brunch at Pannekoeken. On the way I started thinking about the possibility that the bakery might be out of Tanner's crescents by the time I got there after brunch and seeing my dad. So I called and reserved two dozen blueberry crescents, thank you very much. The person I talked to asked for my phone number and I gave it to her, adding that I was on my way to see my dad, CReps, and so I wouldn't get to the bakery until mid-afternoon. She promptly told me that my brother Mark had a credit there for some SV buns he'd ordered but had to cancel, and did I want to charge the crescents against his credit? Of course I wanted to, but I thought better of it and told her he'd have me put in jail if I did that. Ha ha. Wait-- he just might! I love how the bakery owner knows who my dad's kids are, even though none of us have lived in town for 40 years. She probably went to high school with one of us. The beat goes on.

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Brunch was fun, and it certainly didn't take more than about three seconds for everyone to feel comfortable talking, even though some of us hadn't seen each other for years. As Cindy put it, everyone seemed to want to talk at once, and she's right. I won't try and explain who everyone is, nor what we talked about (not completely suitable for a blog that young children may read), but trust me that even when the food was served, it wasn't quiet. Yes, the server came running out of the kitchen chanting, "Pannekoeken, pannekoeken," as advertised.

Judy Jahn Gust, Cindy Ward Satre, me, Peggy Anderson Krock, Judy Turbenson Ahern