Stop 22: Elle

In which I talk a little too much and then go home

I asked a physicist how time works. Well what I said was actually closer to, “isn’t it right that time isn’t linear — that’s just how we perceive it — so actually all things are happening at once?” He looked at me for a beat. “No, we can actually prove that time is linear —“

I cut in to say that I had to go to the bathroom and avoided him for the rest of the party. This sign won’t stop me because I can’t read

How do you explain the way it was at Elle in the spring, Mr. Phycisist sir? I was at my job, yes , at a restaurant where I was once a regular.  But also. Time is a closed accordion. I am eating peach panzanella and it is summer 2021. It’s late COVID November, and I am huddled outside in a turtleneck with my Americano. It is always Saturday, and I am drunk off half a Bloody Mary. The one Rachel Cusk narrator I can get behind says it better, that b — “I believe there are certain moments in life that don’t obey the laws of time and instead last forever, and this was one of them: I am still living it…!” (Second Place 169).* #believewomen

Last spring, I was still living it all, those layers and filters of memory that connected me to different Isabels. And indeed, in those DC years, Elle contained multitudes. I first went because I’d read about the food, but it became a place to Go more than a place to eat. I liked seeing DC glamour; I liked the lights and tiles and even those mirrors behind the bar. Elle was a ritual, then it was a neighborhood center, where I knew and was known (I don’t have much substantive to add to the community ties discourse; confirming it’s cool to feel connected). Despite its hipster overtones (must everything be from a single origin?), Elle has heart. And when I was there, I was there all the times.

Aaaaaaand here comes my weird little bridge to what you all expect from me: a final roast. Believing past and future are synchronous (if synchronicity can even exist without linearity) can be a comfort, like I found it to be in the spring. Yes, as I prepared to leave DC, it was deeply comforting. But let me tell you, it’s a double-edged sword. Somewhere out there, am I always forcing down a 12+ dollar Elle breakfast sandwich and not even enjoying it?

The Elle breakfast sandwich. A fluffy clump of scrambled eggs with greasy white cheddar cheese on a brioche bun (add brisket or sausage or kimchi. Tbh none dramatically help the case). And that’s it. A disappointing carb fat bomb. Where’s the sauce? Where is flavor?

It’s not that the sandwich is inedible, not by a long shot. It’s just I’d .. rather have a McMuffin. (This isn’t saying much since McMuffins set the bar high.) My mouth waters thinking about tearing into one of those. There’s no tearing needed for the soft mushiness of an Elle breakfast sandwich, no chemical perfection from that fake yellow cheese, and you’ll feel queasy after. I feel queasy just thinking about it.

Better to stick with the beet-cured salmon bagel — sweet beets with chewy, salty salmon, a perfect marriage. (For actually good bagels.. talk to me about Cambridge. More on this later, maybe). Or get good espresso and one of two stand-out pastries: the biscuit or the cherry financier. A 10/10 biscuit, flakey and salty, with a crust so crisp and buttery it basically shatters when you bite it. Eat slathered with raspberry jam. The cherry financier, usually made with hazelnut flour, is rich and fatty from the nuts with punchy sour cherries. It has surprising, refreshing savory undertones.

I’m loyal to breakfast at Elle, but happy hour is fun, too. Dinner has that “fine-dining” “new American” thing that’s not doing it for me these days. But we all know I’m not over bougie pastries.

And here we are. I ate Mt Pleasant, and I am eating Mt Pleasant. I love this silly street that has inevitably already forgotten me. (And I feel for all of you right now!! Idk how to gracefully slip that in here). I’m in Mount Pleasant forever, and here I am lying in my Cambridge bed writing these words, and A and I are shopping for bathing suits in our first apartment on Vernon Street and I am on my 16th Street balcony, and I’m making coffee in Columbia Heights and I’m playing “cave” with my sister, and I’m at my first day of sixth grade, and I’m hiking the Long Trail. What I mean is I am there always and .. and

If equal affection cannot be

Let the more loving one be me

I say I miss you I miss you I miss you in my head ,do you ever hear it? Goodbye Mount Pleasant.

*(Total side bar for interested parties: A friend recently said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “you know that sort of solitary feeling you get reading Rachel Cusk?” I’d heard smarties be like “it’s a sophisticated critique of society and being a woman” — and to that I said: I don’t get it. But you guys .. this one offhand comment from my friend .. it clicked.. there it was in the book.. my own experience of absolute nothingness at center. But enough about that! I know ur here for the food)