cafesweets.bar

Invoice no. 001  ·  carbon copy  ·  second floor, no longer extant

Specimen Sheet

Six pastries, photographed on aubergine paper. Eleven-month inventory, partial recovery.

CSB-029-ÉCLAIR-NOIR
choux, cocoa, dark glace
CSB-031-MADELEINE-IX
brown butter, lemon zest, ribbed shell
CSB-044-OPÉRA-VII
almond joconde, coffee buttercream, ganache
CSB-052-CANELÉ-BORDELAIS
vanilla, rum, fluted copper
CSB-067-TARTE-AUBERGINE
poached fig, crushed pistachio, crème
CSB-073-PARIS-BREST-IV
praline mousseline, sugar wheel

Daybook — The Hours

Carbon ledger. Crossed entries: closed for the season; the storm; the funeral; the lock-change; the eleventh month.

dayopenclosenote
monday07:3014:00closed for the season
tuesday07:3013:00by appointment of nobody
wednesday08:0013:00cocoa shipment, side door
thursday08:0013:00storm; flour spoiled
friday07:3014:30lemons in by ten
saturday07:3015:00extra hour for the vitrines
sunday——funeral; lock-change pending

eleventh month, closed in entirety. ledger sealed.

Menu Card — The Bar

Nine drinks. Each priced in centimes of the old currency. Settlement at the counter.

  • cofé noir, double-pulled0,40
  • chocolat à l'ancienne, no sugar0,55
  • thé lapsang, cold brew0,45
  • vermouth blanc, two ice0,80
  • absinthe, slow drip, sugar bridge1,10
  • eau-de-vie, prune, neat0,90
  • orgeat soda, almond, lemon0,35
  • port, ten years in the cellar1,00
  • water, decanter, with rind0,05

Field Notes

Three paragraphs recovered from the file marked «arrière-cuisine, 1929». Author unknown.

The salon opened in the first week of January and closed before the snow came back. Eleven months in total. The signage was painted twice in that time, both times in the same color. The second coat was unnecessary and the painter knew it. He charged for both anyway and the proprietress paid in pastry.

The kitchen had one window, north-facing, and a single brass lamp over the marble. Photographs from that year all carry a halo of the same shape and the same place — eleven o'clock high, dimming to nothing at the edges. The chemist who developed the prints never adjusted for it. He believed the flaw was the photograph's signature, not the lens's.

What remained, when the lease ended, was a stack of typewritten menus, the carbon-copy daybook, and the contact sheet of six pastries. Everything else was returned to the building, and then the building was returned to the ground. We are reproducing the residue in its original form, including its errors. The errors are the only proof that any of this happened.

Postage

Address as stamped on the back of every receipt. The street no longer carries this number.

0,11 centimes 1929
café — sweets — bar second floor, above the locksmith 14 rue d’une chose oubliée quartier sans nom 1929

Set in Limelight and Poiret One; body in Special Elite. Photographs in two-channel duotone, aubergine and rose-bone, with one identical lens-flare per print. Typed on a recovered ribbon, eleventh month, nineteen-twenty-nine. — end —

011 / 011  ·  ledger sealed  ·  cafesweets.bar