Sunday was Mother's Day, and Mother's Day means brunch. And brunch, in my world, means french toast. So it was pretty much a given that I would spend the morning of Mother's Day munching on pan-grilled bread drizzled with syrup. Never mind that my mother is several thousand miles away - I'm sure that if she had been here, she would have wanted to be taken to brunch, and, had that been the case, I would probably have taken her to the Green Street Cafe, which stands about a block from my apartment, just across the street from Smith College.
So it was in honor of both of our absent mothers that Kate and I ventured out yesterday morning, timing our visit to coincide with the opening of the cafe at 10am, reasoning, not without reason, that the place would quickly fill up with people who had made the same Mother's Day plans as we did, albeit accompanied by their actual mothers.
Sure enough, when we walked through the door the jolly, white-haired, ponytailed man that greeted us said to Kate, "Well you don't look old enough to be a mother!" Which is not strictly true - a woman in her late 20s, no matter how youthful looking, could certainly be a mother (indeed, back home it's practically required) - but I suppose he may have meant that she didn't look old enough to be my mother, which is certainly true. Though I'd humbly submit that my actual mother doesn't look old enough to be mother, either. But that's neither here nor there.
As it happened, the cafe wasn't very busy, although a steady stream of families did file in while we dined. This gave us an opportunity to contemplate the most striking feature of the Green Street Cafe, a vibrant mural that takes up an entire wall along the cafe's west side. The mural, called "Last Staff Supper at Green Street Cafe," is modeled on Da Vinci's "Last Supper" and depicts a group of people - cafe employees and owners - gathered around a Christ-ish figure holding a blueprint. Here are some photos I took; better ones are here.
The artist, Jeff Mack, painted it to raise awareness of the long-festering dispute between the cafe and its landlady, Smith College. It's a classic town-gown quarrel: the college, which owns the cafe as well as most of the surrounding neighborhood, is building a new engineering building that's disrupting business and threatens eventually to obliterate the block of buildings in which the cafe sits. The cafe's parking lot has been closed for nearly two years due to the construction, as has its outdoor patio, and this, say the owners, has cost the cafe some 75% of its business. The mural was painted almost three years ago, when the dispute began, but things are only now starting to get settled - in March the cafe owners filed a lawsuit, and in April a judge found in favor of the college. Smith promises to look after the interests of the neighborhood, but the cafe's lease runs out in 2012, after which the Green Street Cafe could well cease to exist.
Which would be a shame, because it's a very friendly place that serves some very wonderful food. They grow a lot of their food in their own gardens and buy most of the rest locally - the menu said that they have a "Locavore Rating" of 4 out of 5, which sounded pretty good to us ("locavore," I believe, is Spanish for "crazy eater") - and the menu changes often to reflect whatever food is in season.
And the french toast, I'm happy to report, was wonderful. It may just be that, after my recent diner experiences, anything that didn't taste like mushy-egg-burp would inevitably taste magically delicious, but I'm pretty sure most objective observers would agree with me. The bread was a sort of chewy sourdough, light and crispy and (for the most part) not too gooey, the syrup was not only real but also warm, which is an innovation of which I heartily approve, and the overall taste was sweet and flavorful. My principal complaint is that there wasn't enough of it, and, for that reason, the Lone Wolf retains the lead. But the Green Street Cafe easily takes it place among the runners-up, sharing a spot with the Esselon Cafe and Haymarket as a purveyor of Almost-Perfect French Toast.
This prompts me to suggest to the owners of the cafe what seems, to me, a fairly obvious solution to their dispute with Smith: drop the lawsuits and instead invite the college administration over for some free french toast. Call it the "We Love Smith College French Toast Gala," get someone like Rachel Maddow or Judith Butler to come give a keynote address, and they'll be all, "Wrecking ball? What wrecking ball? Here's a lease until 2062!"
Seriously, y'all. Try it. Just try not to drizzle syrup on that lease.
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