The Coin Of The Realm

"Are you going to write a review of this place?" V asks me, his chin resting on the back of his hand in that way that only urbane Southerners and elderly gay men can manage without looking foolish

"Yeah, why not?" A review is already forming in my mind as V asks this question.

"I just think it would make a better story."

V shrugs absently and pulls off another piece of flaky, buttery perfection as if it's nothing to him whether write a review or not. Still, we both know better, and what's done is done. A story it is.

----

In your life, there will be a limited number of people to whom you can say, let's get up at 5:30 in the morning on a Saturday and brave finding parking in the Mission just so we can sit around and eat the best croissants in a hundred mile radius. If you're smart, when you find those people, you'll tie a rope around them so they can't ever get away.

I've had a few friends like that, over the years, though curiously never more than one at a time. It is as if the universe has a finite supply of real friendships, and you can't have more than your share or some celestial bookkeeper will have a nervous breakdown. Of course, a lover will do things like this for you, but they'll be doing it out of love (or worse, obligation), and getting up this early in the morning is not something you want someone to do with you because they want to make you happy. Getting up this early in the morning is something you want someone to do because it will make you both happy. Because it will be an adventure. Because you are both out of your minds together.

If I can say one thing about my friendship with V, it is that we are both out of our minds. And so, the first time he told me about Tartine Bakery, complaining bitterly that he could no longer mock the quality of baked goods in San Francisco, I knew that it was only a matter of time before we'd be going.

The idea languished idly long enough for V to go a second time -- this time with his wife and eldest daughter -- and to report back to me that indeed, his puffed pastry epiphany had not been illusory. Having now been taunted with perfection twice, the issue moved from idle consideration to moral imperative. The calendar was considered, a date was selected, V's half-hearted protestations were silenced.

It was he who insisted on going at the absolute crack of dawn, however. To avoid the line, he said, but I think the real reason was drama. Croissants this good shouldn't just be a jaunt up to San Francisco. They should be an event.

I set my alarm for 5:30, and with the uncanny trajectory of someone who has Something To Do, I woke at 5:27 without a trace of grogginess (only an acute sense that I was probably very seriously out of my mind). V, on the other hand, overslept and was late to pick me up. Ironic, since he's the early riser between the two of us. After some requisite cranky grumbling from V, we fetched some coffee and hit the road. Despite the forecast for a grim gray morning, the city dressed up in its Sunday best, uncharacteristically sunny and pleasant.

At a quarter after 7 on a Saturday, parking is shockingly plentiful in the Mission, possibly because most of it is closed. Including, as we discovered, Tartine Bakery, which doesn't open until 8. How we planned this whole endeavor without ever checking Tartine's hours is beyond me, but fortunately we're both fairly adept at frittering away time.

Half an hour successfully frittered on conversations about nothing, we delivered ourselves to Tartine's front door to wait in line (behind the one person more croissant obsessed, or perhaps simply more bored, than we). Hunger had set in, and even if it hadn't, watching the huge trays of croissants, scones and pastries being loaded onto the counter would remain an agonizing tease.

The beauty of food is that it does not simply stop at a single sense or even two. Yes, they smelled wonderful, and no doubt they would taste wonderful, but I would be remiss not to mention that Tartine's croissants are the prettiest I've ever seen; huge and golden brown, puffed within an inch of their lives. You can tell just by looking, this is not ordinary food. You have entered fairyland, and a bite might be worth your eternal soul.

Just as I'm musing on the dangerous delights of fairyland, a hobgoblin went wheeling by. Or at least, a homeless man with a vat full of piping hot coffee perched precariously on a little wheeled cart. As he walked past the ever-growing line, he wondered aloud if this was a line for unemployment, or a homeless shelter. No one answered him, all of us, perhaps, too embarrassed to explain that privilege allowed us to wait in line for gourmet pastries we couldn't possibly need.

I couldn't tell if he was selling his coffee, or distributing it to the other homeless who blanket the Mission. I almost regret not asking, and not buying a cup. It's probably a good thing that my sense of self-preservation is ever so slightly stronger than my love of mystery. If I ever find myself in fairyland I know that I will drink, and drink deeply. Escape seems unlikely.

He trundled on, and soon enough one of the little pixies inside opened the door and let the eager petitioners inside. I suddenly wished we were farther back in the line as I realized that I had absolutely no time to decide what I wanted. V and I ordered two pastries a piece, a croissant and a cinnamon roll for him, a croissant and a black currant scone for me. The counter-pixie looked on us with some dismay, but our gluttony was allowed, and I was even permitted a big, francophile-pleasing bowl of Cafe Au Lait.

In Olympic swimming matches, the distance between gold and silver is often a tenth of a tenth of a second, so keep that in mind when I say that the cinnamon roll was the best. It was light but toothy, exactly as sweet as you want and no more and had the faintest hint of orange, like the baker had spent the night sleeping under a blanket of orange blossoms, before he rolled out the dough.

The croissants were beautifully, artfully crafted, but ever so slightly too hot. If we were more patient people, we would have waited for them to cool. Alas, we are imperfect creatures, and ate them too soon, wincing as we acknowledged this slight black mark on the beauty of our breakfast. We are critics by nature, and though our breakfast was transcendent, we could not help but comment on those tiny details that were not just so.

Some people will say that V and I create our own disappointment with our critical nature, but what these people do not understand is that same discerning, discriminating determination allows us to be aware of how unbelievably close that illusive perfection sometimes is. I was giddy over these almost entirely perfect pastries because I have a keen sense of how far most things are from that level of success. When we love things, we love them honestly. We can give a standing ovation, tears in our eyes, but don't ask us not to tell you what was wrong with it later.

We ate, we talked. About food and life and, of course, these amazing pastries. We agreed that this was not a place one could visit often. To render it ordinary and habitual would be a crime. When I eat something like that, I want it to be a trip down the rabbit hole, a blissful losing of myself. How could one maintain that kind of passion for the everyday? You would be forced to render it pedestrian so as not to dull yourself to other, more elusive passions.

I can remember little else of the substance of our talk, only the warmth of my coffee and the lightness of my soul. Like the croissants it was ephemeral and ethereal, the critically important kind of unimportant talk that passes between good friends on a good day. Fairyland gives you what you wish for, though it does not operate without menace. A time to pay for your trespasses will come soon enough, the pixies whisper. You cannot visit this place without losing some of yourself.

When the time comes, I'll pay my debts in the coin of the realm, and pray that I can find my way home.

Comments

[Jamie]

Oh, Alice! You found your way back from the Mad Hatter's tea party THIS time ... but that's no guarantee for the future. Good food exceeds such predicates (and antecedents) as good sex and conversation, but just barely. The transcendence is relative (like all good intoxicants) and is born as much of the mind as the body. My wife, for example, returned from the garden this morning with a fistful of radishes which she magically transformed into a garlic-laden dip that succeeded in clearing my sinuses as WELL as my palate. Those croissants sound amazing. Perhaps you could FedEx me a couple? Tchuss.

[Tall Poppy]

Sadly, I don't think they'd FedEx that well, but if you ever make it to San Francisco, they are not to be missed.