Kids Corner

(Olive Press/Phoenicia Times May 20, 2010)

I like food, and I like restaurants. My favorite type of dining place is the Awesome Treasure Cove of Food. Let me give you an example: I once went to a restaurant that made the food in front of you. It was a Japanese place and they had a big table that went around a grill. The guy threw stuff around, and made rice in the shape of a heart. He then put a spatula under the rice and went, “thump-thump,” like the rice was a beating heart. I was really young, but I still remember the beating heart rice. That makes it an ATCF (Awesome Treasure Cove of Food). My friend Gracie completely tops me. She’s had LOTS of interesting ATCF experiences. She once went to place that sent food down a conveyor belt, and another in France where food came to you on a little boat. My friend Bruce told me about how he used to go to Horn & Hardart Automats. An Automat had a wall filled with tiny, glass doors. Inside the doors was food. I researched it, and if you looked through the glass doors you would see home cooked meals like creamed spinach, macaroni and cheese, and baked beans. Automats were popular during the Depression, probably because you only had to pop in a few cents to get some food. Want to know what they were replaced by? You guessed it, fast food chains. This is so annoying to me because fast food just turns people in humongous, lethargic beings. The whole idea behind fast food feels empty, like the exact opposite of home cooked. At least Horn & Hardart tried to make it feel like home. H & H is totally ATCF. If I could have a restaurant in my town, it would feature a different mom every day of the week, making homemade meals and serving them family style so people have to share. The prices would be low so lots of people could go. I would name it “ATCF Home Cooked.”