Sunday, March 4, 2012

Just one more thing that I love...

I know, February Love and all it's endearing splendor and excitement is over. But, last night we ate at a place that I love dearly and I just can't resist doing one more post.

But, history (you knew it was coming.) A long time ago my parents loved to come to Salt Lake for the food that was served in a restaurant in the Perry Hotel called Perry's Pub. It had soups, salads, sandwiches, and to die for pasta salad. I can remember going there with Amy and my parents on more than one occasion. Fast forward a few years and I'm living in Salt Lake for the summer doing a ballet camp. I take my friend Rebecca and her mom and step-dad (who were visiting for the day to watch our end-of-dance-camp performance) to the Perry's Pub restaurant's sister restaurant, the Red Butte Cafe. They loved it. A few more years, I introduced my friend Cindy. And then Rebecca again. And before I knew it, me and my little group of friends were eating at Perry's or Red Butte or their other, newer sister, Deseret Edge Pub, the one that we ate at last night, at regular intervals.

We ate there after dance performances and on Sunday afternoons when we didn't have anywhere else to be. We ate there on Saturday nights when we had family visiting. More than one break-up was mourned over the yummy Greek pasta of the day, or the turkey avocado sandwich. Later there were trips there with my parents when I could finally sit in the over 21 section next to the windows the summer after I came home from Virginia. Before Shane and I got together we had a nearly silent dinner there because I had lost a bet to him the previous spring and had to pay up. Almost a year later when Shane and I were dating and our BFFs Rebecca and Matt were also dating, we ate there. When I was very barely pregnant but didn't know it with Thomas, me and Rebecca and our friend Angie gossiped over french onion soup that we always ordered with a side of potato chip (in fact, when we ate there this past December after a trip to see the lights at the temple, I texted a picture of my soup to Rebecca. She knew exactly what it was and where I was. How awesome is that?). And no visit was complete without taking home a piece of chocolate decadence cake.

As I sat there last night with my kids, reminding them to not wheelie while in the restaurant and to stop drinking all your sprite before your dinner comes, I thought of all the incarnations of myself that had sat in the 25 square foot section we were sitting in. Back in the day, it was the only spot me and my friends could sit in because we were under 21. I've probably sat in every seat in that section and know the menu without even looking. The slice of life that you see there is a lot less vanilla than the one that we typically see in our life in suburbia. It felt good to be there with my little family, as well as the ghosts of my group of friends, the ones who grew up with me, who I felt were all around.

Desert Edge - I love you. Janna, Rebecca, Angie, Cindy, Amy, Mom, Dad, Janice, Bill, Matt and anyone else I've been there with - I still love and miss you all. And who we used to be. And who we will become.

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