It was no doubt intended for drinks, but with two oak shelves and brass wheels, to me it looked like a perfect pudding trolley. It was also €150 and being used as a display for an enormous number of small things at a flea market. A good thing, too, otherwise I might have brought it home instead of the chair we actually needed. I regretted my decision, though; while I’m sure it wasn’t an Osvaldo Borsani bar trolley, it damned well looked like one. So I went back a few days later, only to find it with a “reserved” sign. Now I feel regret, and resentment towards the stranger with my trolley.
This movable cart would have finally allowed me to recreate my fantasy pudding trolley, a cross between the Ballymaloe trolley in Myrtle Allen’s book – with Irish apple cake, strawberry shortcake, chocolate ice-cream and iced chocolate oranges – and the trolley that might be wheeled between the aisles of a restaurant in Torino or Novara, with an urn of zabaione, plump sandwich biscuits, peach halves with almond middles, pineapple fans and a gleaming bonet.
