The city where I lived when I was a student, was a cultural and tourist place; full of places where you could go for a walk, sit and talk and also why not? Eat a delicious cake in a plaza while admiring the beautiful mountain scenery.
Merida is a beautiful city to spend your vacations, or to live in; I don't know how things are now but they must not be much different since I left. There was one place in particular where I hung out with my two best friends; one of them, Mariana, knew the owner of a place we loved. It was a bakery-coffeeshop with very good prices, I remember my favorite was a chocolate cake with vanilla and chocolate chip frosting and whipped cream.
They also sold coffees that made your heart go soft with pleasure. Your palate danced in a sea of good flavors that left you surfing for hours, and after it was all over and you were satisfied, a smile would settle on your face for the rest of the day.
Mr. Esposito's bakery and cafeteria were our regular meeting places for gossip, appointments, doing college work or just tasting our favorite dishes. It was a quiet place where you could read in peace, no one interrupted you or made loud noises, as one of the rules of the establishment was that customers kept their voices low.
We had to ask for something to consume if we wanted to spend hours there and there was no problem with that, because apart from the coziness of the place, with comfortable wicker tables, artistic paintings hanging on the walls, Wi-Fi connection and an almost sepulchral silence, there was an excellent aroma that flooded our noses like the sea to the waves.
The smells were a combination of cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate, and some other fruit like peach (the peach cake was delicious) and peach. It was as if you lit some incense in your house and got rid of bad energies. It was inevitable to feel comfortable and happy until you went out and had to go back home.
I always wished I could take a paradise of tranquility from that place to my rented place, enjoying a good dinner while reading a good book. There was a time when my friends and I spent more time at Mr. Esposito's cafeteria, and we stopped going to other establishments just to be there.
Mr. Esposito treated us with kindness since he knew us as regular customers, and he always approached us to talk to us. He would tell us about his life, his children, and his family back in Italy. He confessed that he missed very much the village where he lived in Sicily, where his brother and sister-in-law were, and that we would have liked to enjoy the smells of the countryside combined with those of the Mediterranean Sea, which was very particular in that area.
She also told us about a beautiful dream of bringing those rapturous aromas to this little piece of land that she called "My little Italy". His father was also a pastry chef and made the best desserts you could find on the whole island. He taught his son everything he knew, and as Mr. Esposito was very creative, he began experimenting with new flavors based on his smells.
When he was 24 years old, he moved to Venezuela, with his future wife and some of his cousins, settling in the city of Merida. Years later, he created his small business, in which at the beginning he only sold bread made by him, but over time he transformed it into one of the most popular coffee shops in the city.
All of us young university students used to gather there, not only because of the economic benefits but also because of the delicious coffee and cakes. However, sad news happened, Mr. Esposito passed away due to a liver deficiency. My friends and I were shocked, especially Mariana who was the closest to Mr. Esposito.
She was devastated and asked us to accompany her to the funeral, so we did it was a very sad event because the owner of that coffee shop was a very dear person. Months passed and things were not the same. Mr. Esposito's eldest son; Antonino was left in charge of the cafeteria. He was a very nice guy, but he didn't have the same perspective as his father, so everything started to change.
The sweet, bitter, and ecstatic smells that flooded the place were denigrated. The flavors of coffee and desserts were no longer the same; they had lowered their quality. The policies changed and other types of clients began to arrive; they broke the peace that was breathed in the place.
Gradually, our favorite place was becoming a kind of "Pub" of bad death, so my friends and I made the bitter decision not to return; missing the aromas that came from there.
We didn't get another favorite place, but we did visit several places and stayed that way for years. In the current city where I am, many establishments reminded me of Mr. Esposito's business when he was alive, and one of them brought a smile to my face, as it gave off the same aroma that the man from Sicily made.
THE END
