Remember when you were a kid and your mom and dad were gods and they could do no wrong, and if there was anything that needed to be done, they could do it, and if anything needed to be known, they knew it, and they were your whole world, they literally created you (in most cases), they created the world as you knew it, they moved the mirrors and the prisms and the lighting from side to side, they controlled the angles and the portals and the entrances and exits, they were the producers and stage managers and chief actors of your experience, their decision where to live influenced which schools you would go to, who would be your friends from school and the neighborhood, the church your parent attended meant that your view of god (or not) would be shaped by theirs, the way they treated people would largely become the way you treated people ...
And part of that, oddly, was the idea that even though they knew everything and you knew nothing, they were also training you, to be like them. They knew something that you did not know, which was that you would soon be exactly like them, flawed and all, but you didn't know that, you thought they were a different sort of species, a variety of god, and that you were a fallen child, and you would never be them, you would never pay the bills, or have kids of your own, etc.
Some of the fondest memories I have of being a child, an adolescent, involved the times when my parents were training me to be like them. And to be honest the memories are both fond but at times super awkward, because these are times when my parents were treating me more like an equal, inviting me into their world, and that was awkward, to be raised to their sphere, to be expected even to learn and understand the adult rules, to be told that one day I would be like that, and awkward also because a lot of the rules about being an adult had to do with intimacy, like how would you treat someone you were in love with, or married to, or sharing a house with, and it was awkward to be instructed by your own parents about that sort of thing.
In Salt Lake City there used to be this restaurant called Ristorante Della Fontana, which opened in the late 1960s and was located in a remodeled church near 400 South and 400 East. It was one of those places that it hard to understand now, it was considered fine dining at the time, the finest or among the finest SLC had to offer, but now it seems in retrospect quaint or overbearing or even "trying too hard" (the severest sort of crime these days). Della Fontana was an Italian restaurant that was known for serving seven-course meals. SEVEN-COURSE MEALS, IN SALT LAKE CITY! WHAT???
When my twin and I were teenagers, our parents took us there for dinner one time, to show us a nice time, to show us what the world of adults was like, to show us what it was like to go somewhere nice, to show us how it felt to spend some money, and be treated like a customer at a nice place -- I don't know what their intentions were -- I'm just saying how I perceived it. Part of the idea of going there was also the feeling of the intimacy of being on a "date" -- this is what grown-ups did. My parents were on a date with each other, and my brother and I were on a date with our parents. This was an intimate moment, for someone to spend money on us, to be treated to something nice. To be waited on, to be taken to a place with a reputation for being a fine place of dining, to go to an expensive place. And also the intimacy was being shown or told -- this is how you do the grown-up thing -- this is how you court someone, this is what you will do with a boy or girl when you are older, this is how you will spend time, this is how it can be quiet and you can talk to someone and show them that you care, and are attentive, and so our parents were both taking us on a date -- showing us that we were important to them, special, beloved, and also teaching us this is how we should treat others important to us as we aged. And that is why it was awkward, you want to be loved by your parents, adored by them, but you don't want to be transported into the romantic world or sexual world in any way in their presence.
We might as well as been kings at that place. One of the courses was a blue cheese wedge. Everything about it a mystery. I didn't know you could just serve someone a whole wedge of lettuce. I didn't know you could put bacon bits and blue cheese on there. I didn't know you could eat a salad on a plate with a fork by itself. I thought salad had to be added to a plate that had meat on it. I didn't know a salad could be free-standing. I didn't know you could spend 15 or 20 minutes on a salad. I didn't know a salad could be displayed as such, could be demonstrated with fanfare. I didn't know that. I didn't know that by celebrating a salad in that way, in that time, was to also have the idea that it was OK to derive pleasure from eating, not just sustenance, but actual pleasure, the pleasure of eating slowly, the pleasure of waiting for the next thing, the pleasure of expectation, and that added an intimacy that was new and different and awkward.
One of the courses was a sorbet prior to the entree, brought out I want to say in a pewter pudding bowl of some kind, very small personal-sized, with a singular scoop of grapefruit or other pink-colored sorbet. I didn't know you could do that. I thought ice cream had to be brown and white and chocolate and served in a giant bowl. At home I usually ate at least half a quart at a time, with a spoon usually right out of the container. I didn't know you could dress it up all delicate. I didn't know you could eat slowly and savor it. I didn't know you could have intimacy with sherbet or sorbet or gelato or whatever it was. Delightful, different, awkward, an introduction to sex essentially.
I have no recollection of the other courses. I understand now that one was probably a soup, one was a meat, one was a dessert, that gets us to five. I don't know what the other two were. It was a dance, it was a mystery, it was sort of an analogy to courtship. We will dazzle you with the number of items. And it felt special that my parents would take me and my brother and splurge on us, this utter gluttony in fact, being from families of farmers and thrift on both sides, to sit somewhere for 3 hours and eat, be waited on, was different for me, odd, new.
Those kinds of restaurants in SLC fell out of favor a long time ago. Another one I remember is Mulboon's a popular place at the time, quaint now in memory, weird even, repulsive even. I don't want that much attempted intimacy with my food, I don't want anyone to try that hard, like going to a themed hotel for an anniversary, the mermaid room, or some such, it seems too awkward and forced and contrived for some reason.
A few years ago my wife and I noticed it was called Ichiban Sushi, no longer Della Fontana. I don't know when Della Fontana closed, ten years ago, twenty, it doesn't matter. The sushi there was perfectly average, or worse, like sushi from a gas station. We never went there again.
The other day I drove by, noticed they were gutting the building. I noticed that Ristorante Della Fontana was being torn down. The parking lot was torn up, the insides on the outsides. What will it be next? A fancy credit union? A fancy telephone call-in center? A fancy tire store? Something devoid of meaning? Or a place that will give some new kid, generation her/his own memory of a special time with parents?
I wanted to run in there, save the place, stop it from being torn apart. I wanted it to somehow replenish to the same night our family dined there, to sit there again, just like it was, and take it all in. I wanted to make sure the structure stayed the same inside and out, so my memory could always be sacred and intact and have, like a gravestone, a place of centering and memorial. But then I knew if I could really go inside again, that would ruin the memory, because the memory is on a grander scale than the actual facts of the place.
The place is gone, the people are gone, hardly anyone remembers this place, it will cease to exist in our collective existences, and of course we all have a thousand places / things like this -- little memories, little important memories, whole worlds in our minds that no one can take from us, and we can visit them whenever we like. I will, from time to time, cherish this memory, and call upon it for sustenance.
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I recall eating there a couple of times after high school dances. Thinking naturally that the girl I had taken would be overly impressed! My memories are that it was almost cathedral like with a large fountain somewhere and felt like I was in an ancient type structure that had been preserved in a beautiful way! That would've been 1974 to 1976. in 1981, my now wife of 40+ years asked me out to a girls choice high school dance at the McEwen mansion after which we came to Della Fontana for dinner. It was our first date, and I was very impressed that she would think enough of me to take me to such a classy place for dinner!
I recall the restaurant and am so sad to learn it is gone. Wow it was a great place and the food was awesome too. Nothing like it now.