Breakfast at Tiffany's

While nobody I know can afford to shop at Tiffany's anymore, the film Breakfast at Tiffany's has long been my favorite. From the style and grace of Audrey Hepburn to several memorable quotes, including this classic.

"You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself."

I know the movie so well I can explain the difference between "the blues" and "the mean reds" and I still wonder sometimes if you can grow so tall by "gorging" oneself on peanut butter.

But there is a mystery to this movie for me. In the famous opening scene, as Holly Golightly's walks down 5th Avenue at 6am, I often wonder, "What is she eating?" Obviously she has a cup of Street Cart coffee, but what is that pastry? Is it a simple butter croissant? Is it a chocolate croissant? It's not a bagel with shmear, that much I know.

Because this movie exudes class and sophistication to me, I've always dreamt it was a chocolate croissant.

As I sit here this morning in my decidedly unglamorous life, sipping my NYC coffee and eating a chocolate croissant, I think of Holly Golightly and silently thank her for making slightly crazy and neurotic seem simultaneously romantic and simply a passing fancy.