Do you ever remember
a specific food and the very first time you tried it? I have a top ten list that
comes to mind (listed in the order I remembered them), although if I tried hard
I’m sure I could come up with more.
- Ice Cream Sundae
Not just any ice cream sundae: THE ice cream sundae. On a weekend
shopping trip to the big city (Bay City, MI), one of the stops was the downtown
Sears store, which had a small coffee shop, on the second floor as I remember.
It was here as a young boy that I was introduced to perfection. It is also
where I was introduced to butterscotch, which to this day is my favorite flavor
in the whole wide world. Sadly the store closed down just a few years ago.
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| The downtown Sears store circa late 50s, early 60s. |
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| Jan and Bob Shea in the Sears coffee shop in ’68. A
workplace romance reminiscent of Toni and me. (See article) |
- Lobster
I was 12 when my mother took me visit
my cousin Gerhard in DC (actually he lived in Alexandria, VA, but it will
always be known as the Washington trip). One evening we went to a restaurant
and since the whole trip was an adventure, I was gonna be brave and try the
lobster. I never looked back. Dipping that sweet white meat into the salty
melted butter is still a taste I can bring to mind with no effort at all.
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| A great trip I will always remember. |
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| My cousin Gerhard, a most excellent host. |
- Steak (#1)
At the age of 8, my mom took me to
visit friends and relatives in California, but if we’re being honest here, we
were there to visit Disneyland. While we were there, we visited Uncle Philip
and Aunt Barbara. We were treated to the most perfectly char grilled steak I
have ever eaten. I also remember a walk along the beach, but mostly steak.
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| Uncle Philip. I met him about 40 years before this
picture; he would have been almost 10 years younger than I am now…And I learned things about him from his obituary that I didn't know before. Quite a fellow. |
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| Life goals of an 8 year old: Met. |
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| The beach in Torrance, CA. The endless Pacific Ocean
before me, I still think I might have chosen the steak. |
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| Our hosts in Torrance for the extent of our stay, Wendel
and Franziska Mergel about 1980; one of the most gracious couples I have ever
known. Even more remarkable because of their story, which in many ways paralleled that of my own family. |
While visiting the out west, I—at the ripe old age of 8—fell
head over heels in love with a girl 2 years younger than me: Wendel and Franzi’s
granddaughter, Brigitte. In looking her up 50 years later, I have found that
she has led an extraordinarily successful life along with her husband (below
are links to her B&B, her LinkedIn page of accomplishments, and a newspaper
article about her husband), and I wish her all the best. It is she who wrote
the short biography of her grandparents.
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| Clark Hoss. I never met the man. He seems like a stand
up guy. He better take good care of my girlfriend… |
- Pizza (#1)
Pizza was the new kid in town when I
was growing up; not many places offered it. And in a small town like Cass City,
it was remarkable there was even one. Sherman’s Restaurant at the eastern edge
of town just before you got to the Elkland Cemetery (the site of the restaurant
is now a funeral home). It was the only pizza I knew besides Chef Boy-Ar-Dee
until junior high/high school when Beagios Restaurant and the Charmont bowling
alley started serving it.
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| Erika Sherman. There’s a weird kind of irony that her
funeral was held on the very site where she spent so many years of her life. |
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| I loved this stuff. But beating the dough by hand about
wore my mom out. Seems like once I was old enough to take over that duty we had
it less often. |
- Beer
Closely associated with the pizza is the
only beverage that should ever be paired with it. Thanks to my European
upbringing, alcohol was not denied to the only minor in the house, merely
limited. I had wine with Sunday dinner, brandy on special occasions, and beer
with my pizza. (We won’t discuss how much beer I drank at the several hundred
family weddings I attended...) Mom was the only one in the family with a taste
for beer (and we called ourselves “Germans”...Hah!), and her choice was
Stroh’s, the closest thing to German beer we could get. I can still taste it.
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| Not me drinking not beer. |
- Pizza (#2) - College means
many things to many people. For me it was the discovery of Dominos Pizza.
Much is made of how Tom Monahan revolutionized the industry, but I’m here
to tell you he couldn’t have done it without me (it wasn’t the Noid as
many believe). A small pepperoni and 4 Domino cups of Pepsi got me through
many an all-nighter. And just through life in general...
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| Domino’s trying to keep up with all my orders. |
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| Possibly one of the most anNOIDing product mascots
ever. |
And then of course
the famous 30 minutes or less guarantee:
- Arby’s
On another excursion to Bay City took
us to K-Mart way on the west side of town. For a long time, Mr. Hot Dog was the
only eatery mildly interesting to my young boy’s mind (if only because Mr. Hot
Dog on TV’s Hoss and Stuff—with Daddy Cool—was also the weatherman on Channel
5, Jim Peyton, who drew cartoons while he did the weather). Then one day there
was an Arby’s. A regular Arby’s cost 69 cents (twice a McDonald’s burger) and I
could easily pack away 2 of them. With their special sauces and Jomocha
shakes...mmmm.
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| Not the one we went to but, like McDonalds, they all
looked alike. |
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| Try as I might, I could not find any pictures of the
original restaurant with it’s hysterical Mr. Hot Dog sign. Here’s what it looks
like now. |
Jim Peyton in
serious mode:
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| Hoss, “Mr. Hot Dog” himself, and Daddy Cool, whose nose
was a hot dog. But no Stuff. |
Here’s Stuff:
- Steak (#2) - Every Mother’s
Day, Father’s Day, sometimes Easter, and sometimes just because, the
family would pack up and go to Frankenmuth to the Bavarian Inn for a taste
of back home. So while the rest of the family enjoyed their particular
German favorites, I invariably had the same thing: a bowl of their chicken
soup followed by a nice juicy steak. While it wasn’t as good as Uncle
Philip’s, it was as close as it could get. My desert choice? Duh, a
butterscotch sundae. The steak and ice cream always had little plastic
animals stuck in them which I dutifully collected, and the wine was served
in super cool upside down decanters.
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| The “World Famous” Bavarian Inn in Frankenmuth
with the Glockenspiel in the middle. My grandfather got a lot of mileage out of
explaining to people that if the town was really Bavarian, it would have been
named, “Bayernmuth”. So now you know. |
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| Some of the little plastic doohickeys they put
on the food. |
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| Decanter for serious wine connoisseurs only.
Or serious wine drinkers. |
- Gyros and Greek Salad
College. I was in a cosmopolitan town
now, baby, and needed to try all those things that a small town in the Thumb of
Michigan couldn’t offer. My cultural exploration landed me at the Parthenon
Restaurant on the corner of Main and Liberty, the pinnacle of civilization.
Well at least to an 18 year old rube like me. Was it the lamb, the pita, the
tzatziki? It was all of it.
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| John and Steve
Gavas, owners of the Parthenon. |
- French Dip/Nachos Supreme
(tie)
As my bar hopping abilities increased,
my friends and I happened upon Herc’s Beef and Spirits, where we did our best
to ingratiate ourselves with the owner, the bartenders, and the waitresses. I
have nothing but fond memories of the place and was sad to hear it closed.
(“Luckily” I discovered Banfields...) Herc’s had a great menu (and Centipede
and Frogger video games, too), but my standout memories are of the Dip and the
Nachos. Generous portions of delicious, real food.
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| The only image of anything Herc related to be
found is this matchbook cover. |
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| Banfield’s as it looked 35 years ago. |
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| Banfield’s as it looks today. |
The two things that
I notice about this list are that they are event based, not merely food based,
diversions from the usual fare; and that in each case, they set a standard to
which all that followed would be compared, but never matched. I understand
that’s how both golf and heroin work.
How about you? What
does your list look like? Let’s all get hungry together!
ADDENDUM: If I could
add an 11th, it would be a deep dish Cottage Inn Mediterranean Pizza. It
doesn’t quite fit the criteria for this list because I do not recall the exact
moment I first tried it (although the same holds true for Sherman’s pizza), but
I do recall savoring every bite of my first one. Made with olive oil, topped
with Feta cheese and banana pepper rings, with a sesame seed crust, it was
something other than mere pizza.
