Morning Warmth

Yesterday as I was waking up over my cappuccino and brioche I watched a fairly typical scene go down between the barista and a member of his older clientele. Little Italian Grandma paid her 85cents for her morning espresso and as she carefully pocketed her change, shuffled over to a display of chewing gum. She picked up a pack and studied it carefully. “Yesterday I bought this exact same gum. Not for me. For my son. I bought this exact same one at a store and paid 40 cents more for it. FORTY CENTS! That’s not nothing, you know!” “I know,” replied the barista, “and did you know that in the city center you can easily pay 3 Euros for a cappuccino and brioche.” Both sigh and shake their heads.

I have just started working at one of Italy’s top food and wine stores, which includes eight restaurants and a café designed after the gorgeous historical Turin cafes: dark wood floors and walls, creamy counters, vintage Vermouth posters and perhaps some of Italy’s best pastries to boot. Even though, I still prefer to have breakfast at the shabbier, but perhaps more neighborly cafe across the street. I like how the barista tells me to hold on a sec for the pastries that are in the oven if he sees that the type I had yesterday is already gone. Or how the milk man calmly double parks out front on the busy city street to bring in the day’s order and then proceeds to leisurely enjoy his espresso. No problem. Meanwhile a young lady plays her luck and part of her weekly salary on the video games over my shoulder and an older man and a younger North African immigrant have coffee together and I wonder what their relation is.

When I am home in the U.S. and people ask me about my favorite things in Italy, I think they are often surprised when I answer the cafes. Most mornings I just eat my oats at home, but on the occasions when P and I go out for our coffee and pastry, well I just feel an extra little boost getting out of bed, like a kid on her birthday. Sure I appreciate the elegant or edgy cafes where the foam in your cappuccino is frothy enough to build a dream on, but it’s the cafe just out the door down on the street corner that really makes me happy to be waking up in Italy. And that’s not nothing, you know.