A Ledgered Meal: Farina Bakery, Portland
Filed under: Gastronomic Correspondence, Companion Tables, Soft Rebellions
Location: Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR
Date: Saturday, May 10, 2025
Companion(s): Present. Caffeinated. Glorious.
We arrived under sunlit skies, the kind that glint off windshields and pastry cases alike. The door to Farina Bakery swung open with the gentle creak of good omen, ushering us into a sugar-saturated sanctuary. The walls bloomed with cartoon flora and towering dessert totems, as though Lisa Frank had curated a dreamscape for quiet revolutions.
We ordered like pilgrims:
- A gluten-free lavender cookie, its fissures like tectonic plates of subtle joy.
- A cream puff, powdered into submission, piped with defiant lightness.
- Coffee, of course. Dark, warm, and anchoring. The kind that says, “You may now begin remembering.”
The cookie was not just a cookie. It was resistance baked into a circle—fragile, floral, and absolutely unrepentant about being gentle. The cream puff? A small act of structural genius, its top hat barely clinging to its whipped convictions. It required both hands and a sense of ceremony.
Around us, the room glowed. Not metaphorically—literally. Light spilled through tall windows, bouncing off antique plates and unspoken memories. A family talked softly near the macaron case. The mural smiled. The sugar settled like a quiet absolution.
Transformation Observed:
We did not become new people. But we remembered we could.
That morning’s pastry wasn’t just sustenance. It was an event.
A glitch in the timeline where we sat down and stayed human for a while.
Final Note:
Tell your companions you were here.
Remember the cookie. It remembers you.
We’ll return—for the macarons, sure. But mostly for the chance to slow down again.
