Meatball Panini, Costa Cafe

This is more about memory and nostalgia than the savoury quality of this meatball panini from Costa.

My first bite in Scotland was sitting at a Costa, in Glasgow at Queen Street eating a breakfast sandwich. I really had no clue where I was or where I was heading, just that I had ten minutes to eat this thing, be surrounded by my luggage I've carried across all of North America, Iceland, and now the UK, and enjoy the bit of heat in this meal as I did not know when or where my next one would be.

Every time I passed a Costa, I remembered it as my first tangible experience in Scotland, and I had actually not returned until this past weekend, four months later, when I played host for the first time. It's not that Costa is amazing, it's not bad, especially for transit food, for food you eat while you're waiting in the inbetween, as another homogenous coffee shop in another anywhere space . . . but it's your personal associations and the value you give to ordinary things that really make all the difference.

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