Lost Larson

     Fate has a way of upbraiding you.
     For instance, a few weeks ago I celebrated a bakery, Delightful Pastries, on Lawrence Avenue. The baked goods were excellent, and — luckily — I didn't present the place as the best bakery in the city, or some such claim that would roil the groundlings. It was just a very good bakery run by an interesting baker.

     But I had reason to reflect, a tad uneasily, on that column when my youngest and his beloved stopped by for brunch last Saturday, bringing two white cardboard boxes containing eight baked goods from Lost Larson in Andersonville.
     My wife and I knew of Lost Larson — we had been wandering Andersonville a year or two back and bought a superlative sugared bun that I can still see in my mind's eye.
     On Saturday, we sat in the dining room, cut the pastries in quarters and shared them around — I should have taken notes. There was much discussion of the exact cheese in the ham and cheese croissant. I thought emmental. The tebirke — the poppyseed covered pastry at left — was luscious, the almond nothing like the fake high octane marzipan sometimes found in such goodies, but finely ground almonds. The afternoon tea bun — the roughly Q shaped pastry, rolled in Earl Grey and citrus sugar. I regretted the slice of my wife's spinach bake I'd served myself, not that it wasn't excellent, in its own elementary fashion, but because it was taking up room that might have otherwise gone to more Lost Larson. The fruit salad too, and I like fruit salad.

     I also felt — perhaps giddy from the sugar — that I had now formally, officially and irrevocably succeeded as a parent, in raising a child who would collect pastries at Lost Larson and deliver them to their aged mum and dad. They paid and everything, which is no small consideration since these delectibles cost about five bucks a pop.

     A crazy amount of care and effort is reflected in these baked goods. The croissants alone ... I started to feel a sort of duty — if I've gone to Delightful Pastries, twice, with a promise to return at Easter, then what is my obligation toward Lost Larson? Or do they exist at such an empyrean that any attention from a hack newshound would be seen as unwelcome, as beneath them? I looked at their lovely website. The owner, Bobby Schaffer, ran the pastry program at Blue Hill in New York City — we've eaten there, thanks to the spot-on instincts of my older son. So we have that in common. How would Schaffer react to my suggesting I slide by and, oh I don't know, roll out croissants? Perhaps not as welcoming as Dobra Belinksy had been. He certainly doesn't need the ballyhoo. Excellence is his calling card. I placed a call anyway — out of town. Perhaps just as well...
     Anyway, I've made my point about Lost Larson — the name is explained on their website this way: "Lost Larson takes its name from owner Bobby Schaffer’s ‘Lost’ last name – Larson."
    Not a very satisfying explanation, is it? Lost how? Enough of a thread to keep pulling in the New Year. That, and the pastries. Especially the pastries.