Everyone has their ideas when it comes to comfort food. I have several, but one of them I had a big craving for today.
When I was little growing up in New Jersey, I used to go to many diners with my mother, Aunt Claire, and Nana.
Two diners, in particular, stand out in my memory, The Linden House Diner and the Bayway Diner. We often went to lunch there when running errands with Nana or taking her to a doctor’s appointment.
I loved going to the diner! I never even had to open a menu because I knew what I wanted. It was on the children’s menu and was also on the regular menu in the deluxe form.
99% of the time, I ordered a pizza burger, and fries. When I got older, I ordered the pizza burger deluxe, which also came with coleslaw, a pickle, and fries.
We always sat in a booth with me next to the window. I kept myself entertained after we ordered our food by making faces in the mirror on the side of the jukebox at the table.
I would ask for a quarter to play a song, but that didn’t happen. When the waitress brought us our drinks, I would look at the placemat, the same one I’d seen a hundred times, but every time we went, I was able to read more about the businesses sponsoring the placemats.
I would blow bubbles in my chocolate milk as I read the placemat. I loved to see how high I could get them to go without bubbling over the side of the glass.
I never got to that point because it was always when my mother would scold me, “stop playing with your food!” “It’s a drink,” I would explain to her. That’s when she would grab my hand under the table and crush it until the bones ground together.
My grandmother was blind and listened to conversations around our table while my mother chain-smoked until our food came.
Nana knew what was on her plate and where like telling time on a clock. The fish is at twelve o’clock, the potato is at three, and the vegetable is at seven. I liked being the one to tell her about her lunch “time.”
When my pizza burger was put in front of me, I smelled it first. It smelled so good! Then, I would pick it up and start eating it around the edges. Sam smells his food like I do. We smell everything, come to think of it, especially clothing straight out of the dryer. The bleach smell is our favorite!
I guess turning my burger around in a circle after every bite wasn’t considered playing with my food. I ate it like this to get every bit of sauce and melted mozzarella cheese oozing out the sides. Clever for a 5 or 6-year-old!
Next, I would start working on one of my favorite things in the world, the fries. I still love fries today and would always choose them over any other starch. I love all kinds, especially bowling alley fries, which are greasy, golden brown, crinkle-cut sticks of deliciousness. Crispy outside and like mashed potatoes on the inside.
I am usually a giving and generous person until it comes to my fries. Whenever someone doesn’t order their own and thinks they can pick some off my plate, they are wrong; very wrong. I share my fries with no one, ask Marty.
Back at the diner, when I dipped my fries in the marinara sauce that was on the plate, I would run them through, pretending it was machinery driving through mud or something. I stopped quickly whenever my mother looked over at me because this was considered playing with my food. One hand crushing was all I could take. Lol.
Today, I had some leftover “sauce” and made myself a pizza burger before belly dancing. It came out perfectly, and so did the fries. I didn’t have coleslaw or good pickles, so it wasn’t a deluxe version.
I ate alone since Marty and Sam were on their way to Burlington, VT, to start to move Sam into his new home. During this trip, they are working on some repairs that need to be done and moving out the old furniture and in with Sam’s brand new stuff he bought. They won’t be back until tomorrow night.
This afternoon, I automatically started eating my pizza burger in a circle like when I was little. One night when visiting my biological mother, we ate in a diner. I ordered a pizza burger on a plate with coleslaw.
The diner didn’t have a gluten-free bun, and their fries were fried in the same fryer where wheat items are also cooked, contaminating the oil, so I only could have coleslaw.
To my surprise, my mother also ordered a pizza burger deluxe. She said it was funny that we both ordered the same thing and loved them! This kind of stuff was and still is fascinating to me.
This also happened the first time we met in person several years ago. We went to an Irish pub to have a drink before dinner. We walked into the pub and realized that we both preferred to sit at the corner of the bar. That amazed me because I’ve never experienced this kind of stuff before.
I immediately went to the restroom, and she ordered a drink while I was gone. When I came out, the bartender asked me what I wanted, and I told him Captain Morgan and Gingerale. That was the same drink that she had ordered. Holy shit!
Another thing I want to mention about pizza burgers is while they are popular in Jersey and downstate NY diners, no one up here has ever heard of them.
Years ago, we ate at a diner in the Pittsfield, MA, area. I asked if they could make me a pizza burger. It was as if I was speaking Swahili or something. They didn’t know what I was asking. Even after I explained it, they still didn’t know how to do it.
My last noteworthy comment about pizza burgers is how they are in the lyrics of a Rolling Stones song. It goes like this, “I’ll never be your pizza burger.” I was shocked when I learned the actual words were a beast of burden! What does that even mean? I know pizza burger doesn’t make sense either, but a beast of burden?
Back in the day, you had to guess the song lyrics since there was no way to look them up. You would figure out some lyrics, and your friends would figure out other ones. We weren’t doing it to be funny; we really didn’t know what the fuck they were singing.
I knew Marty was a keeper when the song “Beast of Burden” came on the radio, and we both sang the pizza burger version. I thought it was only me who heard pizza burger, but apparently not. 😂
Today, my pizza burger and fries brought me back to my Elizabeth, NJ, days when I was a kid. I wish I had a glass of chocolate milk and a straw when I ate it. Of course, I would have still blown bubbles in it!
By the way, I let my boys blow bubbles in their chocolate milk when they were little; they never made a mess, and the world didn’t end. So there!
***I’ve been searching for a box of old photos since I started my blog almost two years ago next month. I found them this week and am excited to be able to post more old photos in future posts.