Coffee and Toast

A few days ago I stopped at a local deli to pick up a container of coffee and a buttered roll. I got a whiff of bread toasting in a toaster and suddenlythe smell of the toast took me back to my dad's coffee shop, When I was a litle girl my dad owned a coffee shop on Columbus Avenue and 82nd Street in Manhattan. Sometimes my sister and I would go there before close up time to meet our father. My father would always prepare a special treat for me. He would make me an order of buttered white toast using the square pieces of white bread you'ld only find in restaurants. He would sprinkle the buttered toast with sugar and cinnamon and then give me a cup of coffee in a green and white cup and saucer. Of course, my coffee was mostly milk with just enough coffee to color and flavor it. The toast, always two slices,would sit on the plate squared off and sliced on the diagonal into triangles. The butter would be all melted into the toast and the cinnamon and sugar would seep into toast, especially if my dad had used an extra pat of butter. I loved dunking the toast into the coffee. Towards the end, the coffee would get a little sweeter with a cinnamon taste. Many years later, when I was already married and a young mother, I found a square white bread by Taystee in the market. It was called sandwich white and I bought a loaf home. I was so excited thinking that I could finally re[plicate my father's treat for my children.
PKK