Taylor's Bakery

With the Better Half away for the weekend, I was doing some work around the house. This brought about the inevitable trip to Lowes. We used to live downtown, and earlier this summer we ended up moving into the Nora area (I miss downtown dreadfully, but love our new place, too). Anyhow, the Lowes on Keystone near Glendale Mall is where I went to pick up some supplies.

[By the way, I've heard some anecdotal tale that Lowes has done surveys of customers as they arrive at a store and survey them regarding how much they plan to spend, and then they find them when they are leaving and there is some crazy statistic that the average customer leaves having spent like $40 more than they originally expected. I completely fit it with this group.]

Anyhow, seeing as I have a constant sweet tooth, I zipped over on 62nd street to a little plaza on 62nd and Allisonville to try Taylor's Bakery. I've gone by it numerous times, and wanted to finally drop in.

Before I had left and driven home from Taylor's, I noticed at least 2 people eating some sweet, baked good in their car in the parking lot.... so, I had high hopes. As you walk into the bakery, it is as though the air is perfumed with a super fine, sifted powdered sugar. It just smells that sweet. There is likely about 40-50 feet of glass casing, with all of the cases being two-tiered. They have donuts, eclairs, cinnamon rolls, ... about any baked good you could want. So, I bought a whole collection of stuff - a large eclair, two cinnamon rolls - one frosted, and a small little donuty-thing that was filled with cinnamon. This whole plate cost me all of just $4. That's a diabetic bargain!

Okay, now, I didn't eat all of this in one sitting. All of it was good, but the eclair seemed to me like it had possibly been there for a bit and wasn't tasting all that fresh (the Better Half worked in a bakery through high school and college and said that their bakery baked fresh each day, but with as full as Taylor's cases were in the early afternoon - can that possibly be true? Wow, if so, either they have a huge rush in the afternoon or they have a ton of waste each day). The cinnamon rolls were nice but more like a donut, not a rich buttery cinnamon roll. I like that the place feels so local, and that, according to the website, it is in a 4th generation. There's a ton more to sample here, so I'd definitely go back and try some other items.

The verdict: 3 belly rubs (out of 5). Homey, huge selection, affordable.

This below has nothing to do with baked goods (well, they so have a brief clip of Sweetness), but it sure is great to have fall here. Love the feel of the air, the slant of the sun, the crunch of the leaves. And love that football games require a sweatshirt now. And, does anyone else think that Sean Payton sounds like ESPN's Stuart Scott during the preample to this video?