I WANT A CREAM MERINGUE !

Blame Vicki Morris for this post. I don't really like cakes. I don't have a sweet tooth and I can't remember the last time I went into a shop, sat down and had a cream cake. If I ever have a pudding, which is rare, I have apple pie and custard, preferably industrial quality custard. However Vicki posted this blog today which details how her favourite cake shop has gone.

It made me come over all nostalgic. You see when I was a wee nipper, the very best treat in the world was when my big sister Valerie used to take me down to the finest cake shop in the world. I am of course talking about the long gone and sadly missed Chowens. This was located on the site of what is now Abbey National in Mill Hill Broadway. You just don't get shops like Chowens any more. It's decor (as best I recall) was pink and brown. The clientelle were predominantly ladies of a certain age with blue rinses. Youngsters such as myself were usually greeted with a sniffy glare. My mother didn't much care for Chowens as she had a lactose intolerance. She also didn't much care for the blue rinse brigade. As such a trip to Chowens was often a clandestine operation, undertaken when she was out on business.

Cake shops today aren't much like Chowens either. I can't remember the last time I saw a Cream Meringue on display. Chowens had thousands of them, all neatly lined up.  They were the king of the cream cake. The rather phallic chocolate eclair held no fascination for me, too vulgar by far. The Strawberry tart was too flashy and the cream slice was too square an boring. Nope, for me it was the Cream meringue with it's two perfectly formed cheeks. Regular readers of this blog will know of my fascination with Uma Thurman. Without wishing to be too vulgar, something about her reminds me of a perfectly formed cream meringue.

I wanted a picture of a cream meringue for this blog, but it seems that like the old ladies with blue rinses and Chowens of Mill Hill, they are long gone. If anyone knows a proper cake shop anywhere in London, where they sell cream meringues and hot chocolates, and you can eat it surrounded by old ladies with blue rinses scowling at you, please let me know. I want to take my son there just once, so he can know what it was like to be a kid in the 1960's.

If Doctor Who landed on my doorstep and I could borrow his Tardis for half an hour, I'd like to think I'd nip back to Mill Hill Broadway in 1969 and get myself a hot chocolate and Cream Meringue and get one for the boy as well. Mind you, I'd better make sure I didn't go back on a Thursday afternoon as that was early closing day and they'd be shut.