a love affair.

A patient brought me this chocolate cake last week. Layers of moist chocolate cake and chocolate mousse and a hard chocolate icing. It was a tad bit crazy last week trying to unpack and get life in order at the new house, while continuing with bazillion project we had started over the weekend. I was smart enough to unpack the essentials first, which of course includes the Bailey's.

Coffee with Bailey's... AND chocolate cake! A dream come true.

I don't remember the exact moment I had coffee with Bailey's , but I do know when I started loving them. In the fall of 2003 I started waitressing at Emile's, a family owned restaurant in upstate NY. I had quite a bit of waitressing experience when I started. Mostly chain restaurants that use a system of limited table assignments and overlapping shifts, so that the staff is largest during prime dinning times on the weekends. It's common in these types of restaurants for some of the service staff to leaver earlier in the night, when things start to die down and a small group stays to close the night.

Emile's was famous it's prime rib and the salad bar. Patrons loved it. For me and the other gals, it meant more work; setting up, filling and cleaning throughout the night, and putting it all away at the end of the night. This, combined with the way the restaurant was set up, led to a pooled tip system. All the waitresses put their tips together at the end of the night and it was divided equally. This meant that everyone stayed the entire night.

This also meant at the end of the night we all gathered at the bar for an after work drink. The bartender was usually Karen (I found her picture on the website, so I guess she's still there.)

via

My drink was coffee with Bailey's. I worked there almost every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night for over a year. I had a coffee with Bailey's at the end of every shift. We've been in love every since.