Malden Smells

I live in Malden, Massachusetts. We're not known for much, really. Our school system was third overall in the country a few years back. (That was because of K-8. The high school contributed SO much to that success that our daughter goes to the vocational technical high school in Wakefield.) We live close enough to Boston to be able to get there without a car i.e. we're T accessible. It's easy peasy to get to the airport from here. And that's about it. At least, it is to the outside world.

But Maldenites themselves (or Maldonians, which I think sounds stupid), know what we have. We have Piantedosi's and we have the New England Coffee Company. Malden smells like no other city.

First, we have the New England Coffee Company, smack dab in the heart of Malden. A gander at their official site tells me they've been here since 1966, and before that, Milk Street in Boston, which was where they began. We are now their home. And boy am I glad they are. The smell of roasting coffee beans can only be described as rich. Rich as in "cold as hell outside so I'm gonna get comfy in this nice warm blanket and curl up by the fire" rich. A comfy rich. A "oh yeah, I'm warm" rich. It permeates the senses, and makes them all feel pretty damn happy to be able to be, well, sensitive. It is, in a word (besides rich), Mmmmmmm... 

Even better than the RICH smell of the roasting coffee is the aroma offered by Piantedosi's, a bakery located right outside Malden Square, established in Everett in 1916, and brought to Malden in the mid 1950's. We're not talking about your basic bakery here. We're talking high volume, conveyor belts, box it up, ship it out. But it is all baked there. Or, rather, here. Bread of all shapes and sizes. Rolls of all shapes and sizes. And oh my god, does it smell good. Never has flour, water, yeast, and butter come together in such a divine way, and, upon sacrificing themselves to the flaming gods of the ovens, given rise to such basic, yeasty, doughy, warm smells. As Venus arose from the ocean perched on her clam shell, so does the scent of baking bread arise from the place that is Piantedosi's, to warm the heart, to bring home the idea of home.

Most of the product (product? such an insignificant word for the beauty that is, once imagined, created) is packed up and shipped, both to our local grocery stores and to others with the good fortune to be blessed with its presence. But, and here's an even more beautiful feature, they also have a walk-in operation, in the warehouse. You walk in and go over to the plastic crate shelves, where the freshly packaged rolls await, and you make your selection from bulkies, dinner rolls, sandwich bread, sliced loaves, unsliced loaves..... Uh, excuse me a moment whilst I drool.

While standing here, you can look up and watch the conveyor belts rolling the freshly packaged bread along their track, to slide down to your level, be put in the afore mentioned plastic crate shelves, and rolled over for the customers behind you, because they are surely there. Come in the summer for this one, and all your barbecued hamburger roll and hot dog bun wishes will be granted.

I don't live just outside Malden Square. However, I do shop at the grocery store there. I pick up the T there. I go to the post office there. And I smell the roasting coffee there. I smell the bread baking there. Breathe in..... Breathe out. Breathe in.... Breathe out. Oh, sweet lord of the dough, take me now.

http://www.newenglandcoffee.com
http://www.piantedosi.com