Thursday, August 09, 2007

Wicked Good


People who live in Boston are intimately familiar with the MassHole accent. It is highly specific to Mass, perhaps just to the areas immediately surrounding Boston. MassHole is characterized by a complete absence of R’s and the promiscuous use of the word “wicked” - and not for its intended meaning. In MassHole, wicked means super, or extra. As in, “Oh, that guy is wicked smaaht.” This accent is most often found in combination with track pants, T shirt, and a baseball hat.

Nowhere is MassHole more prevalent than in Medford (pronounced Medfud, of course), a neighborhood North of Boston that happens to be Melissa’s new home. Have y’all seen Mystic River? It’s kind of like that (correct me if I am wrong, Melissa). Medford is a heavily Italian Catholic town where every carefully manicured front lawn features a Mary statuette in a strange little enclosure resembling a vertical scalloped bathtub. Dubbed by Melissa, Bathtub Mary. I don’t know what’s more irreverent – to make fun of Bathtub Mary or to actually have one in the yard, like a somber Christmas reindeer.

CaffĂ© Baccini is the best venue in which to observe Medford dwellers in their natural habitat. It’s a real neighborhood place where everyone knows each other and all are welcome. The cafĂ© has a full bar, hot pressed sandwiches and pastas, gelato and pastries. The music is the best of the 80s, from Bryan Adams to Walk Like an Egyptian. It’s brilliant. Melissa and I walked over for an after dinner coffee and dessert, and ordered the almond cake. Almond it was, and potently so. Layers of white fluffy cake were soaked through with amaretto and almond extract, covered in a thick pastry cream, all topped with crushed toasted almonds. It was wicked good.



Caffe Baccini
394B Main Street
Medford, MA 02155
(781) 393-9333

5 comments:

JC said...

I told you how much that accent drove me nuts when watching The Departed. Or I guess I should say The Depahted.

I love almond. That cake sounds and looks really, really good!

Anonymous said...

Man, that's not what I need to see when I return home to find my spectacular ice-cream cake finished. Flatmates. Who'd have 'em?!

Anna said...

JC - I have yet to see The Depahted. It's on the list. The cake was good, the people watching, even better.

Aimee - Oh that's awful! They ate your food? That's truly bothersome. How many flatmates do you have? How are you planning on revenging your ice cream cake? And I certainly can't have 'em. I am too old to live with people, I have decided.

Anonymous said...

Well, I did make the cake for a birthday, so it wasn't technically MY cake. But I don't really care for technicalities when I get home drunk and want cake. Actually, my two flatmates are pretty wicked - In the month I've lived here I've had dinners made for me, my washing hung out to dry, and gin and tonics waiting for me after shit days at work. I take the good with the bad.

Anonymous said...

You are spot on... The actual Mystic River is two streets over :)
I have the Departed on my hard drive... I need to make you that DVD mix - it's SUPAH!