Crying Over Bread

the emotional pull of a sandwich

Strangers surround us, and I am crying. Again. Like I do nearly every time we sit at a public restaurant. I can never predict when the tears will come, only that with a dip of focaccia in olive oil or a slurp of spaghetti noodles coated in wagyu Bolognese or a swig of good black coffee after a bite of perfectly moist miso chocolate cake, the tears will gather. My eyes will cloud. Conversation will halt, and my husband, who is also dipping and slurping, will look at me with a smirk and say, “Every time.”

Today, I cry as I hold half a sandwich. Crumbs spill over my chest from the bite I just took of salty mortadella, creamy stracciatella, and bright pistachio pesto lodged between two fresh, crusty slices of bread. I am delighting and that makes me emotional. Just like last week, when I grew misty-eyed over an iced lemon lychee coffee. I know people notice. Not every time, but surely sometimes when a flavor elicits a memory or sensation, which elicits sniffly tears. It’s become a joke between my husband and me.

“Let’s go grab tacos, but only if you promise not to cry,” he’ll say in jest.

It never really seems to bother him; this tendency I have toward flavor overwhelm. It hasn’t always been this way, only in the last five years or so as I’ve developed a palate, as I’ve traveled, as I’ve experienced more complex flavors and become more attuned to the ways ingredients meld and elevate and satisfy. I am undone by late spring peas dressed in olive oil and lemon zest. I am awestruck by the wonder of soba noodles dipped into thin vegetable broth. I am delighted again and again by the simple and the unexpected. And always, without fail, it makes me cry.

And so I sit on this patio beneath a May Gray sky. It is chilly, but we are surrounded by folks who, like us, wake early to beat the post-run club rush for the olive oil cake we know will be gone by 10. Jordan sips a matcha sweetened with the lemon lychee syrup that prompted my tears last week. My black coffee tastes bright and citrusy, warming my chilled body. We have become the sort of people with a weekend ritual. This neighborhood café is our church. This crusty sandwich our sacred supper. It is rare to find a café that can deliver good coffee with good food and we’re lucky to have found such a place where the bread is always fresh, the syrups always limited and house-made.

Yes, I have opinions about bread and seasoning and coffee good enough to stand alone. I have opinions about coffee shops with a thousand bottled syrups and Costco-purchased pastries. But the place I return to weekly, located just a few miles from our apartment in a simple building with no indoor seating satiates every part of me that hungers for complexity in simplicity. An ever-revolving menu based on seasonality and availability. Baristas who recognize us and remember our names. Fellow brunchers and coffee drinkers who surround us with panting dogs and open books.

And every week, I cry. I cry because the tartines and sandwiches and smoked fish plates are delicious. I cry because the baristas recognize us and, every week, say, “Good to see you again!” I cry because I sit across from my spouse who is constantly coming and going, but when he is here, sharing toast with me, it’s the best feeling in the world.¹

Robert Farrar Capon writes in his 1960s book The Supper of the Lamb, “Man’s real work is to look at the things of the world and to love them for what they are.” He was writing about his love affair with onions and, based on his language, I wouldn’t be surprised if the act of slicing, dicing, and sautéing prompted his tears, not only from the irritant of a cut open onion but from the promise of it. The flavor. The wonder.

1. Our current normal involves his constant coming and going because of his military career.