A Tale of First Loves- Culinary and Human

Gatlinburg, Tennessee, 1989. I was twelve, just beginning to take an interest in life outside of fairy tale books.

At that time my dad owned a little floundering jewelry store on the sixth floor of the Mountain Mall. I would come to work most days with him, doing my best to help wait on the few customers, occasionally puttering with the wax that has since become my life. I had friend next door whose dad owned both the fur and carpet shops on our floor. We would play together, catching crawfish in the river out back or burying ourselves beneath Oriental rugs in the storeroom. A couple of floors down was a magic shop, and if I stopped by long enough I was guaranteed a demonstration of the latest novelty trick. Escalators connected all six floors, and my sisters and I would take turns racing the wrong way, courting scoldings from some of the other store proprietors. At the time, Gatlinburg residents got into most of the tourist traps for free, and I’d spend long happy hours inside Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and Fannie Farkle’s.

I had a lot of freedom back then, my dad was too preoccupied with life to be overly concerned with me. He’d often give me three bucks to get a Wendy’s salad down on the ground floor. That was back in the day of the legendary Superbar. Don’t you wish they’d bring that back? My thirty-year old GI tract probably couldn’t handle it now.

My favorite thing to do that summer was hit the salad section of the Superbar, loading that plastic plate high with lettuce, peas, mushrooms, red onions and croutons. I’d pop a few cherry tomatoes on the side, scatter sunflower seeds all over the place (once I picked the raisins out and carefully put them back. Man, I was a nasty kid) and ladle a generous amount of their lovely ranch dressing all over. I can still taste that salad in all its vernal perfection.

One sticky summer day I walked downstairs as usual, clutching my paltry three dollars in the pocket of my hot pink jumpsuit. (Don’t you love the 80s? Bad fashion and food for less than ten dollars…) I rounded the corner, carefully stepping on the parquetry flooring that ran parallel to the street, and came up short in front of Wendy’s.

The Superbar was closed for cleaning.

Being a hungry adolescent, I wasn’t about to wait forty minutes for the thing to be restocked and reopened. I needed food, and soon. My eyes cast around for another idea. I knew that the restaurants up the street were fairly expensive, and didn’t want to venture outside of the mall that day. The only other choice that presented itself to me was the Irish pub next door to the tobacconist’s. I’d never set foot inside, but I’d seen people eating at the long laminated bar. I stepped inside,

“Bit early in the day to start drinking, eh?” The voice came from a handsome man, dark hair setting off eyes that crinkled at the corners. He sounded different from the natives I’d grown accustomed to, a Yankee accent, like mine. I smiled shyly at him and was rewarded with further eye-crinkling.
“I-I just need lunch.” I stammered, embarrassed to be in this den of adulthood.
He jerked his thumb at a dry-erase board, still almost a novelty back then. The board hung on the wall behind the bar, between signs for Guinness and Budweiser, elixirs which I would remain innocent of for another several years. Scrawled on the board were prices for the standard bar burger, some sort of chili dog with too many toppings, and something called an Irish Taco.

It was exactly $3.00.

“I’ll take that, please.” I pointed at the bottom line on the whiteboard and spread my bedraggled dollars on the bar. The handsome face grinned, told me to have a seat, and ducked under the bar for a carryout container.
I clambered up on the tall stool and sat watching his back. He moved with an easy grace, one that I’ve since come to know as congruous with that of an experienced bartender. He opened a foil packet of Fritos, dumped them into the black plastic dish, and tossed the bag in the trash without looking. In the little food prep station, there was a chafing dish on simmer. He flipped the lid open, winked at me in the mirror, and poured a heaping ladle of chili all over the Fritos.
“You like spicy stuff?” he asked. I nodded dumbly. I didn’t notice it particularly then, but now I remember that he never called me ‘kid’, ‘squirt’, or any of the other demeaning nicknames grownups often tag children with.

Maybe that’s why I fell in love with him.

Or maybe it was the beautiful way he handled things, like he gloried in the simple pure contact with everyday things. I had often watched my mom chop tomatoes- chop, chop chop! I had even done it myself, but never had I seen someone bend his head over the cutting board and carefully, almost tenderly, cut a razor-thin perfect round slice of the red fruit. To this day I cannot slice a tomato like that, it always has one edge thicker or angled off.

He threw a dollop of sour cream on top of the chili, then threw those perfect tomato slices all over, not caring in the least for his masterpiece of shaving.

I had never been interested in an older man until that point. Looking back now, in order to have worked in a liquor establishment, he must have been at least 21, but he seemed young to my twelve year old eyes. He had a solid and lovely chest under the ratty tee shirt, and his white apron draped easily on well-proportioned hips.
“Want a beer, too?” his light mocking caught me off-guard.
“No thank you.” I replied, blissfully unaware of the fact that I wouldn’t have even been able to order one.
“Then how about green onions, on top of the taco? It comes with it, but most people don’t want them.”
Green onions have always been a weakness of mine.
“Oh, of course!”
“Good!” he smiled, and his eyes crinkled again, “It’s the only way to eat it.” Whereupon he proceeded to sprinkle finely minced green all over my lunch.

With that same rapid grace, he flipped a lid onto the mess, slid it across the bar towards me, and punched keys on the register. It came to $3.12
“Oh!” I flushed, panic setting in, “I only have the three d-“
“Don’t worry about it!” he cut me off, waving away my protestations, “I’ve got it. Enjoy your lunch.”

I don’t remember getting back to the store, five flights of stairs with that hot dish in my hands. My heart was hammering as I scrambled onto the stool near my dad’s repair bench. Opening the box, I could almost feel myself salivating, and I can taste that first bite to this very day.

Every respectable bar has at least one dish that they cook well. For some, it’s a burger, others- wings. In South Bend, there’s an Irish pub that makes a divine stew, liberally seasoned with Guinness Stout. For this bar, whatever its name was, the dish was chili. Meaty, spicy, rich and warm, their chili was perfect. Coupled with the salty corn chips, cool sour cream, and the fresh tomato and green onion, it was a dish I would be happy to eat at any elegant restaurant.

Irish Tacos soon trumped Wendy’s Superbar for lunch. Not only did they taste better, but no one at Wendy’s flirted gently with me, or gave me free New York Seltzer Chocolate Seltzers, or cut their tomatoes with such a craftsman’s hand. I made sure to always bring four or five dollars after that, leaving the change in a little pile on the bar top for my Chili Knight. We moved away late that summer and I have never been back, not in all of these eighteen years since. I’ve encountered the same dish since, called anything from Walking Tacos to Chili Pie, but no one (not even me!) has ever made it taste quite as good.

So wherever you are, man that cuts tomatoes nicely and is friendly to shy children, thank you.