Coffee: The Most Important Meal of the Day

Chapter 3 of "It Was A Typical Day in West Hartford."

Coffee is a big deal in West Hartford. A lot of people I know have espresso machines in their kitchens; my vet even had one permanently connected to his home’s plumbing system [warning: the sequitur is anon] before he moved to Florida to practice acupuncture on dogs.

Some of my best times in West Hartford centered on coffee. My friend who lives near West Hartford Center (the same one we had the mimosas with at the opening of this book) had us over once a month or so on a weekend night. We’d have exquisite freshly-made desserts — cakes, pies, tarts and éclairs — Petite Écolier cookies, maybe homemade cornbread baked in an iron skillet (you’ve got to try this for yourself, there’s no comparison), plum wine (1 glass and I’d fall asleep on the sofa with a couple of retired greyhounds), sometimes shrimp scampi (“Waiter, this shrimp is scampi — bring me another!”) with butter and garlic drippings over basmati rice — really, it was like our own private café. I don’t know how she does it.

When we weren’t standing around the kitchen discussing recipes from Saveur and Cooks’ Illustrated hot off the stainless steel Viking gas range we would be in the living room watching a movie on her big screen entertainment center. (One year, after Thanksgiving dinner, while the ladies retired to the drawing room, the man of the house offered me a flute of a lethal petroleum distillate they called a “cherry liqueur.” Right. Do people really drink that stuff?)

My friend and I were competitive in the kitchen: She channels Julia Child and Jacques Pépin while I am an Iron Chef. She has her Henckels cutlery and I my Wüsthof Culinar with the stainless steel handles. She wouldn’t deign to use MY cutlery — not that I would have let her — and I couldn’t possibly have used HERs; some things are beneath me. (Actually, it was no contest — she’s the best.)

Coffee was the constant in all these soirées, and espresso can make you do funny things. One Saturday evening about 11:30, after a few homemade gourmet desserts, fresh fruit, cheeses, wine, and some espressos, we had put our coats on, ready to go home to our apartment on Newport Avenue. We gathered in the foyer, under the antique chandelier that I kept hitting my head on, and instinctively, presciently paused; there was a moment of expectant silence. We looked at each other; what would happen next? This couldn’t be the end, could it? “Want to rearrange the living room furniture?” our hostess cheerfully cried. “OK!” So we fell to work, swapping the antique couch with the grand piano in no time.

Why? Why not. It was a typical day in West Hartford.

Coffee shops abound in West Hartford — we can’t get enough. In fact, if you want a snooty, elitist cop joke, let me say in West Hartford our policemen may be found having espresso, cappuccino, and biscotti rather than the conventional coffee and donut fare of those “other” towns around us. Please.

While there have been diners in West Hartford for years (check out the old photos of West Hartford Center at the Post Office on LaSalle Road), the current upmarket coffee lifestyle we identify with today began in the late 1980s with Nature’s (the ones who really started it all, the original innovators, despite what some may say and the credit others may attempt to claim) and the legendary Peter B’s Espresso. The great thing about Nature’s was the live jazz and outdoor seating in that cozy little brick nook just off the Brace Road parking lot. Thursdays through Saturdays the brick courtyard was packed — standing room only sometimes — with people literally of all ages, from infants to people in their 80s. It was the only venue I knew where teenagers would hang out on Friday night, get excited about the music and the scene, and then come back Saturday night bringing their parents.

Peter B’s always had the best coffee, and my beagle Kramer loved the imported Italian butter cookies. I’d walk into town from my apartment on Newport Avenue about 3 times a day, it seemed. After Peter B’s closed (and before 59er’s took over) I was devastated. It was like a friend had died. Our little group of regulars had our own diaspora as it were; an era had passed. In fact, I had sunk so low as to buy my coffee from Gevalia over the Internet. Gevalia coffee was OK, but it just wasn’t Peter B’s. No more Kristi the manager; no more Ralph and his stone statue of the coffee god from Mexico; no more Loren (no, it wasn’t Ralph Lauren!). Oh Loren! Half my age, with your pink hair, diamond-pierced nose, and saucy comebacks! Comeback to ME!

While Nature’s and Peter B’s are the major coffee houses in my memory, there have been many others as well: Starbucks (3 locations: Bishops Corner, West Hartford Center, and Corbins Corner), Dunkin’ Donuts (6 locations: West Hartford Center, Sedgwick Road, Farmington Avenue West, Bishops Corner, New Park Avenue, and New Britain Avenue), and Michaele’s Coffee & Tea.

Other shops offered coffee prominently but not as a main business: Bruegger’s Bagels, Bagelz with a Z (formerly Manhattan Bagels), Sally and Bob’s Deli-ette, Tray’s, Quaker Diner, Steak and Egg Kitchen, Central Delicatessen, Barnes & Noble, and Borders Books and Music. Remember that soup store on South Main Street? Val’s on Farmington Avenue? Nanshe’s? Recently we have been joined by Panera in Bishops Corner. Our cups — our COFFEE cups — runneth over, and we must count our blessings. Where Norman Rockwell gave us “Freedom from Want” with a Thanksgiving dinner, West Hartford hath delivered coffee and bagels.

"It Was A Typical Day In West Hartford: Lifestyles of the Merely Suburban" may be purchased online at lulu.com