Swen

           Every year The University of Alabama welcomes hundreds of international students from Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia.   This five percent of UA students are far away from home, yet they form their own groups, make new friends, and enjoy American college life just like the other students.  Despite this, it is sometimes hard to adapt to American customs, so each of these groups usually tries to find a place to replicate some feeling of home.  For some, the best that can be done is networking with the other students, and others find some local restaurant that serves something that reminds them of home.   For many of the Chinese students, that place is, surprisingly, Swen .

            Swen is by no means a traditional Chinese restaurant.  It is essentially just another restaurant with fried rice, syrup-covered pieces of battered chicken, and fortune cookies, your typical “American Chinese” restaurant.  When you first walk in the small restaurant, your senses are immediately overloaded with the scent of these stereotypical foods, the egg rolls and beef lao mein, all sprinkled with MSG, and the restaurant itself doesn’t even seem to try hard to fool you.  Rather than walls lined with fake Chinese paintings or paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling, there is nothing but tan wallpaper stamped with brown elephants climbing up the high walls only to end next to a bare ceiling.  It’s furnished with plain, worn, black and red tables and booths, and there is no attempt to create the illusion that there are Chinese chefs leading the kitchen in the back; you can often hear the cooks in the kitchen speak Spanish  as they take orders from the waiters.  Whatever it is that you notice, it is easy to tell that Swen is an American style Chinese food restaurant.  So why would the Chinese exchange students flock to it?

            The only reason that I can fathom is that, though not traditional, Swen does carry a few authentic Chinese dishes.  One in particular is a spicy dish with vegetables and different types of meat.  (There are beef, fish, and fish and tofu varieties.)  This dish caters to the Chinese students.  The meal isn’t displayed on the menu, but rather it is posted on the front door in Chinese with a rough English translation.  Because of this, I don’t even know the actual name of the dish.  I just call it by its translated name, boiled beef bowl.

            This dish is rather different from the rest of Swen’s menu, and perhaps that is why it is not on the menu .  Though the dish uses the same red peppers and same cuts of beef, both ingredients are utilized in different ways.  The red peppers are infused into oil that is drizzled on top of the soup and the beef is boiled in the soup along with numerous vegetables in order to cook it.  The soup comes with a side of rice.  You’re not supposed to eat it like normal American food.  That is, you can’t just eat it with a fork like Mongolian beef and you can’t just sip it with a spoon like the egg drop soup. Rather, the soup is much better suited for chopsticks.  Most of the Chinese students use their chopsticks to scoop vegetables out onto the rice and then eat the rice and vegetables together.  This is probably not obvious to the American diner; it has to be inferred from watching the Chinese students eat .  The dish is also much spicier than anything else Swen has to offer. Some of the Chinese students order extra oil in their soup, which can separate even further from the regular menu.

            Swen doesn’t have many more authentic Chinese dishes.  In fact, many of the Chinese students will only eat the boiled beef soup and its varieties.  With the amount of business that Swen receives from Chinese exchange students, one would think they would try to expand their menu.  I, for one, am disappointed.  Swen has the capability to recreate more of these types of dishes, but they have neglected to do so for some inconceivable reason.  Can you imagine a Chinese restaurant in Tuscaloosa that exhibits all the variety that traditional Chinese cuisine has to offer?  Though not Chinese food, Ruan Thai and Surin present an interesting comparison relevant to the dilemma Swen food displays.   Both restaurants serve Thai food, sort of.  Surin serves an American twist of Thai food, while claiming to be Thai food.  Ruan Thai, on the other hand, serves authentic Thai food and has consistently received better reviews that Surin.  I feel like this may be due to the marketing of the authenticity of the food rather than the marketing for the assurance that American palates will approve of the menu.    Swen has offered as taste of this authenticity only to stop short of being something truly great.  I have been provided with a taste of a culture, but have not been given the means to fully understand it.  Maybe this is why I am so disappointed.

            This may explain why the Chinese students are not clawing at the doors of Swen asking for more authentic food.  They understand their own culture.  They just want a reminder of it.  Rather than wanting a whole array of dishes, the students want a taste of home, something to connect them.  I talk about this all the time, but I’ve rarely been on the other side of things.  When I go to a Japanese restaurant, if I can get at least one authentic-tasting item, I’m happy.  Being able to feel that connection the food provides is more important than being able to stuff yourself on a completely authentic meal.  I feel Swen understood this and decided to undertake the task of providing a taste of home to these students.  So many Chinese students would flock to the restaurant only to be disappointed and longing for some taste of home.  Now, they can go to a place and experience a small, but important connection that provides them with some sense of comfort .

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Nick's in the Sticks

          There is an innate part of our nature that drives each one of us to leave a souvenir of ourselves on this planet so that people will remember us.  As I looked up at the ceiling in Nick’s, each of the decorated dollars on the ceiling did just that.  Some were signed by an individual while others were signed by a group in order to commemorate their outing.  No matter what the message was, they all left a mark.

            It seems that dining establishments attempt to appeal to this desire.  Why do they do this?  Lining the interior walls of Depalma’s Italian Café are wine bottles with messages on them left by the restaurant’s patrons.  The Oasis has people’s pictures on the wall as karaoke stars as well as carvings in the tables denoting various people and the dates they had been there.  A restaurant chain in Louisiana, Time’s Bar and Grill, posts pictures of people who are able to finish the restaurant’s biggest hamburger.  Mugshots, a chain here in Tuscaloosa, has the same tradition.  The pervasiveness of this practice is so evident that there are even television shows dedicated to showcasing any restaurant that will let you leave your mark if you can defeat their trials.

            Until Nick’s, I had never really thought of why restaurants might do this, though.  I originally thought that the only desire restaurants were trying to appeal to was the desire to eat good food, but these establishments are also trying to appeal to the desire to be recognized and leave something for other to remember us by.  It’s nothing big and grand, but you still get that small feeling of accomplishment, a pseudo-legacy.  In leaving a mark on a restaurant, a person can express pride or accomplishment, can commemorate a memory, and can form a connection to the restaurant.  Each one of these things is interconnected, but each one is unique and is fed by a different side of our nature.

            People enjoy having their accomplishments recognized.  Recognition allows a person to feel validated and when a representation of that validation can be hung upon the wall of a restaurant, the person’s sense of pride is even more fulfilled. There’s something about these minor accomplishments that makes them important. They’re nothing like winning a marathon or graduating college, but they don’t need to be.   That is, there’s no legitimate reason to feel good about carving your name in a table or eating a huge hamburger in under twelve minutes, but we do.  Maybe our desire to feel good about something is in some way self-fulfilling.  We want to feel good about something, so we do.  All we need is some sort of medium, and these restaurants give that to us. Most importantly though, what you have done will remain a living memory passed on to all who see the evidence of your accomplishment.

This commemoration serves as a concrete message to future onlookers, including ourselves.  Even those who may not desire the accomplishment aspect of a left mark may feel some joy in the recollection of the memory.  We treasure memories of our friends, of doing something interesting, of eating good food, or even of a certain time in our lives.  People dedicate time and money to preserving those memories so that they may reflect on them later on in life.  When a restaurant allows you to leave a mark, they are inviting you to store your memory with them, and it makes sense.  People come together over food.  If anything should be worth preserving, it should be coming together with people, and that is what restaurants are meant to provide.

The memory we make that is left as a mark can continually connect us to place where we eat.  In some sense, what we have done at the restaurant is not only a part of the restaurant’s décor, but also part of its memory.  When we leave a mark on a restaurant, we solidify our memory of our time there, not only to ourselves, but to the restaurant as well.  That solidified memory helps form a connection between us and the restaurant.  By forming that connection, we increase the likelihood of returning.  When we return, we can look upon the memory and fondly remember that time, we can point it out to friends, or we can try to top that same memory. Our marks leave a world open to us.  They give us the ability to have some affect on the restaurant’s day-to-day dealings.  The first person to carve their name into a table or staple a dollar bill to the ceiling started a trend.  By participating in it, we continue the trend and encourage others to leave their marks as well.

I never would have thought that leaving a mark at a restaurant was such a big deal, but I’ve now realized that it’s one of the many reasons people are drawn to places like Nick’s.  By allowing people to leave their mark, Nick’s has itself become a mark on Tuscaloosa.  It seems as if there is  a community around the restaurant. Maybe it formed through the ability Nick’s gives to its customers to leave a mark, thereby strengthening the bonds they have to Nick’s.  Leaving a mark allows a person to form a connection to a place, to feel accomplished, and to preserve memories.  Sometimes it’s hard to leave a noticeable mark, but restaurants like Nick’s open their doors so that people can leave their own marks there.  We create memories and share them.  We eat, drink, and laugh. We carve names into tables.  We staple decorated dollar bills to ceilings.  We leave our mark.

A Real Hamburger

Many restaurants in Tuscaloosa focus on appearance.  While that may promise excellent cuisine, sometimes it feels as if a restaurant is trying to impress its customers with mere appearance rather than the actual food.  Oasis doesn’t suffer from this problem.  It presents no illusions and it really doesn’t have an audience to mislead in the first place. Located six miles from the University of Alabama, The Oasis serves as a small get away from the relative chaos of a big college town.  A weathered, mottled green overhang wraps around the small, red brick building.  There is relatively nothing on surface of the establishment suggesting any focus whatsoever on advertising, making the building seem almost like a typical “hole-in-the-wall” restaurant.  It is anything but.

            Oasis lives up to its name.  It serves as a refuge for the hamburger enthusiast.  This restaurant understands the hamburger as it was meant to be: plain and simple.  It is an American staple.  Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and cheese with mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup all on top of a sizzling hot beef patty neatly tucked between two pieces of toasted bread—there is nothing else like it.  Nowadays, everyone seems to have their own special way to make it and there are restaurants completely dedicated to creating the perfect combination of hamburger patty, condiments, and bun.  As a biker bar and dive, Oasis hasn’t done anything tricky or remarkable.  If anything, what they have done that most other restaurants have not is retained the traditional authenticity of the American hamburger.

            The name Oasis is truly metaphorical.  In a town with many fast food restaurants and hamburger joints, there are few establishments that maintain any semblance of effort and care for their product.  Even sit-down restaurants like the Mugshots chain use the ever-popular frozen patty for their token hamburgers and rely on a mixture of what could be seen as gimmicks and “atmosphere” to reel in customers.  Oasis’ atmosphere is not trying to hook anyone, and thus it stands out amongst the available choices for getting an honest-to-God hamburger.  Instead, they rely on authenticity.  Their hamburgers taste and feel like an actual hand-made patty of ground beef was cooked on a griddle and paired with a bun and the proper condiments instead of being taken out of a freezer and being halfheartedly thrown on a plate with some bread and vegetables.

When I had a cheeseburger from Oasis, I was instantly reminded of the hamburgers my dad makes when he grills.  We used to throw a pound or so of meat into a bowl and knead it with our hands while we seasoned it.  The meat would always be too cold for me, so my dad would let me sprinkle the seasonings over the bowl while he mixed them into the meat.  We would then take handfuls of the seasoned ground beef and mould them into medium sized patties.  My dad would light the grill and my mom and I would set the table and prepare all the dressings. Sometimes he would come inside early to get some cheese to put on the burgers as they cooked.   I always piled ketchup, mayonnaise, and barbeque sauce on the cheeseburgers he made.  I never meant for them to be messy, but the patty would begin to crumble as I worked my way through the burger.  That’s exactly how my cheeseburger at Oasis was.  Now that I’m older, my tastes have changed, but the newly added lettuce and mustard did nothing to help keep the burger together, and that’s how it should be.  Frozen patties never do that.

Not only that, but for all the attempts at creating social atmospheres, no typical burger joint could match the hominess of Oasis.   In a way, Oasis beats other restaurants at their own game without even trying, or perhaps because they are not even trying.  All of the seats are close and crowded together, forming an atmosphere that encourages social participation.  You are going to hear what the people at the next table say, no matter how quietly they speak.  For the more social among us, there’s almost a sense in which everyone around you is included in the conversation you are having.  There are also multiple talking points, from the pictures of “karaoke stars” on the wall to the records in the jukebox, not to mention the carvings in the tables, the interesting and humorous handwritten signs, and the sometimes attention-grabbing patrons.  Out of any bar and grill place that I really know, Oasis is the one I would want to hang out at.  It feels so much like hanging out in the messy dorm room of a friend, extended to the size of a bar.

I think there is a lot that other restaurants could stand to learn from Oasis.  One cannot tailor a restaurant to be a comfortable social environment and to quickly serve consistently high quality food by separating groups from one another and from the staff while mechanizing the food making process.  A restaurant just cannot cut corners by using something like pre-made frozen patties without losing something essential in the process.  The move toward making the burger as if one were making a car on an assembly line simply to cut cost is one of the major setbacks in the integrity of today’s burger.  Placing a priority on serving food that is made the way a family would go about making it is what the hamburger needs.  The fact that Oasis is a safe haven for the traditional American burger is why it lives up to its namesake.  This modern focus on trying to engineer the perfect food eating environment and trying to create the most interesting, appealing burger on paper, ignoring the nature of the food itself,  is where most other restaurants fail.  With Oasis, the food is all that matters and everything else just falls into place. 

More Than Spaghetti

Brown ground Italian sausage in two tablespoons of olive oil.

 Susan carefully read the instructions from a yellowed piece of paper.  Steam rose from the skillet as she stirred.  The steam clung to her face as she made sure the meat was perfectly cooked.

Susan carefully scanned the recipe.  Drain the beef.  Susan looked through the cupboards for a strainer.  She didn’t know where anything was.  Through the clanging and clattering, she finally found one hanging up above the island in the middle of the kitchen.

“Having a hard time?” Jonathan poked his head into the kitchen.

“I just want to make this right and I don’t know where anything is.”  Susan let out a worried sigh.

“Calm down.  This was one of his favorites that Julie cooked him.  I’m sure he’ll love it.”  Jonathan wrapped his arms around Susan and lightly kissed her forehead.  “It’ll be just fine.”

            “If you’re so worried, I’ll get all of the cookware out for you.  Julie had her own way of organizing things.”  Jonathan walked over to the cupboards next to the stove.  “All the spices are here.  It makes it easier to cook.”  He pointed at the cupboards under the counter.  “All the big pots are under there.  I mean, there are a few odds and ends down there too, but that doesn’t matter.  Pans are hanging up and all the cooking utensils are somewhere in the island.”  As he taught Susan where everything was, he grabbed what she would need and brought it back to the counter near the stove.

            “Thanks, John.”  She stood on her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek.

            “Don’t worry so much.  It smells great so far.”

“Of course it does.  All I cooked was the sausage. Jamie is not going to want just sausage for dinner.”

“Guess that means you better hurry up,” Jonathan said jokingly as he ran out of the kitchen to avoid any backlash from Susan.  Susan smirked as he ran out the room.

Add onions, green pepper, and garlic.  Then add herbs.  Stir until onions get soft and garlic is a light golden brown (do not allow garlic to get too dark or it will be burned and bitter).

Susan repeated the recipe to herself for confirmation as she prepared the ingredients and placed them in the pan with the cooked sausage.

Susan stirred the ingredients carefully, making sure that nothing got overcooked.  She could hear Jamie upstairs playing with his toys.  She smiled at the thought of Jamie finally eating something she made for him.

When the onions were soft and the garlic was finally a golden brown, Susan moved the skillet off of the stove eye and picked up the recipe.  The paper was thick and had a few small splotches of sauce on it.

Clean and chop fresh mushroom and add to pot.  Add carrots, stirring occasionally.  Susan read the recipe off of the paper that sat next to the stove.  When saw that the recipe included carrots, she did a double take.  In a small scrawl, there was a note next to carrots on the ingredients list. Carrots add sweetness. Susan shrugged her shoulders and walked to the refrigerator to pull out the mushrooms and carrots.

 “How’s everything goi—hey! You’re putting the carrots in!” Jonathan walked into the kitchen as Susan was cutting the mushrooms.

“Here.” Jonathan took a knife out of a drawer and walked over to the cutting board.  “Jamie doesn’t like mushrooms, but Julie always put them in the sauce.  The trick is to mince them so he can’t tell.”  Jonathan began cutting the mushrooms Susan had already cut.

She held up the carrots.  “I’ve never had spaghetti with carrots in it.  That’s just weird.”

“Yeah, I thought so at first too.  It’s part of a family recipe of Julie’s.  The trick with these is that you cut them into huge chunks so you can pull them out before everyone else sees the sauce.”  Jonathan began to cut the carrots into fourths as Susan watched with interest.

“There.”  Jonathan handed the cutting board with the freshly cut mushrooms and carrots to Susan.  “It smells delicious.  Do you know when it will be ready?”

“Um, let me see.”  Susan held up the recipe in front of her face.  “Maybe about an hour and a half?”

“Okay, well, I’ll go upstairs and tell Jamie.  I’ll play a game with him.  Just call us when it’s ready.  Love you.”  Jonathan leaned down and kissed her cheek.  “You can do it.  He’ll love it.”

“Love you too.  I hope so.”  Susan turned back to the stove as Jonathan walked out of the kitchen.  Soon after she could no longer hear Jonathan’s footsteps on the stairs, she heard an excited cry from Jamie.  His excitement invigorated her. She looked at the recipe.

Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, or if you have the rind of a nearly used Parmesan or Romano cheese end, that may be tossed into the sauce. Stir in the large can of tomato sauce. Add the hot pepper, leaving it whole for easy removal.

Susan grated parmesan cheese directly into the mixture that had been set off to the side.  As she stood over the skillet, the garlic and oregano blended together with the basil and bay leaves to form a wistful aroma that pushed her forward.  She needed to recreate this dish; she wanted it to be perfect.  As she poured the tomato paste into the pan, Susan became more excited.  A smile spread across her face as she placed the pepper into the sauce.

Susan set the timer on the stove for forty minutes and placed a lid on the pan.  As she waited, she measured out the balsamic vinegar and sweet wine.  She then began to look through the book from which Jonathan had pulled out the recipe.  The book contained hundreds of papers like the one she had been using.  Each paper had notes written on them telling the reader who liked what version of a recipe and the best way to prepare it.  From gleaning through all the recipes, Susan began to understand Julie.  She had never met this woman, yet she was able to gain so much from the little side notes and the types of recipes she had collected.  She was in the middle of a recipe for Tiramisu when the timer beeped.

“Alright!  Almost done…”  Susan lifted the lid and poured the balsamic vinegar and sweet wine into the sauce and stirred it.  She set the timer for twenty more minutes and then began to boil water in a pot for the noodles.  Jonathan had reminded her earlier that Jamie liked angel hair pasta best, so she pulled the angel hair pasta out of the pantry.  As the water began to boil, she salted it and poured the box of pasta into the pot.

“Is everything alright?”  Jonathan walked into the kitchen.

Susan jumped.  “Don’t scare me like that!”

Jonathan laughed.  “I didn’t mean to scare you.  I just wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

“Everything is fine.  The pasta and the sauce should be done soon.”

“I’ll set the table for you then.”  Jonathan walked off with a small stack of plates and napkins.

“Thanks,” Susan called after him.

As soon as Jonathan left the kitchen, the timer went off for the sauce.  Susan turned off the heat as she lifted the lid.  Tomato flavored steam whirled around her head, making her curly hair frizz.  She stood over her creation, marveling at how good it smelled.  As she sat there, the pasta began to boil over, calling her attention back to the kitchen.

Susan quickly grabbed the pot and poured its contents into a strainer sitting in the kitchen sink.

“You okay?”  Jonathan walked back into the kitchen and turned off the stove.

Susan poured a small amount of olive oil in the pasta.  She looked nervous.

“I’ll call Jamie down.  And don’t worry.  This smells exactly like Julie’s.  He’ll love it.”  He turned his head away from Susan and toward the stairs.  “Jamie!  Dinner’s ready!”

Susan quickly pulled the carrots and pepper out of the sauce before she poured it into a serving bowl.  “Okay, now it’s ready.”

Susan heard small footsteps followed by the scratching of a chair against the floor.  Jamie was in the dining room.

“Dad!  Where’s the food?”  Jamie yelled toward the smells coming from the kitchen.

“It’s coming.  Give us a second.”  Jonathan carried the sauce dish and a pitcher of water to the dining room while Susan carried the pasta dish.

“Here you go!”  Jonathan set the dish down in front of Jamie, waiting for approval.

“It smells good.  It smells like mom’s.”

Susan came into the room and set the pasta next to the spaghetti sauce.

Jamie’s grin turned into baffled expression.

“Susan made this for you.  She used mom’s recipe.  I told her it was your favorite.”  Jonathan patted his son on the head as he looked at Susan.  Susan’s heart was beating fast, but she wanted to keep a calm façade.

“It smells funny.”

“Here, try it.  She made it using mom’s recipe.”  Jonathan began to serve Jamie.

Jamie pushed his chair back and walked out of the room. 

Susan was fighting to hold back her tears.  She had worked so hard to make sure Jamie would love her dinner.  Jonathan  walked up to Susan and held her tight; she could no longer hold back her tears.  At this point Susan was bawling in Jonathan’s arms.

“Shhhh.”  Jonathan stroked her hair.  “It’s okay.  Just give him some time.  I bet he’ll eat it when you’re not here.  He’s just being really stubborn right now.”

“Why can’t he just enjoy what I made for him?!  He even said it smelled like Julie’s.  Why does it matter that I’m the one cooking it?  Does he really dislike me that much?”  Susan was almost incomprehensible at this point.

“Look, I’m sure you know why it’s such a big deal to him.  Maybe I should’ve waited for you to cook this.”

Susan began to calm down. “Maybe.  I just wish he’d eat it.  I worked so hard…”

“I know, I know.” Jonathan continued to stroke her hair.