I often consider myself a creature of habit. I’m actually not gifted with idioms and popular metaphors, but this one, guilty as charged. I turn 36 tomorrow and unlike my peers, I enjoy getting older. Of course I miss not having to dye my gray hairs every 2 weeks, but for the most part, I enjoy the benefits that time and age contribute to my life. Memories and nostalgia are included in this wisdom because they are perhaps a cause of my creature of habit way of life. I enjoy rewatching the same Nancy Meyers movies and creating a capsule wardrobe. I find an author whose writing I actually enjoy and choose more of his or her novels instead of forcing myself through a best-seller advertised to me through social media. I also frequent the same restaurants, and to be fair, some are home to my
memories and childhood.

DePalma’s Italian Cafe is one such place. Growing up in Tuscaloosa, my family and I did not eat out often, but when we did, I think my parents made it a point to make it special. I still remember the first time I ever ate at The Cypress Inn, a special night where my dad announced to my brother and me that he accepted a job with The University. Perhaps my parents made it a point to eat locally, something I try to make a habit with my own family now. DePalma’s remained our constant, our place of habit when a special occasion was called. Several birthdays, all graduations, and special moments were celebrated at this Tuscaloosa establishment.

Let us never forget the time when Tuscaloosians were able to pop into a downtown restaurant and never be asked to add our names to a wait list. Of course, if you showed up to Cafe Venice at 7 pm on a Friday night, sure you’d be asked to wait at the bar, but now, these wait lists even occur at 5:30pm. I will never suggest that Nick Saban coaching The Tide was ever a bad decision, but he definitely brought in a crowd. I don’t blame them, our restaurants are delicious. They’re lively but not obnoxious, they’re beautiful but not ostentatious, and the food has become eclectic but not too snobby. During all of Tuscaloosa’s changes, DePalma’s is a comfort to see for us creatures of habits because it even looks the same.

Exposed brick walls, broken-in booths, open kitchen with flying pizza dough. When I show up tomorrow for my 36th birthday dinner with my mother, husband, and sons in tow I completely expect to feel transported back in time. I might even feel 14 years old again. I know I mentioned that I like aging but in truth, the smell that comes with the DePalma’s experience contributes to my nostalgia of simpler times. I can’t help it, none of us can. I feel at home there, perhaps because my habit of returning to the same places since my childhood makes me associate a business as home-like. I am so partial to this establishment I even once uttered the phrase “It’s not DePalma’s,” at a Roman restaurant near the Vatican on my honeymoon 7 years ago. I made sure to whisper that confession, not to worry.

I won’t hyperbolize by saying I hope my last meal is at DePalma’s, though for the sake of sentimentality I’m pretty sure it was one of the first restaurants we dined at upon moving to Tuscaloosa from Anniston back in 1997. I will, however, make the bold statement that it was my son William’s first dining experience. The night before I was scheduled to be induced with our first born, Scott and I decided to have a “last meal just the two of us.” I waddled into DePalma’s the night of April 3rd, 2018, 9 months pregnant and everyone turned their heads with a look resembling apprehension. I guarantee one woman whispered to her husband “she’s about to pop.” I quite liked being stared at for a moment because in my heart I knew this long 9 months was almost over and then as soon as I got up to use the restroom, gush. For the sake of being polite, ladies, you know what gush means and I do mean, gush. I waddled to the restroom and told Scott to get the stuffed mushrooms to go. Our waitress looked more nervous than I did and she announced to the kitchen boys that our baby’s on the way! I practically had a standing ovation leaving my restaurant home with a tearful waitress, fist pumping pizza cooks, and a questionable hostess wondering where the water went.

I do apologize for that clean up years later. I romantically think that the reason my son is obsessed with meatballs is because it was the first meal he denied me when he chose to enter the world with a grand gesture. But I can’t help but smile that he chose to start his life at an establishment where I have spent most of my life. As all great idioms go, it’s the circle of life.

 

Piece originally published in The Northport Gazette.