I'm a food and travel writer from the shores of Lake Erie, now based in Berlin. I attempt to send out weekly essays on my latest mishaps and travels around the globe and in the kitchen. If you would like to support my work, please consider sharing this newsletter with a friend or acquaintance (Iām not picky).
ParunÄsim kafe'teeka is on my Google Maps of Riga with a little green flag like so many other bars, restaurants, and cafĆ©s in the city. Iāve marked them because someone or some article recommended them and thatās about as much thought as Iāve given it.
I couldāve stumbled into any number of cafĆ©s I had saved for my four-ish day stay in Riga last week. But parunÄsim kafe'teeka was near my hotelāāand that was reason enough. The streets of Riga were painted with snow, the temperature was several degrees below freezing, and my body had yet to acclimate. Short distances were my friend.
ParunÄsim kafe'teeka is in the cityās almost-too-picturesque old town, but isolated in a way thanks to its secluded location down a quite, cobblestone alley. A large sign reads āCAFEā at the entrance with tiny light bulbs within the letters like an old-school carnival. Inside, the lights are dim and thereās a jazzy soundtrack softly reverberating across the two floors of the cafĆ©.
The first floor seems like an elegant elevation of the standard cafƩ. Nothing over the top. I spotted a couple of round wooden tables with chairs that would probably only be comfortable for a half hour or so. There was a rather plush couch, but no more intimate at first glance than the one imprinted with the butt cheeks of the cast from Friends.
Iām waiting at the front of the line for what seems like an inordinate amount of time even though Iām close enough to the baristas that they can purely hear me breathing. This is standard European fare. Itās not meant to be rude, but thereās no point in acknowledging my existence until they can take my order. A similar scene in the US might have the barista asking me how Iām doing and apologizing profusely that they canāt drop everything to take my order.
I notice something called a āRiga coffeeā on the menu. Itās apparently a blend of coffee, hot wine, and balsamāāubiquitous liquor in Latvia. Iām ready to get it until I see that they lather it with whipped cream. Nothing against whipped cream, but Iād rather stuff myself on actual food. So I put in an order for a regular coffee and head upstairs.
This is when I discovered that parunÄsim kafe'teeka is specifically a romantic cafĆ©. This is where you take a date, not a notebook and a kindle. There are cozy couches and chairs you usually see in front of fireplaces in period films and the inviting glow of a handful of table-side lamps. I grab a seat in one of the chairs, perhaps the most comfortable Iāve ever experienced at a cafĆ©. I couldāve let those cushions swallow me whole while the hours melted away and I got lost in my book.
The music occasionally pulls me away from the trance with its jazzy covers of American pop music. Iām talking Michael Jacksonās āThrillerā and a number of Lady GaGa tunes sung by the backup Sinatra in Vegas.
But it doesnāt bother me. Iām in my sweet spot of travelāācozied up someplace new without the FOMO guilt pushing me to spend five hours walking around the city to cram everything in.
Sitting there, I feel like I could do nothing all day.
(If you know me, you know thatās a lie. But I thought it was a nice ending.)
The RarƔmuri Figured Out the Perfect Drink For Running Through The Night
The second in my ongoing series looking at the endurance nutrition of different cultures for Trail Runner continues with this story on the RarƔmuri of modern-day Mexico. The story is paywalled, so sorry about that. But you can at least see me make agua chile pinole de atole with a recipe from the story.
Four Days in Swedish SƔpmi | SƔmi Food, Hiking & Reindeer
Itās been a while, but I finally scrapped together my footage from my trip to Swedish SĆ”pmi. Watch it on YouTube.