The Penhallow Bakery is almost a character in itself in Sherrie Flick’s Reconsidering Happiness. It’s where the two main characters, Vivette and Margaret, spend late nights and early mornings baking scones, cookies, cakes, loaves of bread. It’s where they meet friends and lovers, where they go to celebrate and to mourn. It’s what ties the women to their community, and its recipes are something they take with them when they ultimately move away.

And it’s also based on a real bakery where Flick once worked – The Ceres Bakery (on Penhallow Street) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Clara Silverstein wrote about the Ceres Bakery, as well as Flick’s recreation of it, in Wednesday’s Boston Globe. The mere mention of treats like rhubarb-raspberry tarts made me wish it was 5 p.m. and time to go home and bake.

Have a great weekend