The setting: Early one Saturday morning, mid-June, 1990-something Caffe Vittoria located on Hanover Street in Boston’s North End at the heart of the city’s historic Italian neighborhood. Caffe Vittoria is more like a Vatican Chapel than a Starbucks and this story is set long before that west coast chain sprawled over the U.S. <br /><br />Porcelain cups are colliding with spoons and saucers, ornate espresso machines are shooting out milk and trumpeting steam, while baristas dance between English and Italian as they take orders at the marble counter. Waitresses somehow manage to squeeze between tightly packed tables simultaneously taking and delivering orders. <br /><br />The story: A suburban teen walks in, nervously fidgeting with her notebook and clutching her Cannon A1 35mm camera as if holding it tighter might make her meager film supply last a little longer. <br /><br />Her eyes scan the café, no one she knows is there; she is more than an hour early. The tourists haven’t arrived yet and the neighborhood’s old men are still finishing their morning coffee ritual before retiring to the bocce ball courts and patios tucked into alleyways throughout the neighborhood, where they will spend the day hiding from their wives and sharing war stories over Campari.<br /><br />A waitress nods, she sits, unties the flannel shirt from around her waist and wraps it around the camera before placing it between her feet on the floor. She grabs the small menu from its resting place between the sugar dispenser and the napkin holder. <br /><br />She has no idea what to order, she has never been in a place like this and the only coffee her mom made was instant. <br /><br />Panic creeps over her chest as the waitress approaches asking “what’ll it be?”<br />Good question, she thinks, what will it be? She scans the menu and settles on a word she has heard before – “cappuccino.” OK then, she will have a “cappuccino,” whatever that is. <br /><br />She settles into the café chair and takes in the sights and smells around her, examining the photos lodged in intricate frames on the walls, the banter from the old men as they make their way to the street and the smell of fresh pastry and roasting coffee. <br /><br />Suddenly, there it was. The most beautiful thing she had ever seen in a cup. The waitress walked away as if it were nothing and happened all the time.<br /> <br />For a moment all she could do was stare at it, delicately cradled in a grand porcelain cup. The cappuccino looked too pretty to drink....<br /><br />By the time her photography instructor and the rest of the class showed up, she was on her third. The instructor gave them their assignment, but that really didn’t matter.<br /><br /><br />I don’t remember any of the photos I took that day, but I will never forget that first cappuccino.