Fettuccine Alfredo VS. Raw Eggs--Memoir

Before

People are the common denominator of any meal for me and also the best predictor of the success of a meal. Before my junior formal in the winter of 2007, Fazoli’s had always been a good food experience for me, the few times I’d dined there anyway. My family had occasionally frequented the joint and my usual was the Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo. It’s a creamy dish that is fun to eat. I liked the flat noodles and, of course, the unlimited bread sticks that taste like a fluffy butter and garlic combination on a soft stick reminiscent of bread that melts in your mouth. One day my grandmother took me there after a shopping trip we’d taken to buy clothes for my birthday.

We both ordered the Alfredo, I knew better than to request the adult size and opted instead for the child’s portion—my grandma didn’t know better and so she ended up with leftovers that are about two rungs up from McDonald’s leftovers on the ladder of comparison. That day I had ordered, for the first time, their new frozen lemon drink. I drank it slowly in order to savor each sip. It was a good day in a decent and satisfying restaurant. But my feelings toward Fazoli’s would soon change.

Winter formal was coming up and I didn’t have a prospective date. It was my first year at Mattawan High School and I definitely could scrounge up a few crushes but there wasn’t anyone that I was particularly interested or close to. I wasn’t really worried about it, I thought I would probably just skip because I planned on attending my old high school’s formal the weekend after either way. But, to my excitement, Mike Reiter a goofy looking, but still moderately cute boy from my English class walked up to my locker about two weeks before the event and asked if I’d like to go with him. I said yes.

I shouldn’t have said yes. I should have found a group of girl friends to go with or hell I could have gone by myself or really, I didn’t have to go at all. That’s how bad it was. To be honest I think I nudged him into asking because I knew he took an interest in me and I wanted a date. But he wasn't all that attractive and he wasn't a terribly interesting person to talk with mostly because we had little to nothing in common. But I said yes so I figured, ‘I’ll get the dress and he’ll make the reservations and it’ll be a semi-successful night’.

He didn’t make reservations! And, expecting him to do the honors, neither did I. He picked me up at my house the night of formal. The roads were horrible that night—really slick and snowy white visibility. We had to drive slowly even though he brought a four wheel drive big black something or other and we unfortunately ran out of talking points before we were even half-way into town. His plan was to tag onto another groups’ reservations at Carraba’s and it didn’t work. We were on Westnedge and our non-reservation options were Applebee’s, Bilbo’s, and Fazoli’s. I opted for Fazoli’s because I knew what I liked, I knew what to expect and it was the closest and fastest. I wanted to get to the dance before we absolutely ran out of talking points.

We were seating immediately which wasn’t surprising considering we were the only customers. I ordered my usual. I don’t recall what Mike ordered. He talked about the golf team (I have zero interest in golf) and we quickly degenerated into conversation about class assignments in English. It was terrible. And consequently so was the food. Fazoli’s isn’t gourmet food but still, it was delicious before and that night I choked it down while the scrawny, brown-eyed, dirty blonde in front of me struggled to form the simplest of conversation.

The noodles went cold faster than they ever had before. The Alfredo sauce was flavorless and even the break sticks held no appeal. Case and point: it wouldn’t have mattered one bit if my Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo had been prepared by a famous chef that night, I would have hated it either way. The quality of the company who surrounds has the biggest effect on the overall quality of my meal. When we arrived at the dance I ditched, I don’t think he was too surprised. 

One of my earliest food memories actually didn’t even end in eating but it is fondly remembered. I was at my best friend Abbi’s house in the middle of July and we wanted to cook something. We weren’t particularly hungry; her parents always fed us well. But a large part of our adventures included doing what we weren’t supposed to do. So we devised a plan to sneak two eggs out of her kitchen and then proceed to cook them outside on a large rock on the edge of her yard. To do this we had to sneak past the her dad her was lounging in the living room right of the dining room that flowed directly into the kitchen and then walk out the door that lead to our rock unsuspected in plain view of the living room lounge chair.

After shakily grabbing the eggs I hid them in fists and walked on the far side of dining room trying to keep a steady calm pace. It was my job to do the dirty work because we figured I we wouldn’t get in as much trouble if we were caught as long as the guest (me) was the one with the red paint on her hands. Heart beating rapidly, I made it outside undetected and I ran down to our makeshift skillet excited to crack open our mid-afternoon lunch. We each cracked one of the eggs and waited expectantly for the food to cook. It didn’t cook. Later on in life I wondered what would have happened if we had used a magnifying glass but I haven’t tried it yet. That ‘meal’ was one of the most exhilarating meals of my life and I would trade that day and that summertime flavor that tastes like childhood and sweat over the taste of the Fazoli’s debacle every time.