The Life (and Foods) of Katelyn Kenney
[this is where my edited food story will go]
As most kids are, I was a little bit picky with my food. My favorite meal was Kraft mac and cheese with fish sticks served on a plate that looked like a pizza. The plate was important. But as I got older, and with my mother’s nudging, I realized my grandmother, Nonnie as we call her, was an amazing home cook. She grew up in Louisiana, and lived all over the country with my grandfather, Pop, because he worked for NASA. I would be hard-pressed to think of a dish Nonnie prepared that I didn’t like. Every meal tastes like home.
Nonnie also hosts Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve with my father’s side of the family every year. Some of my favorite memories happened at those gatherings. At Thanksgiving, we dress casually, make our plates, and try to find a place to sit around the folding tables Nonnie set up in her dining room. There are usually one or two men scarfing down their food so they can go watch football. The funny thing about Thanksgiving is we always sit with the same families in the same spot in the room, year after year. That used to bother me, but now I don’t mind. On Christmas Eve, we dress a little nice, but eat a less formal meal: sandwiches! There’s also no sitting around tables, but football is yet again dominating the TV. Those holiday meals were, and still are, the highlights of my year. When the weather gets colder, I don’t really think about presents or “the big game” or counting calories, I just get excited to see my family again.
For some reason, a meal I shared with my aunt stands out in my mind as a pivotal moment in my food life. We went to a hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant and she got me to try fried rice and ca phe sua da (Vietnamese iced coffee) as known as God’s gift to mankind. It’s the perfect balance of coffee flavor and sweetness that isn’t overwhelming on either side, but sure packs a punch in the caffeine department. I guess that was when I really started to enjoy coffee. I’m not totally sure, but that meal did also teach me that everything tastes better with a little sriracha.
The older I got, the more food became a social event. There are a handful of locations I will always remember not only for the meals, but for the time spent with friends: my eight month anniversary with a past boyfriend at Perry’s Steakhouse, eating at Barcena’s with my dad and grandparents, meeting my two best friends at Chili’s more out of routine and less out of enjoyment of the food (but the endless chips and salsa is a solid choice), Alonti’s taco salad that we’d get during Spirit Week in band, and who could count the number of late night Whataburger runs?
Now that I’m in college, I have a meal plan and very rarely get to go home and eat “real” food. As unorthodox as it is, I miss eating around the couch at my mom’s house. What I wouldn’t give for the simple things like packaged ravioli or a frozen pizza. I make do with the dining hall, but head to a food truck whenever I can for food I know I can rely on. I’ve branched out a lot in terms of what I eat, but some of my old habits remain. I still mostly order cheeseburgers if I’m at a new restaurant, and just like I grew up loving Kraft and fish sticks, one of my favorite meals today is Nonnie’s fried fish and homemade mac and cheese.