You’ve always liked brownies, haven’t you, Ann?" my editor asked me out of the blue the other day when I was making a rare visit to the Indie newsroom.
My editor gave me that look he sometimes does and continued: "I’d like you to drop into a shop in that new-fangled Battery Lane around the corner and try one of their brownies for me."
"Bakery Lane. It’s called Bakery Lane."
"Yeah, whatever. It’s just a way of making amends. You see, I made one of my very rare mistakes in a lifelong career in journalism and got the name of one of the new outlets in Battery ... Bakery Lane wrong in a piece I wrote for last issue."
Luckily I kept my lips pursed, avoiding saying something hurtful along the lines that mistakes come as naturally to my boss as fibs to a Prime Minister’s lips.
"It’s called I Heart Brownies and I might have called it I Heart Cookies or muffins or some such thing."
My tight-arsed editor then slapped a $10 note on my desk to cover the assignment, adding with a flourish: "Enjoy a nice breakfast afterwards!"
All of this is why, a few minutes later, I found myself chatting to a sweet young thing called Tianah in I Heart Brownies, and accepting her suggestion that I try one of their Turkish delight brownies.
I tucked into it with gusto, being one of those people who’ve never been blighted with a weight problem as I approach very early middle age.
I must confess, being like my boss just a little bit of a penny-pincher, that I thought that at $4 the cute heart-shaped brownie on my plate was a little steep but it turns out there’s a helluva lot of brownie crammed into each and everyone one of these delights. You take some time to get through them and they are indeed delicious.
"How on earth am I going to get brekkie for $6?" I pondered briefly as I made my way out to Ann Street and up to the Valley mall. But the answer came to me as I remembered the editor waddling away from my desk earlier in the morning. Of course, Fat Boys!
Even though the brownie was quite filling, I patted down the front of my pretty little frock and reasoned one of my close personal friends, Les Pullos’ famous $5 brekkies wouldn’t go astray.
I know you’re supposed to have a drink purchase to get that special brekkie offer but I explained my cash-flow problem to one of the absolutely adorable staff members there – Daniel – who accepted my promise that I’d pop back mid-morning and top up cash wise for the flat white.
My gosh, he’s a hunk. I wonder if he’s seeing anyone right now?
As is that Les Pullos. At $5 a pop, Les could fill me up every morning of every week and I’d be a very contented woman.
