Eclairs Are Good for You (and Your Writing!)

I am jumping up and down and doing cartwheels over the newest café addition to the area where I live. (Not necessarily in my neighborhood, since this café is fifteen minutes away, but close enough) It will become my newest writing place, and even now I am sitting in my new little haven writing this blog entry on Word, savoring the smell of fresh rustic baguettes, almond croissants right out of the oven, rich pain au chocolat, custard-filled éclairs, and fluffy quiche lorraines. One name says it all…

St. Honore Boulangerie and Pattisserie.

If you don’t know the words, “boulangerie” and “patisserie,” those fluid, roll right off the tongue French words, you should. They mean “bakery” and “pastry shop” or more specifically, a place where bread and pastries are made and sold. They are everywhere in France with storefronts so cute that cheapie mass market art sold from street vendors have the bakeries plastered all over their paintings. (I know…I own one of them! So kitsch!) St. Honore is one of only two (the other being closer to downtown in a very trendy area of Portland.)

A man sitting next to me just finished speaking to the owner who, believe it or not, has a French accent. Another plus! It’s so nice to see the owner of another culture’s food establishment being from that culture. It’s a rare find these days, especially in the suburbs.

What does this have to do with writing? (Why am I always asking this about my blogs?)

Plenty for me, since I am basically a café writer. I have an area to write in my house, but it is adjacent to the kitchen and living room and more out in the open than I would like. Plus, Little Scribe goes to his nursery fifteen minutes away from the house, which would take up thirty minutes of my precious writing time if I drove back home again to write, only to have to drive back to pick him up again.

So, I have been writing across the street from The Play Boutique at Peet’s Coffee or down the street at Chuck’s Cookies and Coffee, dreaming of something better. I used to write at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf when I lived in California since it was across the street from my house, but those don’t exist in Oregon. (Good thing anyway, since the chain has just put in flat screen televisions in all of their establishments! Talk about ruining ambience!) Another favorite writing place of mine also fifteen minutes from my old California house was Champagne Bakery and Bistro, but up until today, all of the great Portland area French bakeries and cafes were about thirty minutes or more away.

Now I have achieved Zen.

Did I mention that St. Honore is across the street from the Play Boutique, too? There really couldn’t be a better location for me!

Okay, okay. I will probably not come here to write every time Little Scribe is away. He goes to The Play Boutique three times a week, so I will probably choose one day a week to come and write. I don’t want to get fat from all the goodies here. But I think this will soon become my place. (Did I also mention that there are plugs for my computer? Peet’s doesn’t have any plugs, so I always get stuck losing power. So annoying.)

No internet, but that’s probably good since I always waste my writing time writing or checking emails when I have internet access.

My point to this rambling blog/ ode to all things toasted golden brown and sprinkled with powdered sugar... If you are a Mama Scribe like me and can’t concentrate at home, try café writing. Think of yourself as Ernest Hemingway in Paris, sitting for all hours outside at a café with pen and paper in hand. There’s nothing like a cup of tea (lemon rose from Peet’s Coffee is my favorite, served in a teapot and real ceramic mug), a gooey chocolate chip cookie from Chuck’s, or a mini raspberry jam croissant from St. Honore (Did I mention that they have mini pastries, so you won’t have to ruin your diet?) to stimulate your fingers to write, write, write! No crying babies, no whining toddlers, no husbands asking you why you didn’t get all the cheddar off the cheese grater when you washed the dishes last night, no piles of laundry, no cats needing their litter box changed…just you and your words and the "joie de vivre" that is café writing.

If you’ve never tried café writing, get a babysitter for an hour and go find at the minimum a Starbucks. Even the ambience of Starbucks is enough to turn on your inner voice.

And hopefully, if you are lucky, your fingers will dance over the keys.