Free, the word holds so much more value when you are a struggling college student. My roommate and I went to the village in search of an edible meal as we usually do every once in a while in order to get away from the norm. Since we had already been to many of the restaurants in the village, which was easy since there sadly is only a small handful, we decided to go to Panera. A chain restaurant like McDonalds, yet Panera is able to have a better quality of food as well as a more welcoming atmosphere. After waiting in line and pondering my choices it was finally my turn to order. Though I was not exactly prepared, seeing that I take a long time making any kind of decision, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. The cashier kindly took my order and my money and then told me about their myPanera card. When she said that it was free and that I could get a surprise if I registered, I was engulfed with a sense of happiness and gleefully strolled to my seat as I waited. It was such an easy thing to do that as I waited for my buzzer to go off I registered my card.
The next week, my roommate and me went to Panera for breakfast in order to redeem our reward, which turned out to be a free pastry. As we entered the all too familiar restaurant, we stepped into the massive line preparing to choose what to use our reward on. I looked at the options and took into consideration which item would allow me to get more out of my free reward. I was stuck between two different pastries, a cobblestone and a cheese pastry. Since I had already tried the cheese pastry, I chose the large, textured, and iced muffin. I was worried however that the pastry would be overly sweet because it had a streusel topping and was drizzled with a white icing, and I have never liked icing on anything even cake, but I decided to give it a try. Though the doubt that I would actually enjoy the pastry stayed in the back of my mind. When I ordered and gave my card I decided that I should purchase at least something so that I just don’t get something for free. So of course I just grabbed the most convenient object, which was a fruit cup, and purchased it. For the amount I paid for the overpriced fruit cup I could have purchased a larger and more varied fruit bowl at any grocery store.
Because there was not a description for the cobblestone I bit into the muffin like pastery with hesitation. My first bite was surprisingly moist, which came from the chunks of apples that were in the mixture. Despite the combination of the streusel and the icing the item was not overly sweet. The combination of spices that were incorporated into the dough had plenty to do with the muted sweetness of the ingredients. However, one big regret that I had concerning the cobblestone was that it was full of raisins. I later came to know that cobblestones are made with cinnamon raisin bread dough, something that I would have known if I had only asked.
I am usually not a picky eater but I have a strong hatred of raisins. From my youth raisins have always been something that I disliked. Raisins are corrupt forms, in my mind at least, of the complex fruit that they come from. They are transformed into an overly sweet and shriveled morsel. I have always just picked them out of whatever heterogeneous mixture they were in, such as trail mix or granola, when I was younger. My childhood habits were mainly gone because I always try to never get anything that contains raisins. I had to resort to my old habits again when I was confronted by the raisin filled pastry. However, because it was free I felt that I was not as upset about the entire thing as I would have been if I had paid for it. After this unsuccessful experience with my raisin filled pastry and my over priced fruit, I think that I will stick to bagels if or when I go to Panera again for breakfast.
