Save It for a Rainy Day

My friend Pete just called and reminded me of a rather embarrassing trip to dinner. I had invited friends to come enjoy my favorite restaurant, which was "out in the country." For years I had enjoyed flawless, delicious meals there.

Until that day.

Since it was located in the south, it was no surprise that my friend was served sweet tea. He gently let the server know he preferred unsweetened tea. "We don't serve sweet tea," she said flatly. He paled at the realization that someone in the kitchen had sweetened their glass of tea - maybe refilled it a few times - and she had grabbed it and delivered it to him. He looked at me with a glance that said, "Nice place you dragged us to out here in the middle of nowhere!" and managed to convince her to bring him a new glass of tea stolen from someone in the kitchen who did not use sugar. She was not amused, as I recall.

This place, however, was not famous for its tea. It was famous for its biscuits, fluffy, slightly sweet, buttery homemade biscuits that could forgive a multitude of shared drinks. When she returned with the beverage, she left a large basket of biscuits and said rather emotionlessly, "Enjoy."

I don't recall if it was my friend's wife or our other guests who got the biscuit with the prize. We all took turn examining it. It doesn't take an etymologist to identify from whence a long, skinny brown wing originated.

Our server, for some odd reason, seemed reluctant to return, despite our attempts to subtly flag her over. So, being young and resourceful, we all began twirling our napkins over our heads, like the terrible towels at a football game. She examined the evidence and declared it to be an eggplant peel. Uh-huh. With antennae.

Well, the rest of the meal was examined carefully, and all of us lived to tell the tale. That was many years ago, and the restaurant is now a part of history, and maybe infamy in its own little way.

Through it all, though, we laughed, especially the more adamant the server became about ignoring us. And yes, I took a ration of abuse from my friends for many months to follow.

Today, being reminded of that event brought back lots of funny memories and sweet remembrances of times we all spent together fifteen or twenty years ago. So I made a dark, sweet, iced tea (sweetened with xylotol, but sweet nonetheless) and a batch of biscuits. Minus the eggplant, but filled with memories.

Blessings,
David