I travelled back in time today...

And it was good.

Some people eat to live. I live to eat. It's all about the food. Eating is a multi-sensory experience and it's not just about sensing the food it's about the companionship of the meal, too. At the risk of running of a fair number of the people who read this blog, sharing a meal with someone is often a sacramental experience for me even if the rest of the people at the table with me don't realize it. Today I had a sacramental experience at lunch.

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I went to college at UCI. You think it means "UC Irvine" but it really means "Under Construction Indefinitely." Very few, if any, special, unique culinary experiences remain from my college days. The only place that is still there is the In N Out that opened my junior or senior year. 

But Doc and I went to grad school at UC Riverside and I continued to work in that neighborhood for a few years before Mr. Genius was born. Doc lived in a student apartment complex with a small shopping center and tucked inside is a rather special and unique deli called Sub Station. It is 36 years old but my memories of it only go back 17 years. And in 17 years, nothing (except maybe the prices) has changed.

Seriously. Click the link and watch the video on the home page. Those tables are the tables that have been there for at least 17 years. NOTHING has changed. Not a thing.

Today I had an errand to run very close to UC Riverside. I rarely get to that end of the universe anymore but today, I did, and it just so happened that I completed my errand at just about 11:15 am, as Captain Stubborn was telling me how hungry he was and my car just automatically seemed to drive itself to the Sub Station. 

As we pulled in, I told CS "Can we go to the special sandwich store for lunch? It's where Daddy and I used to go to eat before we were married." Fortunately, he said yes. (Like he had a choice.)

Did I mention that nothing has changed? The Apartments are still the same color they were in 1991. Seriously.

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We frequently ate at the Sub Station when Doc was in grad school. His professor was a workaholic, in his office seven days a week. At one point he decided that his students needed to spend more time in the lab so he scheduled their mandatory weekly group meetings for Saturday mornings. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, this did not have the effect that the professor planned. The meetings would generally last two to three hours ended at just about lunchtime. Doc and the other grad students with wives/girlfriends would call us when the meeting was over and we would all meet at the Sub Station for lunch. 

At least two students enjoyed the steak sandwich which required extra time to prepare. And thus commenced the meeting after the meeting where we sat and ate and talked and drank soda and after we ate our sandwiches, we sat and talked some more. Eventually someone would decide it was time to get moving. And by that time, unless someone had a pressing project, no one really felt like going back to the lab. So much for mandatory Saturday meetings.

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Nothing at the Sub Station has changed. The tables and benches are the same that have been there for at least 17 years. The menu is the same wood burned boards. The pickles are cut in quarters and wrapped in cellophane, in a metal thingie by the cash register, same as always. They still have the came Coca-Cola cups. Well, ok, Coke has changed the design a little but they are the official cups from Coke.

As I walked into the restaurant, the smell of the vinegar dressing hit me in the face and my entire body relaxed. It was so familiar and so good. 

I ordered one of my two favorites: A hot pastrami sandwich. Yum. Then I said "I know this is a college place but do you have a kid menu?" She offered a plate of olives, carrots, meat and cheese. I ordered lemonade with water and said "Oh and I have to grab a pickle because you don't put pickles on sandwiches."

 

Ok, I lied. ONE thing has changed. In the old days, we had to buy a pickle and ask for a knife to cut up the pickle quarters because I must have pickle on a pastrami sandwich. They offer pickles for sandwiches now. Yeah! Saved me the cost of a whole pickle.

My dining companion and I found a little table by a wall and he was very adorable and charming. Let me tell you, this kid was adorable and charming all day. I don't know WHAT I did to deserve CS's good mood but I am NOT complaining about it. Not in the least.

He wanted to know how we'd get the food. He wanted me to please open the Fritos. I asked if I could have one, too. Four-year-olds can be rather reluctant to share, especially when it comes to sharing the salty-goodness of treasures like french fries and Fritos, even if they have more french fries or Fritos than they could possibly consume, so I enticed him into sharing with me by saying "You can pick which ones you want me to have..."

It worked. He pulled out Fritos and told me what they looked like as he decided which one of us would eat it. 

That's when the sacramental moment happened. The charming child, the cold Diet Coke, the salty Fritos, the Sub Station smell, the glossy table top, the bench that is a little bit too low for the tables, the advertisement on the table for the Sub Station's catering service, and watching the professors come in on their lunch breaks (because academics have this unique look about them that you don't entirely appreciate until you've been away from them for several years,) - it all hit me. 

I just closed my eyes and smelled the room and listened to CS giggle and lived in the moment. And, ok, I said a short prayer of gratitude. 

And FINE, I thought, "Oh, I could blog about this."

OK OK OK, that was followed by, "But will they all run away screaming when I tell them it was a sacramental moment?"

They called my name and I went to get our lunches. I'd forgotten that the sandwiches come on a sheet of paper taped at the top, with carrots and yellow peppers on it. CS's plate was overflowing with olives and I had a huge grin. CS loves olives. He calls them fingers because he knows that the proper way for a four-year-old to eat an olive is to first place it on the tip of a finger. 

We had a lovely lunch. He ate all his "fingers." I ate my sandwich with the pickles already on it. The really wonderful thing about a good deli is how they can make a sandwich that tastes unique. There are countless delis that make pastrami sandwiches, but no deli anywhere makes one that tastes like a Sub Station sandwich. (Or an Appetizer sandwich. But that's another post for another moment in time travel.) I still don't like yellow peppers but I do like carrot sticks. I didn't order the macaroni salad or get my own chips. Sub Station is good but shopping at Ann Taylor Loft in the petite department is worth skipping the macaroni salad and my own chips. Refills still cost 50c each so I left without a refill. 

But that's ok, because I was full and content.