Of His Pasta Memories Are Made

I went looking for my youth in a bowl of pasta the other night and didn't quite find it, but at least I came up with this blog entry. It didn't even hit me when I placed the order for fettuccine Alfredo that I wanted more than the comfort of comfort food, but a connection, a memory, days that even when happening seemed like dream so now slip away all too easily. Somehow, while our family was decidedly middle class (the word once meant something, you know), we managed to head to Bermuda for vacation every couple of years, a mere two hour flight from Newark, but a crazy distance away--how genteel Colonialism can seem, especially when you're just a kid, particularly when you're more dazzled by an ocean so blue, you can walk into it and see your feet when up to your neck. This wasn't the Jersey shore, my friends. You West Coasters can keep Hawaii (where I must admit I have not yet been)--Paradise for me was Bermuda, weirdly more mid-Atlantic than Caribbean, and later, even better, the supposed "real" setting for The Tempest. Poor Hawaii's merely got a Brady Bunch episode (OK, a two-parter. With Vincent Price. But still.)

But I have parted far from my strand of pasta, haven't I? That's food for you. It didn't hit me till the other night's to remain nameless place serving me up a just not rich enough, just over-cooked fettuccine to realize what I longed for was the Alfredo served at the Princess, the wonderful once grand, at the time a bit, a tiny, tiny, what probably made it affordable for us bit, down on its heels old hotel where we would always stay. And waiters advanced to captains and they'd remember you year from year, as that's what fine service does, especially Italian waiters abroad who got to flirt with my sisters (older than me, it's not like there was something too weird going on) and deliver piping hot, cheesed to the nth degree fettuccine to teens like me. An odd dish for an island paradise, I know. But that's so often how paradise is, incongruous and everything we could want. Or maybe it's just our family (sans dad as this is all after the divorce, of course) sort of being one for a bit, getting along as the world was just too beautiful not to for a few days. Perhaps my mom came as close to happy as she'd let herself then.

You know what they say--watch what you eat as you never know what might repeat on you.