West Side Canvas: ‘Face it — Croissants Make Life Worth Living’

Essay and painting by Robert Beck

My mother baked a lot, so I didn’t often find myself in commercial bakeries as a kid. I do remember occasionally going into the one on our walk back from church, but I was captivated by the bread slicing machine, and I can’t tell you what my mother might have purchased. Sometimes the counter woman would see me and give me a thin crust end to nibble — very Dickens.

Mom’s specialty was cakes and cookies. My childhood soundtrack includes the rhythms of the baking pans, oven door, and the Sunbeam Mixer. Grrrwrrwrrwrrwrr. My wife is an excellent baker, so those same great smells waft through our apartment. The sounds haven’t changed much, but times have, and I don’t get to lick the beaters anymore.

Our favorite UWS French bakery is Epices, on 70th at Columbus. That’s where Soutine was for so, so long. Now the bakery is run by the owners of the Muffins Shop Café, which has been serving breakfast and lunch to locals for thirty years, just around the corner. Epices is where we go when we need six killer desserts for a special dinner. It runs the range of fulfillment from daily bread to decadence; baguettes and croissants to passion fruit pie and pistachio éclair. The dessert case is mesmerizing.

Epices is also an integral part of the neighborhood. You run into a steady stream of regulars there. Face it — croissants make life worth living, and for that very reason there are more people just north of Lincoln Square with satisfied looks on their faces than in any other part of the city (I believe there was a Quinnipiac Poll on that). While I was there, quite a few people used first names. New customers dropped by because Epices had been recommended to them. Young people stopped on the way home from school. (A mother stuck her head in the door and told her son to make sure he was back in time for dinner and homework. He was)

The store can only hold about four customers at a time, and keeping out of everybody’s way was as challenging as when I painted in More & More. The nose of my easel was wedged between the quiche case and the front window. I had to move my palette when customers used the card reader. The dessert case was back over my left shoulder, and I was blocked from its view by people hunched in front of it, swooning, so I went with the subject I could see.

My host behind the counter, Bibi, was as charming as they come. She even speaks French. Bibi fielded trays of delicious baked goods as they appeared from the kitchen, fetched delicacies from the cases, wrapped and delivered promises of delight to a steady stream of anticipatory faces. You couldn’t escape the spirit. I heard my French easel humming Mistral Gagnant as Bibi lifted a pair of apricot tarts from the tray and slid them into their box. Someone was celebrating tonight. Not because it was a special date on a calendar, but because Epices was on the way home.

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See more of Robert Beck’s work and visit his UWS studio at www.robertbeck.net. Let him know if you have a connection to an archetypical UWS place or event that would make a good West Side Canvas subject. Thank you!

Note: Before Robert Beck started West Side Canvas, his essays and paintings were featured in Weekend Column. See Robert Beck’s earlier columns here and here.

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