Marble Falls In our house, we don’t buy bread. Part of the reason is that mi companera is allergic to wheat, so if were just me, coming and going, it could end up a high school science project on mold. It wouldn’t though, because I don’t eat bread, at least not at home. On the road, it’s unavoidable. I don’t hate it or anything, it’s just that I think it fills you up, and I’d rather eat other stuff. I was always struck by what a registered nurse, who at the time was the president of the local union at the huge Jackson Memorial public hospital in Miami, told me across the table, as we sat eating at some union function decades ago: bread is just something to bring butter to the body. I don’t even know if that is true, but I believed her completely, thought about, and decided I didn’t really have any good reason to eat bread.
That’s me. On the other hand, there’s Caity Weaver. I don’t know sister Weaver, but there I was looking at the cover of the current issue of The Atlantic, where an article she had written was plastered in pink all over the cover blaring out the headline: “My Quest to Find America’s Best Free Bread.” The Atlantic might be described by some of the young as the dowager magazine of America. It’s no zine. Wikipedia offers that…
The Atlantic, founded in 1857 in Boston, is one of America’s oldest and most prestigious magazines, but it is not the absolute oldest. Other publications, such as Scientific American (1845), predate it. It is widely recognized for its high-quality commentary on literature, politics, and culture since its inception.
Did this bread story qualify as “high-quality,” because it had “best” in the title? What was happening here? Why were they paying Weaver to travel thousands of miles around the country waving an expense account at restaurants high and low to look for “free bread” and then put it on the cover of the magazine?
Luckily, I’m here to answer that question from the ranks of the readers, rather than the bread eaters. The article was actually informative, and, way more importantly, Caity Weaver is a character, and the article was hilarious. If David Sedaris can write regularly for The New Yorker, celebrating its first 100 years, then make way for Caity Weaver in The Atlantic and hope for their sake and ours that she has a piece between the covers on the regular.
First, she has to define “free bread” and its purpose. It’s the rolls or basket of bread that you may or may not get while you’re waiting for your order, like chips and salsa at a Mexican place. Some chefs and owners she interviews say it’s not free, though its purpose is to keep the customer content while waiting for the kitchen to catch up with the orders. All of this was the interesting part.
The more enjoyable parts were Weaver’s wacky commentary along the way. Her survey was randomized, but not in the scientific way, but totally random in the way she asked more than 500 people, basically whoever she ran into wherever, what restaurant served the best free bread. Along the way, we learn about her Diet Coke addiction, which I could appreciate having lived through someone kicking a Tab addiction back in the day. Not for everyone perhaps, but I especially enjoyed all of her sly class-based swipes at the bread experts, especially the one who claimed he only ate at “artisanal” restaurants, whatever that might be, and when she asked him whether he would eat at something like a Red Lobster, he explained that his was why he “didn’t travel in America.” You got to love category rankings for free bread that throw praise on the rolls at the Texas Roadhouse, the Cheddar Bay Biscuit at the Red Lobster, and the brown roll at the Cheesecake Factory. Part of what made this so funny for me, was wondering how many Atlantic readers could claim to have ever eaten at any or all three of those places. She reported on a place in Tennessee that throws the rolls to you. I thought this was bizarre until I touted the article to mi companera, and she asked me if they mentioned the roll throwing place. Who knew? Not me. The winner turned out to be “bring your whole paycheck” fancy dancey place in Philly that spends a half-million a year on their free bread and makes thousands of loaves daily. For bread eaters, like Weaver, put the Parc in Philly and its sister outfit, Le Diplomate in DC on your feed bucket list.
This was a hoot, which is why I can’t resist sharing. I also looked up Weaver, since I’m now convinced, she’s an up and comer. It turns out she’s been plying this kind of beat for a while. How could I have missed her until now? I seem to have avoided her piece earlier on Reenactors, because they are so much not my cup of tea, and living in the South, too often their an inch away from the KKK and definitely not over the Civil War yet. Same for something about pennies, but she may have had a point. When she worked at the Times, I did read a piece she wrote for the magazine about Flo nee Stephanie Courtney, the pitchwoman, professional comedian for Progressive insurance, but I hadn’t put two and two together until now.
If you have a half-hour on a Sunday, check her out and pass the biscuits!