Real Kato Blog: Cheese Sandwich

Hopefully this entry won't be too insipid.

Melissa has been talking recently about how she doesn't want to write an "insipid mommy blog", the kind of blog that just gives a day-by-day account of the minutiae of someone's life. Her example: "I just ate a cheese sandwich." But you know, I don't mind reading that sort of thing in a blog, if it's someone I know. Or, if it's someone whose blog I read so much that I seem like a crazy stalker, and I sit around pretending that I, uh, actually know her.

What I'm saying is, you can get away with writing a Blog About Nothing, if (a) you're only writing for people you know, or (b) if you're a big blogstar already. Since I fall into neither category, I feel like I need to write interesting things. Looking back on some past entries, I see that on some days I'm more successful than on others. (Note to self: no one is really interested in my bubble bath plans.)

Today I went to Panera Bread for lunch.

It's likely that there are a hundred mommy blogs in this part of town alone that contain that very phrase, because Panera Bread is definitely Mommy Central. As fast food restaurants go, Panera Bread is the anti-Hardee's. Low-fat vegetarian black bean soup? Turkey artichoke panini? A salad called "Fandango"? This is a chick place. There's not a single 2/3-pound bacon cheeseburger in sight.

Of course, I eat at Panera Bread. Let the relentless heckling begin.

The fact is, I love bread. And the name "Panera" is probably derived from pan, which is both Spanish and Japanese for bread. So to me, Panera Bread might as well be called Breadery Bread the Bread Store, and if Dr. Atkins were to visit there, he would get his ass kicked. If he weren't dead, that is. I guess he'd be deader-than-dead in the breadery-bread store, and say, that's sounds exactly like what the mommy in line in front of me was reading to her two-year-old son. Well, almost exactly.

It occurs to me that Panera Bread probably represents the future of fast food. You can see that all the fast-food chains (except Hardee's) are adding salads and deli-like sandwiches to their menu, in an attempt to cash in on the health craze. The thing is, though, no one associates McDonald's with healthy eating. McDonald's has spent fifty years building up a reputation as a purveyor of hot greasy food. You can't put a dress on a mule and expect it to be asked to the senior prom. (Geez, where did THAT expression come from? I've been living in the South for too long.)

When I sat down to eat my half-salad and half-sandwich combo, I discovered the staff had accidentally given me TWO sourdough rolls. I ended up saving one roll for later. That made me think of when my family would spend the summer in Vermont (my parents taught summer language classes at Middlebury College), and my sister and I would sneak rolls out of the cafeteria, so we had something to sustain ourselves during the black-and-white Japanese movies that they would screen for the students. We would take the rolls and compress them as much as we could into tiny cubes, and we would pretend that we were carrying an experimental concentrated SuperFood. Look, if you were an eight-year-old kid watching an old subtitled Japanese movie called "Green Tea Over Rice", you needed something to keep you entertained. Of course, if someone had caught us, they would have thought we were starving street urchins, the way we were jealously hoarding our little starchy cubes. "GET BACK, YOU, this may look like a wadded up piece of bread, but it's ACTUALLY MY MOST PRIZED POSSESSION."

Now, what I'm wondering is, how many people have stayed interested through this entire article? What if I had mentioned that I made a cheese sandwich with my extra roll? Would that have made a difference?

Permalink 6 Comment

Posted by Ken in: bloggers, food, life

Comments

Comment #1 from Jenn (Guest)
2005 May 6 - 1:43 am : #

Mmmm. Asiago cheese bread. *drool*

Comment #2 from Nicholas (Guest)
2005 May 6 - 8:29 am : #

After reading a blog for a while I start to feel like a stalker. Like I really know the person and feel all close. But there is not really closeness unless they hear from me. Reading a blog is one sided. So you want to contact the person, but does that make you a stalker? Recently I had occasionally e-mailed a blogger, maybe 3-4 times over several months. Usually little comments or jokes. Then I got an e-mail in response and felt rebuffed. Maybe I over-reacted. But it seemed like I came across as a stalker. So now I feel terrible.

Does Panera have free wireless access? See you next time at Crossroads! (joking, joking).

Comment #3 from Jen (Guest)
2005 May 6 - 8:55 am : #

I found the entire article interesting!

Comment #4 from Cori (Guest)
2005 May 6 - 12:07 pm : #

Food is a passion for me, so discussions of food, always interesting.

Comment #5 from Speaker (Guest)
2005 May 16 - 2:29 pm : #

extra roll? i love rolls!

i know i don't have to comment on all of these...but i can't help it! it's ROLLS!

Comment #6 from olafandyjon (Guest)
2005 May 20 - 3:11 pm : #

OK, I admit it...I skimmed this one, particularly at one point in the middle when I started wondering how short I need to cut my grass tonight.

Comments are closed for this post.

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