A Great Plate of Spaghetti

Over the Christmas Holiday, I got to visit my family in North Carolina. It was a valuable time to me. However, I brought back a cold to Miami that has stuck with me for longer than usual. It has killed my appetite and kept my energy too low to exercise like I normally do or even move around that much.

Yesterday, the craving for food finally came back- but only for spaghetti.

I went out last night looking for spaghetti, but the Miami traffic was just so slow that I ended up ducking into a Winn Dixie close to my apartment to see what they had.

There was no hot spaghetti, but instead I bought some hot vegetable lasagna, a close second to spaghetti.

When I got back to my apartment, though, I discovered that it was not hot at all. I think perhaps Winn Dixie had meant to keep it cold, but it was closer to just room temperature.

I heated it up in a microwave, anyway, eagerly looking forward to the first bite.

What a disappointment. Not only did the lasagna taste badly, I suspected it had spoiled and eating more would put me at risk for getting a case of food poisoning.

So, again I went sick and a bit hungry last night.

Today, I had to go to Fort Lauderdale for work, and I made a point to stop at a Sbarro's on the way back at the Dolphin Mall.

This was the first mall that I've ever known to sell beer in the food court.

I ordered a plate of spaghetti and meatballs with marinara sauce, a Pepsi, and a roll of garlic bread.

It was one of the best meals that I've ever had in my life. The taste was exactly as satisfying as I imagined it would be.

My mom's cooking will always have a special place in my life, but outside of that, this was perhaps the best meal I've had since I enjoyed a Bootlegger Burger with a beer for supper at Three Sisters Speakeasy in Kissimmee. Part of the appeal of that meal was the company- my friends from the Public Defender's Office.

At Sbarro's, I ate alone. Today was the best meal by my lonesome since 2008, when I ate a great meal at a Greek food festival in Tallahassee. I was in law school, then. The fare was spanakopita and a can of Pepsi, and I enjoyed the clear night looking up at the stars.

The meal at Sbarro's today satisfied a hunger that had been going on for days. My body needed that. For a brief moment, I knew that enjoying the taste of the food and drink, and the sensation of the energy going not just to my stomach, but to my elbows and arms as well, is really as good as life gets.