One of the ways I am using the Best of 2009 Blog Challenge is to engage the people around me in conversation. I know, we are only in the second day, but even now I have had some intriguing conversations related to the questions.
I live for both deep conversation and writing and in the busy month of December, both are risky at best, overstuffed and overlooked by the “too much to do” mentality that comes with what is meant to be a holy season.
Yesterday morning, Cameron, Emma and I took a short sojourn to
This is easy to suggest on December 2. By December 22 or 26 I might have a different frame of mind but for now, this seems like a smart method.
“Hey, you guys, I need you to answer this question.” I cleared my throat. “What is your best restaurant moment of 2009?” I asked. My traveling companions blinked without saying anything.
I read from the paper in front of me. “Share the best restaurant experience you had this year. Who was there? What made it amazing? What taste stands out in your mind?”
Cameron shrugged and said, “Nothing.” I frowned and said, “Come on, that’s crazy. Nothing? It can’t be nothing. Emma, what about you?” I didn’t dare admit nothing came to mind for me at first, either.
“Oh, I know one, I know one.” I turned in my seat to face Emma more. “Remember in
Emma looked at me with her best twelve-year-old half-glare, half-detached-boredom way and said, “I wasn’t cranky. You and Katherine were cranky, all PMSy and everything. I was fine.”
“Ok, Emma, that’s fine – but remember how it was we were all hungry and the traffic had been bad and we took the escalator up to that Italian restaurant and as soon as we walked into the door, things started getting better and by the time we left, the whole world had changed for the better?”
“Yeah,” said Emma. “I remember. But I loved that one café the best.”
I still don’t know what that one café was or is, I was still caught in the reverie of looking out the window toward Alcatraz, smelling the pleasing aroma of Italian restaurants everywhere – remembering childhood pizzarias, friend’s kitchens and my beloved pesto pasta dinner with Maria not long ago. My mouth watered at that restaurant in
“Zingo’s!” said Cameron, randomly. I laughed aloud. “Oh, yeah, Zingo’s is the best.”
We visited Zingo’s, a coffee shop favored by truckers and Bakersfieldien people who are both hungry and out and about between 1 and 4 am, early in our friendship. We headed to Zingo’s with a rather tangled assortment of friends and proceeded to share Patty Melts and omelets and conversation that was both ridiculous and sublime – the perfect combination for a gathering of friends and friends of friends of friends.
I even have a mug to commemorate the experience which I have photographed when I traveled since then. Zingo’s, to me, is quintessential
I realize in re-reading that my most favored dining experiences of 2009 were more about connection and laughter than the culinary delights themselves.
Isn’t that what is more important, anyway?
Maybe in 2010 I will visit some fancier establishments – perhaps even have a memory so specific it sticks with me twenty years later, like when I had my first moment of divine love with a plate of pesto pasta with pine nuts. I can’t remember who was at my table, but I can see the shafts of light emanating from heaven, the scent of the pasta and the reflections of ice in my water glass.
That was in
Plates of connection, goblets of laughter, buffet tables splattered with abundant memories. These are the dining experiences I will remember in 2009 and will intend to have in 2010 as well.
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Julie,
What a delightful conversation you've written with us. I will have to try Zingo's when I'm down that way!
Look forward to tomorrow's post!
Julie
Posted by: Julie | December 02, 2009 at 11:20 PM