Welcome to Catiche's

Why Catiche? Catiche is the unseen woman who serves hot coffee and satisfying repasts to Edna Pontellier and her verboten paramour Robert LeBrun in Kate Chopin's The Awakening. A glimpse of this passage can be seen here www.classicreader.com/book/3015/36/. Catiche's little cafe is a hidden jewel in nineteenth century New Orleans, an oasis for the wanderer that Edna has become. It is the scene of a surprise meeting between the two lovers, and likely were it to have existed, the playing field for multiple social gatherings both public and private, approved and disapproved, exciting and mundane.

A cafe is where life is seen in snippets, collected in murmurs, gossip, and guffaws over steaming cups. These days coffee has become couture, the paper cup and logo-emblazoned huggie a kind of trend stamp on the chicness of java consumption. But for me, the cafe has always been a place to quietly observe the comings and goings of the community, to reflect quietly away from the demands of home, and to have the chance to be served something exactly as I wish it to be without having to clean the kitchen later.

So welcome to Cafe Catiche, where you will find all those snippets of life captured here. You'll have to brew your own coffee, unless you surf this from your local java shop. Coming to a table near you will be a mother with small children, a writer and artist re-establishing herself after multiple life changes.