Le Cafe Crepe

The time is five o’ clock and it is a Friday evening.  I am riding in the car with my parents to go to a new French restaurant in Marietta.  Cars are zipping back and forth on the roads, undoubtedly filled with parents and children ready to go home and enjoy the ease of the weekend.

As we approach the buzzing metropolitan square, the sky is now striped with baby pink and burnt orange.  When I out of the car, I am taken aback by the romantic setting.  A battered brick walkway with lampposts sprinkled along the side hugs the restaurant cutting it off from the noisy railroad tracks across the way.  Tiny steps lead customers up to the café and into a cocoon-like atmosphere. 

Once inside, we are welcomed to subtle French electronic music and deep royal purple walls with candles lighting each table.  In a small kitchen the chef and sous chef peek out of a little window to make sure their customers are happy and taken care of.  When we are seated, a petite woman takes our drink orders and leaves us to make our meal selections.  I do not know what to choose.  Each dish is tempting, but unfortunately I cannot try everything in one night.  After a lot of thinking, I finally decide on a chicken and spinach crepe.  When the waitress glides away from our table with our requests again, I immediately resume admiring the scenery.  Paintings of at least a dozen different artists drape the walls and, for some reason, hidden in the rafters is a dusty disco ball.  Nothing matches, yet the décor seems to work.

When our meals arrive, the aroma alone is enough to win my heart.  I pick up my fork and taste the steamy, tender crepe and I am instantly in love.  Each bite is equally satisfying and before I know it, my fork hits the plate.  It’s gone.  To lift my spirits, I order a cup of hot chocolate and consider taking my plate hostage and scurrying away to the bathroom to finish up what little is left.

After what seems like an eternity, the waitress brings me a frothy hot chocolate with cool whipped cream on top.  As I take my first sip, I start to wonder if the chef is married.  If a man would cook for me like this every day, I would be his wife.  Unfortunately, he is married so I have to settle for the one meal.  The warm elixir continues to soothe my broken heart until that, too, vanishes.  Sad to leave, I vow to forever make the Le Café Crepe my favorite restaurant.    

Connections through Food

       One night this week my mother and I made one of my favorite meals, fish tacos with black beans. Fish tacos are a comfort food that remains close to my heart and makes me feel better on even the worst day. We used tilapia, a common white fish that can be purchased in any supermarket. The frozen tilapia was probably harvested in Chile and flown back to Georgia. To dress the tacos, we took bagged coleslaw mix and tossed it with lime juice. The coleslaw mix is likely to have come from China because of their high production of cabbage. The lime juice possibly originates from Florida due to limes being citrus fruits. The final ingredient I used to top my taco was avocado. Avocados are grown in California, so that is my best guess for their roots. As for the black beans and tortillas, they could have been shipped from Mexico or the United States.

       Just one meal alone connects so many people together. Perhaps most of them do not get to partake in the delicious result; nevertheless a great deal of people are influenced whether it’s by harvesting or selling the various ingredients, everyone has a part. In our current society, we have to rely on each other. At some point in your life you will have to break down and ask for help of some kind, regardless of if you want to or not. A baby is helplessly dependent on its mother like we are dependent on one another. Exchanging our resources between each other closes the circle of need. We cannot live without food, forcing us to interact with others whenever we go out to eat, go to the grocery store, and of course during the holidays like Thanksgiving. Food is a form of communication that bridges all races and ages.

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