“You are just negative about everything.” Suzen was vehement and her hands were on her hips, a bad sign.
“I am not, Suzen,” I responded. “I simply report on the world as it is.”
“And for you it always half empty.”
‘Not true,” I kept my demeanor, “I accept that the glass if half full. But,” I gestured, “that water in there is probably contaminated. Although to find out the truth you’d have to trust the water testing lab and we know how problematic that is.” Now, that is a fact.
“Thank you for proving my point.” She did not smirk exactly, but I was not happy with how this exchange ended.
I am not a negative guy. And I try to make the posts here positive and funny. But sometimes, sometimes an experience is not just bad, it is silly bad. And then, to spare you a bad experience, I have to comment.
In the press recently, a new Village bakery was noted: Mille-feuille, a French patisserie at Laguardia and 3rd. I put the name and address into my “When You Have Time” spreadsheet in Excel, and I decided that today would be the day. Roughly translated, mille-feuille means a thousand layers. It’s a Napoleon, wonderful layer upon layer of delicate pasty with decadent pastry cream topped with a hard sugar glaze. I like Napoleons.
Well, my day began at 3:45. I won’t give you the details, but my shrink says not to lie and bed and just think about what is bothering me. Get up, do something, and hopefully collapse before dawn. I did not collapse. At 8:45, after five hours of very productive work, I left for Mille-feuille which opens at 7AM.
I went in expectation of coffee, sugar, and pastry. A well balanced breakfast that would power me through the day.
“One mille-feuille,” I requested.
“Oh, we never have them until after 10 or 11,” came the response.
I guess the name of the shop had been shortened. The original name must have been “Eventually We’ll Have The Napoleons.” I settled for a cappuccino and two macaroons. The coffee was fine, one macaroons was okay and one was not. Oh, they were making lunch. I watched them split some kind of roll and adorn it with a minute slice of cheese and one slice of ham so thin it seemed engineered by NASA.
If you are in that neighborhood early in the morning and need a balanced breakfast, then walk for ten minutes. At Spring and Broadway you will find Balthazar. Superior coffee. No better doughnuts in the city.