Friday Club
I’m a person who changes her mind. A lot. It’s a source of frustration to some of my friends but the close ones know not to take it too seriously, or too personally. I act on whims. (Sooo quirkkkkkky lolz) Making one choice, and then another that contradicts it and another that contradicts that. If you didn’t know me, you would never see it coming because each choice I make is firm, and resolute, as if I have all of the faith in my own ability to follow through. Take, for example, the assured way I told Erika that I couldn’t commit to another food blog. “I would love to,” I said. “I just don’t have the time.” and now look: here I am, making the time for this obsessive compulsive self serving gluttonous hobby of mine. Erika didn’t pressure me to commit. They didn’t have to: I made the choice to do the opposite of what I originally said by myself. And guess what? I am in it for the long haul babbbbyyyyy!!!!
Erika joined me at the The Golden House last Friday. So did their partner (and my pal) Nick. It was 1 pm. Hardly brunch. Truly anything post 12:30 pm, in my opinion is getting into lunch territory. In case you were wondering, you can get lunch foods at the Golden House. We didn’t though. We all got breakfasts.
All of us had gotten to the diner on foot. Nick and Erika from their home a few blocks north and me from a few blocks east. We peeled off our coats, and slid into a bright red booth under this black and white framed drawing of a dilapidated house:
I had been up since 7 am. On Fridays, I’ve started volunteering at Sarah’s Circle, a daytime center for women experiencing some degree of homelessness. I was just supposed to just answer the phones and let people in the door and do other front desk stuff but on my first day the chef needed my help unloading a large shipment from the Chicago Food Depository. Even though I never got the hang of the table can opener and spilled some sugar all over the floor, I still managed to pass whatever capability test the chef had and was now to be his buddy/assistant from here on out.
I told Erika and Nick all of this as waiter came by to pass out menus and ask if we wanted coffee, and just like that long plastic breakfast bibles of the Golden House were put before us. Ah, options. Remember when I said I change my mind a lot? Well, there’s no better example of my flip floppin than when I am out to eat breakfast. My eyes dart around the page unable to settle. First I want savory and then I want sweet. First I want pancakes and then I want waffles and really I’d be happy with any of it but there still feels like there is: ONE. RIGHT. CHOICE. That day, though, that day it was easy. I had just come from a different kitchen and what I wanted a simulation of what I had cooked and served for the women at Sarah’s Circle that morning.
Two eggs:
Two pieces of toast:
I looked for a replica on the Golden House menu. I settled on the “Club Breakfast.”
I got my eggs are over easy because the waiter just shook her head when I asked for boiled.
Club Breakfast = Simple yet filling.
It’s important to remember that being able to change your mind is a privilege that not everyone has. Not everyone lives a life with access to a laminated menu of options in cute little pig and apple outlines. One example being, the women at Sarah’s Circle. A lot of these women’s have had to live with the circumstances that they were given, cope and manage what they didn’t select but were served. I’ve only volunteered for two shifts, and I have a limited understanding of all of the services Sarah’s Circle provides for it’s clients, but I am beginning to learn that one of them is respecting each woman’s individual agency. When I served breakfast that morning, the goal was more than just to provide them with nutrients and sustenance (though that was a big part of it)it was to make the space for them to choose and then re-choose; leaning through a food service window to ask someone if they would prefer Raisin Bran or rice Krispy, or taking back the styrofoam bowl of cereal when the person in front of you says “Actually I just want an egg”; might not seem like much, but like my club breakfast taught me: a little can go along way.
