Cheap Eats

By L.E. Leone
 

As I Lay Dying

LET ME SEE if I can write a resurrection column. 'Tis the season! Or I should say: 'Twas the season. At Breakfast at Tiffany's, one of the city's undersung breakfast-lunch counters, they've got little kid crayon-drawn greetings Happy Holidating you for Christmas still, not to mention Easter. Me and Pete sat at a table under a string of red garland hung with small stockings. Merry Christmas, Happy Easter – all over the walls.

This Portola restaurant has that rare feel of a real down-home family-style restaurant, like the old Chava's, before it burned down and came back to life as a glorified taquería. There's a picture of Audrey Hepburn from the movie, and a lot of old, graying (or greasing) newspaper clippings pinned to the wood paneling. At the top of the specials board over the grill it says, in chalk, "Good morning, San Francisco."

Good morning, Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Audrey, Pete. Pete, Audrey.

But let's let the star of this review be Clem, who wasn't there. Clem is in second grade, the son of two of my favorite folks from the local music scene. We were all eating Indian food in the Tenderloin the following day after a show, and Clem says to me, he says, "You painted your fingernails."

"Yes," I said.

"I know someone who painted theirs green," Clem said.

"Me too. I painted mine green for my last show," I said.

"I hate to say this," said Clem, looking at my face, my fingers, my face, "but you look like a girl."

"You hate to say it? Well, I'm happy to hear it. Thank you, Clem!"

Clem has tried several times, and with some success, to swing from my earrings. He is capable of making a leap. And now he made one, his eyes widening. "Are you trying to turn into a girl?" he said.

I wish I'd answered him more directly, like, "Yes. Bingo! You win, kid!" And hoisted him onto my shoulder and paraded him around the room. But his mom was sitting there, laughing. And I was laughing. And there was another mom with another kid, and they didn't know me and weren't laughing. And you never know what folks want their kids to know or hear or how or what, so I said, lamely, "Something like that."

Or something like that.

And he went, "Weird" – which I agree with – and went back to running around the room with a six-foot bamboo pole and his eyes closed.

I think it's time for Christians to reread Kubler-Ross and get over it, already. Jesus died. He did not come back to life. Not literally, and, if figuratively, he's dead again. Get over it.

If you need something symbolic to cling to and believe in, there are thousands of realer, more relevant, more present examples of resurrection in your own backyard. Right now. Or, if you don't have a yard, or it's raining out, just open your eyes and think for a second. You, personally, have died a thousand deaths. No, really. It's a great way to get over your fear of death: realize how dead you already are, and always have been and always will be, blah blah blah. I died, for example, in an apple tree at age nine in 1972. I died in 1989 on a living room floor in Maine. I died in a hardwood hallway, San Francisco, in 1993, and in an airplane over Canada, 1999, and in a tree in North Carolina just a little over a year ago. I could go on and on.

And yet, here I am, going on and on, living to tell you and Pete about it – and waffles. The ones at Breakfast at Tiffany's are thick and cakey and very good. Good sausage patties too. The only thing is, I wish they wouldn't melt the butter into the syrup, because now how are you supposed to control your butter-to-syrup ratio?

Give me butter.

Give me syrup.

Waffles are what I eat these days when I go out for breakfast. I love waffles, but the reason I order them is because they aren't eggs, which I eat every day at home.

Hey, you say, but there are eggs in waffles.

That's very true, and I will have to think about it. Waffles aren't eggs, but what's the difference between being a thing and having a thing be in you? 
 

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. 2499 San Bruno (at Thornton), S.F. (415) 468-0977. Mon.-Fri., 6 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 7 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Takeout available. Beer and wine. Credit cards not accepted. Wheelchair accessible. 

L.E. Leone is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).
 

March 30, 2005