What I Ate in New York City, Part Deux/April 2, 2022
After Nic and Ollie and my dad departed, I went nuts eating. First, I went to the donut shop I had intended Ollie to love, and bought a peanut butter & jelly donut. It was good? But not great. Still, I had to know for myself.
After that, I went to a food conference filled with tables of beautiful food, and ate from each and every table. Shame was not part of my itinerary; anything I saw, I grabbed.
And later that night, I had crab rangoon — a dish I love dearly and eat rarely. I eat it roughly once every four years? Ever since the Great Crab Rangoon Event, which occurred a damn long time ago at this point, but which changed my relationship to crab rangoon forever…
Picture this: a girl returns to the United States after being in Italy for some time, walks into a Chinese restaurant, and orders her favorite appetizer. Utterly delighted by the quality of the little triangles, she accidentally-but-purposefully eats 14 pieces of fried cream cheese pockets. She is sick, both of stomach, and of heart. Her greed has taken from her the very thing she sought: enjoyment.
Anyway — that night, I had crab rangoon and ate it with such restraint, I am in awe of myself.
The next day, I set out with intention in my steps. Find a beautiful pastry — and obtain it.
After walking by/in/out of a couple other bakeries, I settled on a matcha cafe, where I got caught up in a whirlwind of emotions surrounding green ‘yogurt’ and a weird donut. Now: I didn’t believe the donut was going to be “good” — based on its ingredient list (sorghum flour, almond flour, arrowroot, cashews, yuzu juice, marigold flowers), general shape and apparent density- but I liked the idea of myself eating a ‘healthy’ donut. Then, I plucked a small glass container filled with a gorgeous green yogurt on the side (composed of avocado, house-made almond milk, agave, matcha, chlorophyll.) The donut was probably around $4 and the yogurt was EIGHT DOLLARS. Still, I was very into the idea of me being someone who was going to eat those two items for her breakfast.
Then, as my friend and I made the final stretch to her apartment, she mentioned that there was a ‘very beautiful bakery’ just ahead. I figured I would just walk in and look around. I figured I owed it to them — the bakers of beautiful foods.
I opened the door and that’s when I saw a pink-striped croissant. Rose. A rose croissant. I didn’t know it was rose initially — I had to ask. And when I did ask the girl behind the counter, she was not very kind. I was sort of waffling between buying the croissant or not (remember, I had the weird donut in my bag already) — but the minute I realized she didn’t enjoy helping me — made me CERTAIN I was going to buy the pastry — and please know this — this was without knowing the price of the pastry. Every time someone makes me feel like I don’t belong, I get real vindictive and become determined to show them that I do. (What I really love about my form of vindictiveness here is all that it did was decrease the amount of money in my bank account. Damn, I really know how to teach someone a lesson!)
The point is, is that her lackluster customer service enraged me. Oh, I’m sorry; do I not look like your target customer? like someone with plenty of money to spend on sugared things like your insanely beautiful macaroons? for the record: I am an idiot — to whom eating beauty means more to than anything ELSE IN THIS WORLD. I do not have ‘plenty’ of money but I spend every penny trying to feed myself the pretty things. So — you don’t get to speak to me without your fake customer accent. Raise your voice an octave and make me feel like you believe I am worthy of all of this.
**Snobbery in Pastry Shops: the first of a four-part series from acclaimed food writer Kelly Green**
(I probably wouldn’t be so pissed about the girl’s snobbery in NYC had I not also dealt with snobbery at a pastry shop back in my hometown just a few days after getting back. I’m really trying to understand why bakeries are often filled with purveyors of bitchasses. I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, walking into the store on Rodeo Drive, asking them to understand that she was worthy of owning greatness.)
We are all worthy of owning greatness.
**
Back at my friend’s place, I laid out my items on her table and took it all in. And once again — just like the plane ticket — the moment prior to ingesting the food was actually better than the moment that I swallowed any of it. Anticipation always tastes better than consumption
The green yogurt was amazing. The weird donut was weird. And the rose croissant didn’t taste like rose— it didn’t taste like anything more than a normal, high-quality croissant — but it was so pretty, I did not care.
