Yesterday Jessie (my sister) and I went out to lunch at a sweet little cafe in St. Paul called Trotter's. [In fact, we sat in the chairs you see in the website's picture.] It's on a really adorable block with a toy store (in my head it's a toy train store - Jessie? confirmation?), probably an antiques store, maybe a travel agency (a cute one), and an ice cream store called Izzy's, which is bomb in the sweetest way possible.
Anyway, Trotters is sort of a sandwich/soup shop bakery with some fun flavor combinations and really good iced tea. [maybemama, take note.] When we walked in yesterday, the smell inside brought me back to the happy days of my youth.
Those were the days when me and my cousins would eat dinner at my grandma and grandpa's (Bamma and Grampa) every Thursday and the families would get together there on Sundays to eat. Thursdays were macaroni and applesauce, and I'm not knocking that, because I really really really like macaroni and applesauce, but Sundays were the real treat.
As I remember it, Bamma would make this one stew every Sunday. I know that's not true, but let that serve as a statement to how greatly the scents and flavors impacted me. It was a stew with beef and bacon, and it was rich and hearty, and we would eat it out of these cobalt aluminum bowls with white speckles. I think it tasted similar to bouef bourguignon, but I know exactly how it smelled.
We would walk into their house and the permeating, slow smell of bacon and saltiness and braised things would sneak into our nostrils and incite hunger immediately. I would know that everything for those next few hours would be fine and that we would play and eat at the kids table and that the bowls would be the same and that we'd use the heavy silver spoons like always and that maybe we'd watch Harriet the Spy later on.
I know I liked the stew (I've always called it Hunter's Stew), but the smell was really the most important part, and the scent memory that it has imparted.
And that's what I smelled and felt when I walked in to Trotter's yesterday. I smelled Sundays and Bamma and cousins.
Are there any smells that so strongly transport you back to your youth?
-Lillie
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CHOO CHOO BOB'S! (In response to your jessie prompt).
ReplyDeleteit is called hunter's stew. we would also eat ice cream soup with homemade chocolate syrup. sometimes bama wouldn't have any chocolate syrup and we would all be upset because we would have to use hershey's. i believe on sundays we often watched the santa claus and on thursday we watched harriet the spy (i actually still like both of those movies even though i've literally seen them both 100 times (lillie let's have a movie night of those sometime!)).
there is a combination of flavors at the tea garden that when made into a shake taste exactly like a cereal we used to eat when we were little (but only when we were little, i think it was discontinued). i'll make it for you sometime and see if you can identify it. i've been trying for almost 3 years and i still can't figure it out.
The fact that Jessie described the ice cream as "soup" must account for the way chocolate was always dribbled down the front of your shirts.
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