Sometimes life is like a piece of focaccia bread—beautiful on the outside, but bland on the inside.

France colonized Vietnam, meaning I’ve got opinions about bread—and growing up in the suburbs means I know which fast casual chains have the best complimentary baskets. My top three include the never-ending breadsticks from Olive Garden, brown bread from Cheesecake Factory, and rosemary focaccia from Romano’s Macaroni Grill, which I can no longer access because they closed all the locations in Washington state 😭

In other words? I take my carb consumption seriously—and this $5 square of focaccia at Sweetgreen definitely gave me the look after the employee making my chicken pesto parm squeezed on hot sauce despite my previous request to eliminate it (sigh.) The closer I inch to the register, the more I can smell the herbs wafting into my nostrils.

Turning to my childhood best friend, I ask, “Should we split the focaccia?” and I don’t even know why I bothered because she always goes along with my hare-brained ideas—including the time my husband got Arby’s coupons in the mail and ordered half the menu with them.

(Shockingly, no one was drunk or had the munchies—just sleep deprived from raising infants.)

We hurry back to our kids, who are dipping French fries in ketchup while my husband tracks the calories of his now-empty Chipotle bowl. My daughter proclaims, “Mama, I finally lost my tooth!” After browbeating myself for waiting in line for a salad instead of witnessing this milestone, I tear off a piece of the focaccia…

And immediately spit it out in a napkin.

But it cost $5, so I tucked the leftovers into my purse before finishing my hot-sauce-covered salad without nearly enough chicken to supplement my lift earlier that morning. (Then again, Sweetgreen lists “avocado” as a protein option—what did I expect?)

After getting home, I started brainstorming ideas to repurpose it. Maybe I could make a grilled cheese sandwich. Or croutons. Or drown it in a pile of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. My husband sprinkles sea salt on it, and even he declares it to be a sorry excuse for a piece of bread. Later that night, I’m still not over it:

I suspect this happens more than we’re willing to admit—we’ve already paid the money or put in the effort, so we better suck it up. Of course there are life circumstances that warrant an “it is what it is” attitude, like a job you despise but need to pay your mortgage, or a loved one who’s making terrible life choices, but not enough to warrant blowing up a relationship.

But with food? What I choose to put in my body is a non-negotiable.

In the end, the focaccia got pitched into the trash and I coughed up another $5 because the “tooth fairy” paid a visit to my daughter that night. After an emotional rollercoaster of a week involving the world’s worst runny nose and three missed school days (translation: Mama wrote nothing but this newsletter), my husband took pity and treated me to dinner at the Olive Garden, where I happily munched salad on an ice-cold plate, twirled my fork through shrimp scampi pasta that was definitely more than the 490 calories listed on the menu, and of course, got my beloved breadsticks. Did we need ten of them for two adults and one child? Of course not—but you bet I took home the leftovers.

Considering my daughter would eat artisanal sourdough for every meal if I allowed it, this is proof (no pun intended) that you can take the girl out of the suburbs, but you can’t take the suburbs out of the girl.

Yours in carbs,

Sophia :)

P.S. Reply and let me know—what’s your Holy Grail of bread (chain restaurant or not)?