Tough Cookies

"We get a lot of people who order the chutney chicken salad, and they don't know what chutney is and they get upset," she explained. We compromised only when I agreed not to get the chutney chicken salad on bread — like a "normal" sandwich — and to eat it as a salad, even though the menu clearly lists both styles of chicken salad sandwiches. It was just like arguing with my own difficult mother, which probably wasn't so good for my digestive system.

Debbie went on about Deepak Chopra while I watched a trio of well-coiffed, beautifully manicured matrons having lunch together, but not really. Two of the three were having animated conversations on their cell phones while their companion ate in silence. They didn't smell like Brookside but certainly acted like it.

A couple of days later, I returned for another Classic Cookie breakfast, dragging along my sleepy friend. He perked up only when he saw his friend Gaby at the next table and they started gossiping about mutual friends. I couldn't decide what to order: the herbed-potato-and-sausage casserole that I'd loved on my earlier visit, or an omelet, or the Breakfast Burrito filled with "gently scrambled eggs," bacon, green onions and cheese. I hesitated about ordering potatoes, but I saw artist Jim Sajovic at the next table, and he assured me that I shouldn't miss The Classic Cookie's fried potatoes. "They're the best in the world," he said.

And they may be. The secret, Leslie Stockard confessed to me later, is that they're fried in bacon grease. That makes the little spuds golden and crunchy on the outside, tender and soft on the inside — I could have eaten a silo of them.

Bob had the breakfast sandwich — egg, cheese and bacon on toast — and a bowl of fresh fruit and some yogurt and most of my potatoes.

While he and Gaby gabbed, I watched a beautiful blond couple who were freshly tousled, as if they had just rolled out of bed to stroll over to the Cookie for coffee. He scratched his head and read the sports section of the newspaper, and she chatted on and on about picking up their wedding invitations that day.

"Aren't you excited?" she asked him. He nodded, without looking up from Joe Posnanski's column.

A bridegroom with plenty of testosterone, if you ask me.