My Café
Updated: Dec 11, 2020
The most important detail to get right is the coffee. It isn’t the caffeine that is important. It’s the smell and flavor of it. The steam and aroma helps remind you of days and nights just like the one we are in right now. We are sitting in a café with an old friend trying to figure out who had the genius idea of 2015. It couldn’t have been Joe. He didn’t like spicy that much anyways. I don’t think Eric was there. Oh, that’s funny actually. It was me after a couple shots of Joe’s Jameson. It was the fuel behind taking out the middle bun of my McKinley Mac and replacing it with pels. We all laugh and it adds to the chatter in the rest of the filled café.
I look over the eatery and see plenty of people listening to each other. It isn’t that people are talking necessarily that make this my personal heaven. It is that people are listening to each other. People nod while they take a bite of their toast and point at their friend when they agree with the point being made.
It is so infectious that I stand up and walk over to a different table. It has Alton Brown, Dave Chang, and Anthony Bourdain sitting there talking about eggs. My coffee finds its place on the table and I sit down to listen to them talk it over.
“If you don’t salt your eggs before you cook them you are just staying in the past.” Dave says. I look over to Alton nodding his head and looking at Anthony for his response.
“I don’t think it makes much of a difference when you do it. Now you are just being difficult.” Anthony drinks from his mug.
I don’t need to add anything to this place now. I am just feeling lucky to be able to hear these passionate providers of food discuss what they love most. That is another really important detail for this place to work. Having people talk about the thing they spend their lives trying to understand better. When you look around you can see great musical artists discussing different sounds they really love. Or some philosophers hashing out the merits of Machiavelli’s book.
This is my heaven. A café where you sit down with people and get a chance to hear them.
This is something I wrote after thinking about what would make up my "personal heaven" We all have that one place we like to escape to and wish we could build. This is my little explanation of mine.
Giving myself to think this over has helped clear up what I love about life and what I should seek out more. I know better now that I should work towards being around passionate people talking about what they are passionate about.
I also cherish hearing people talk about their personal heaven so hit me with yours in the comments below or fucking email me. Send an African Swallow if you have any laying around.