My friends Bob and Deb are fond of this particular
Panera just off the New York Thruway, where they stop
to break up the trip across the state to see their son;
they get various healthy salady things, and when I've
gone there before I've declined their offer, but this
time I was hungry and had them buy me a pecan roll,
which was your usual thing, the caramel being a bit
stickier than normal, the nuts a bit toastier - I figured
it had been heated a bit too long, but that's not so bad,
as that might pre-burn-off a couple of the impressive
790 Calories the thing is advertised as having. It
tasted pretty good and was probably worth the 150 carbs.

Deb, fueled with coffee and pastries, listened to about
5 versions of Schubert's Ave Maria including Pavarotti's,
where he hilariously forgets the words to the second verse.
Over and over and over.

Then she spent two hours singing the song to us, practicing
for her role in the wedding to come. She has a very nice
voice but also has trouble with the words at times.

--
At some point we found a little cafe in a burblet whose
name I forget, an old mill town revitalized by Asian and
middle eastern immigrants. In this little town is a little
cafe called Zaina's, run by a big middle eastern guy and his
apparently cheerful staff. The tables were packed with
people presumably of the same nationality as the proprietor.

We arrived just as a three came available, and no sooner
were we seated than the proprietor greeted us with cups
of thick Turkish coffee, which I felt unable to refuse and
defiled with lots of sugar the way the natives do it. It
was good, bizarrely strong but oddly not too distressing
to my mental state.

For my dinner I had the eggplant fries appetizer, which
came tender inside, crisp but not hard on the outside, and
just greasy enough. About a whole medium or 2/3 of a large;
a lot of food.

Bob had shish taouk, a giant plate, two maybe 6 oz skewers
of marinated white meat chicken, sided with pilaf and salad.
I tried a tiny bite of the chicken, just enough to confirm
that it was juicy enough and tender enough but not my thing.

Deb's falafel plate was 5 2-oz blimps of fried cumin-laced
chickpea and ?bulghur mash, sided with the same salad and
rice - as there was no chance she would finish that all, I
accept the tribute of a couple spoons of rice (salty) and
a falafel, which was very tasty. I think Bob also got a
falafel and some rice, He is built like a teenage basketball
player and eats like one despite being in his 70s.

One baklawa was enough for three: it was standard, but the
pastry had been refrigerated a bit too long. The syrup had
lots of lemon in with the cinnamon. Went well with coffee.

I took the tab - all we could eat and maybe more than we
should have, under $40.

--
So we arrived at the Hilton Garden Inn Auburn, where I was
to stay with the wedding party one night and then make way
for the bride's family and move over to the Days Inn a half
mile down the road. Accordingly, and as befits my exalted
status, they gave me the suite reserved for the bride's
parents next day. I made sure not to trash it.

The hotel offered a custom amenity bag for the wedding
attendees that included snacks, a first-aid kit, water, and
a number of apples - the bride's father is on Cornell's
renowned apple (not Apple) development team.
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