Baby bites
A Proustian look into my Capstone project!
Welcome back! Long time no talk! The first week of the semester wore me out, and I couldn’t find the will to write. Or live. Just kidding! Anyway, welcome back.
This month, I’m participating in Substack Go — a program for “Substack writers looking to supercharge their publishing efforts.” Although I’ve only met with my small group twice, our conversations have put some pep in my step. With graduation approaching, I’m looking forward to growing this space and connecting with my readers. This might be a newsletter dedicated to cooking for oneself, but nothing fosters a strong community quite like food.
Today I’m sharing an excerpt from my senior project. I’ll be working on it all semester and hope to share bits and pieces of it on here. What’s below is a Proustian recollection of childhood memories (more on Proust here). Feel free to share your own memories in the thread below — I’d love to know which foods transport you back in time! Thanks for being here and consider sharing my work with a friend or two! Without further ado…
An excerpt from “Tastes Like Chicken”
One of the earliest trips I remember is New Orleans. There was something good to eat almost every day. We went straight to Central Grocery from the airport to have muffuletta sandwiches — we split one four ways — and cream sodas. My sister and I sat at the counter, biting into the monster of a sandwich. My mouth. still waters when I think of it. Olives, meat, and provolone — what’s not to love? I think we went to Cafe du Monde more than once. My jaw dropped when I saw the beignets. I wanted to eat them every day for breakfast. My mom still buys their boxed beignet mix when she sees it in the store but making them at home doesn’t compare.
The most formative and adventurous meal was at K-Paul’s. My parents told us about the time they dined there with friends before we were born. “They used to handwrite the menus every night,” one of them said. On this particular night, turtle soup was on the menu. A few years before I did a research project on box turtles. My parents assured me that restaurants don’t put box turtles on their menus. How could they! They were so cute! I was relieved, so I ordered it. I stopped thinking about Franklin, the turtle on PBS, and my research project. “It tastes like chicken!” I squealed. Ordering something so different from what I saw on TV or had at home made me feel cool. Like I was part of some cool eating club. I’m a big girl. There’s nothing to fear.
One day we drove our rental car out of the city to an alligator ranch. The staff there told us about a gas station down the road serving the best fried food in the county. When my dad bit into a strip of fried alligator, he said it tasted like chicken.
The next year we went to Chicago. On night one of our visit, we went to the Weber Grill Restaurant. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Every morsel that arrived at the table was cooked over a charcoal Weber grill just paces away from the dining room. If I remember correctly, this was when I fell in love with charred broccoli. It came smothered in an orange cheese sauce, but by the looks of their most current menu, it’s unavailable. Because we were tourists, we ate deep-dish pizza at the original Pizzeria Uno. All I remember from this night was the long wait. It was cold even though it was the weekend of Easter. We had brunch at the Palmer House, drowning pancakes and bacon in syrup, much to my mom’s chagrin. On Easter Sunday, we went to a place that forgot to add us to the reservation list. I was mortified that my parents wanted to stay. We’re being so inconvenient, I think to myself nowadays when I find myself in these situations. I remember feeling a sense of panic then too.
In San Francisco, we ate at the places my mom ate at when she lived there in her twenties. Maura and I complained about all the uphill walking. We were only soothed by ripping off a piece of bread from the Boudin Bakery loaf my mom carried around in her bag all day. We went to farmers markets and wharfs, and when I saw a picture of Rachel Ray in the window of a noodle house in Chinatown, I demanded we go in and eat.
In Arizona, we drove around what I thought was the entire state looking at red rocks and flat land. Maura and I kept ourselves entertained by singing songs about the javelina. We ate at Mexican restaurants where ducks and chickens roamed freely in the dining room. One night we ate at a restaurant that had pink and blue clouds painted on the ceiling. I thought I was at church. My dad ordered bone marrow. “Why is there a bone on your plate, Dad?” He told me it was because it was delicious. I declined his offer to try it.
When my dad used to work in the city, the three of us ladies used to meet him for lunch during the summer on days when my mom had no idea how to keep us busy anymore. Once we ate at Parc Bistro. For a long time, Maura only ordered burgers and steaks when we went out to eat, so when she ordered mussels to accompany her vanilla milkshake, my parents were too pleased to tell her she might feel sick later in the day. I, on the other hand, had just learned about these delicious things called Caesar salads and was looking forward to eating the huge slices of cheese off the top of it. When it arrived, three large anchovies stared back at me. I cried. I knew I didn’t like them because my dad stunk up the kitchen with them once a week. My parents still talk about that lunch every now and then because it exemplifies who we are as people today. Maura goes with the flow, doesn’t have a care in the world. I plan and am cautious to step out of my comfort zone.
That’s all for now. If you’d like to support my work, consider sharing Party of One with a friend — and don’t forget to leave your favorite food memory in the comments below! Okay, byeeee! Have a great weeeeeek!