It’s Tuesday morning. I’m on vacation. I slept till 3:30 am. I can hear the wind in the trees. My coffee is hot, strong, and creamy. I did my morning micro workout. I now have time to unwind in front of our blog and reflect. What do I see in the reflection and what does the reflection see?
I am looking for observations, for points to begin. I am looking to rest, to reboot and refresh. I was reminded that this blog is a gift. A gift that gives us a place to share our thoughts, observations and discoveries.
I am working on unwinding. And unwinding may be more thought of as untangling.
I want to share a story about angst and anger, maybe frustration, connection, opinions, change and opportunity. That’s a lot to wind together in what I think will be a short story.
As I wrote, we are on vacation. In order to prepare for vacation we needed to tie up loose ends at Curiosity Doughnuts and prepare for a week away. One part of the preparation was making sure we sold out of everything so we didn’t have any wasted products. I planned to run out of breakfast sandwiches at the shop either on Saturday or Sunday morning. We don’t make a ton of the sandwiches as a whole. The limiting factor in our sandwich production is our homemade English muffins. Long story short, we sold out of breakfast sandwiches mid-morning on Saturday. We had a few portions of eggs remaining but nothing to serve them on. I planned, just not perfectly. As our Saturday evolved we had a difficult situation where a customer ripped into our counter staff because we ran out of breakfast sandwiches and stormed out. This same customer came back later for doughnuts but also with a hoagie and bottled waters in hand so she could have her family dine on something before doughnuts. Yes, they brought in the lunch they wanted, thinking nothing of the fact.
Okay, so we were out of sandwiches. Then came Sunday. I missed a pre-ordered breakfast sandwich in the cue and thankfully had an understanding customer who was willing to accept extra doughnuts and kouign-amann in place of the missing breakfast sandwich. The morning was young and we were simultaneously working on coffee and doughnuts waffles for a tiramisu idea I had. (That will be another story I can get to.) As the waffles were being made we had a few more customers come in asking for our breakfast sandwich. (I started beating myself up mentally for not planning better.) Then my mind connected the idea of putting our breakfast sandwich on the coffee and doughnuts waffle, in the style of the McGriddle. Mind you, I have avoided the McGriddle at all costs. Eggs and sausage on a pancake? But my daughter loves them. And then recently I saw in season 5 of the Bear, there’s a scene featuring the genius of the McGriddle. This absorbed information connected with the current situation, somehow giving validity to its culinary place, had me give it a go. I built a breakfast sandwich: Calabrian chile butter, provolone, mortadella and cream scrambled eggs on our coffee and doughnuts waffle. Damn if it wasn’t delicious. The waffle was soft, tender, sweet and slightly smokey and bitter from the coffee. The eggs, mortadella and cheese were warm, rich and salty. The butter gave a little richness and spice. This sandwich while cut from the same cloth as our original English muffin version was distinctly different.
In that moment a Curiosity Doughnuts special was born. We ran through our eggs and were thankfully able to make a good amount of customers happy with our newest creation. But, I don’t think I would have made this sandwich happen had all the other moments of life not taken place. The ups and downs provided me with the material to create. And I’m loving it.
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OMG I love this story! Like you I have avoided the McGriddle and I’ll be damned now . Reading through the IIF archive, as I have, I have seen you do this on more than a few occasions and that’s a big reason why I’m here. It’s always inspirational.