Casa.... It’s Worth the Wait.... Sometimes
I have found a new home here in Athens, Ohio. Today, like many a weekend morning, I met friends for breakfast at Casa Nueva. My definition of morning, mind you, differs slightly from the conventional view. The fat noonday sun has spent plenty of time warming the red brick streets of Athens before I stroll down State Street to the friendly worker owned confines of Casa Nueva.
Nobody on the staff at Casa seems to be in any particular type of hurry to do anything. This includes seating you, taking your order, or even making your food. My friend, Vinod, an original member of Casa's granola breakfast club, has coined a oft-quoted slogan surmising the Casa Nueva experience: "Casa.... it’s worth the wait.... sometimes...."
I order homemade biscuits with soysage gravy and spicy Cajun home fries.
In the shade of the Bay Laurel plants lining the large front windows of the dining room we exchange stories over spicy Bloody Marys and dark roast organic coffee. This morning a little bit of Ohio University trivia was passed along at the breakfast table. It turns out that there is a catlike 9-lives policy with the university dining hall jobs where a student can be fired up to eight times from their job and still be rehired.
The dark black fair trade coffee quickly sets to work exorcising the daemons of a St. Patrick's Day weekend in a college town. Where is the venerable St. Patrick when we need him most? If only the great Apostle of Ireland could return to our streets and drive the slithering hordes of drunk waifish sorority girls and frosty-haired meatheads in bright green "Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky" t-shirts with fangs died green from chugging gallons of green Miller Lite in celebration of their nonexistent Irish heritage off to the sea. I take a long sip from my spicy Bloody Mary and dream a little dream.
I am so hungry by this time I am contemplating a return to the faith. If I still believed in God my soysage gravy and biscuits would probably be here already. The conversation tides me over for the time. It turns out that the everybody's favorite war turned two years old today. My friend, Rachel, brought cupcakes to celebrate Baby Viet Nam's birthday. The hippies at the table next to us joined us in a song of "Happy Birthday."
After the celebration a young lady stops by the table bearing the coveted tofu sausage in spicy gravy over homemade buttermilk biscuits. They fill my aching hungry belly with a much needed sense of warmth and serenity lacking in the turbulent world around me. It felt, if only for a fleeting moment, that someone I loved had cooked me that food. Somewhere amongst the clanking forks and gentle laughter around me I could hear my father, an expert chef in the art of gravy making, asking me in a perplexed tone if there was really no sausage in that tasty white gravy. I could not help but smile. My New Home in Athens was today.... worth the wait.
Nobody on the staff at Casa seems to be in any particular type of hurry to do anything. This includes seating you, taking your order, or even making your food. My friend, Vinod, an original member of Casa's granola breakfast club, has coined a oft-quoted slogan surmising the Casa Nueva experience: "Casa.... it’s worth the wait.... sometimes...."
I order homemade biscuits with soysage gravy and spicy Cajun home fries.
In the shade of the Bay Laurel plants lining the large front windows of the dining room we exchange stories over spicy Bloody Marys and dark roast organic coffee. This morning a little bit of Ohio University trivia was passed along at the breakfast table. It turns out that there is a catlike 9-lives policy with the university dining hall jobs where a student can be fired up to eight times from their job and still be rehired.
The dark black fair trade coffee quickly sets to work exorcising the daemons of a St. Patrick's Day weekend in a college town. Where is the venerable St. Patrick when we need him most? If only the great Apostle of Ireland could return to our streets and drive the slithering hordes of drunk waifish sorority girls and frosty-haired meatheads in bright green "Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky" t-shirts with fangs died green from chugging gallons of green Miller Lite in celebration of their nonexistent Irish heritage off to the sea. I take a long sip from my spicy Bloody Mary and dream a little dream.
I am so hungry by this time I am contemplating a return to the faith. If I still believed in God my soysage gravy and biscuits would probably be here already. The conversation tides me over for the time. It turns out that the everybody's favorite war turned two years old today. My friend, Rachel, brought cupcakes to celebrate Baby Viet Nam's birthday. The hippies at the table next to us joined us in a song of "Happy Birthday."
After the celebration a young lady stops by the table bearing the coveted tofu sausage in spicy gravy over homemade buttermilk biscuits. They fill my aching hungry belly with a much needed sense of warmth and serenity lacking in the turbulent world around me. It felt, if only for a fleeting moment, that someone I loved had cooked me that food. Somewhere amongst the clanking forks and gentle laughter around me I could hear my father, an expert chef in the art of gravy making, asking me in a perplexed tone if there was really no sausage in that tasty white gravy. I could not help but smile. My New Home in Athens was today.... worth the wait.
posted by Yonder Vittles at 8:55 PM
2 Comments:
Hrmmm. If I am recalling your exact wording correctly, I think you said that you gave me a "shoutout". I don't know how YOU define that word, but I would call what I read more of a "brief mention". In order for ME to define that as a "shoutout" you also must add an "...and that's why she's THE JAM! She also has a sweet, sweet ass! YE-EAH!"
At least you did not call me a liar. I will save my shoutouts for an upcoming guest dj appearance on Power 105 in the morning.
Post a Comment
<< Home