Let me tell you a story.
First off, got to get a confession out of the way. Liver and Onions. I'm a fan. I know. Most people hate them. But, I'm not most people. I've loved it ever since I was a kid, and my dad thought he was slick by putting a piece on my plate. I, and my mom, were eating steak, and I left for the bathroom or something. I come back and there's a piece there. Looking nothing like the steak. Not to mention I hadn't cut a piece off before leaving. I was young, I wasn't stupid. I tried it, and liked it, then made fun of my father for trying to be sly.
I haven't had liver & onions for more than a year. Some of that has to do with Jessie being a non-fan. Not all if it, though.
The last time I had liver and onions, I was having lunch with my father. He would bribe me with lunch to get me to fix his computer for him. See, he loved the computer. But he wasn't savvy at all. If there was some spyware out there, odds are he had it. Anyway, he would take me to this little shack of a place around the corner called Mikie's. First time we were there he told me to try the liver and onions, they did it pretty good for a restaurant. My dad was a big believer in home cooking liver and onions, didn't think restaurants did it justice. He was right, both about most restaurants, and Mikie's being good. Every time I've been there, save one time, that's what I've had.
But I haven't touched it in more than a year. The last time I had some was February 2006. My father died on March 19th, 2006.I've seen it on menus and been tempted. But I can't bring myself to ordering it. Of all the things in this world that could possibly make me think of my father, it seems liver and onions is the one I'm most emotional about. How weird is that?
The closest I got to ordering it was the day after he died. My aunt and I had gone to the funeral
home to get the arrangements under way, and she suggested Mikie's for lunch since it was close. I sat there with the menu in hand, still sort of numb. I'm not even sure my aunt realized that Mikie's had become my father's favorite eating hole. But I sat there, wrestling with whether I should get liver and onions. I, obviously, didn't get it. Couldn't tell you what I substituted.It's amazing how food can invoke such an emotional response. I heard once (on CSI I think) that smell is the sense most closely tied to memory. While I suppose that's true, since when I smell Old Spice and stale cigarette smoke, I automatically think of Dad, at the same time, it doesn't invoke the same response as liver and onions.
