A certain cast of light this time of year makes my mind shift into hungry memories.
Last week, I remembered the time Dan came home from his restaurant with stories, back in 2007.
“We made this spaghetti tonight, a test for this couple who is getting married. They wanted spaghetti with browned butter and this really tangy cheese, something from the Mediterranean.”
“You mean Mizithra?” I said.
“Yeah! You know it?“
I laughed. “I do. And they must have been to the Spaghetti Factory.”
When I was a kid, the Spaghetti Factory was a fancy restaurant. We didn’t go out to eat often, other than fast food. For me and my brother, a trip to the Spaghetti Factory meant staring in awe at the faux-Tiffany lamps, the high ceilings, and the train cars filled with diners. They had actual, old train cars, from the 1910s, in the restaurant. If you’re a kid, that is about the coolest dining experience you can imagine. Sometimes, even though we were hungry, we put our names in for a reservation and waited until we found seats in the train car.
(I can’t remember if my brother and I ever convinced my parents to put in our name as the Donner Party. I think not. I hope not. It’s weird to me now, how that was a running joke in the 1970s. “Donner Party, table of 5. Oops. Make that 4.” What were we all thinking?)
When we reached our table, we were greeted by a chipper waiter and a basket of crusty bread dripping in butter. We grabbed at it immediately, because we knew that more was coming. One of the lures of the Spaghetti Factory was that ever-replenishing basket of garlic bread.
(To my horror, the one time we visited the Spaghetti Factory with my creepy uncle, he insisted that his wife dump the entire basket of bread into her purse, so they could eat the leftovers for lunch the next day.)
As we waited for our Shirley Temples and the menus, we ate one slice after another of garlic-so-good-oh-the-butter-and-the-parmesan-cheese bread.
Eventually, we opened the menus and scanned them, in a cursory fashion. We had to look, to be polite. But it was always the same. I always wanted spaghetti with Italian sausage.
What did my brother and mother get? Spaghetti and meatballs? I don’t know, because my dad’s order was so unusual that it has obliterated the rest of my memory. Spaghetti with browned butter and Mizithra cheese.
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