I miss Souplantation. My family ate there at least every other month, sometimes up to a couple times a month, ever since I was small. I know the layout of that restaurant--the buffet sections, the tables and chairs, the shitty bathrooms that were somehow untouched by the decor update in the 2010s--better than I know most of my relatives' houses. We sat at the corner round table in the side/front of the restaurant as often as we could, calling it "our table". Dad would sit with his back to the corner, mom would sit at his right with her back to the side parking lot, I would sit at his left, and my siblings would sit between me and mom. We usually had to forgo our trays, as there were six of us crammed at that table. I loved the muffins and cookie bars, the pizza and focaccia bread, the range of possibilities at the salad bar (even though I'd pretty much always get the same thing). Their ranch and blue cheese dressings are the best I've ever had. Even the dull plastic plates, cups and trays were familiar to me. I always seemed to get a fork with bent (inward) tines.
When the pandemic began, I thought everything would go back to normal in a month; two, tops. I never dreamed that restaurant would close. Small indie mom & pop restaurants? Yes, sadly. But not successful salad bar chains like Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes. There was a Sweet Tomatoes in Walnut Creek, which we ate at a couple of times when visiting my brother and sister in law, and a Souplantation near the LA airport! I can't believe we're never going to eat at Souplantation again. We last ate there for mom's birthday in February, the whole family, including my siblings and their spouses who live far away. None of us had any idea. Nobody did, really. I honestly kind of feel like a family member has died.
This is what I would get whenever we went to Souplantation: the Chinese wonton salad, because I only like salads other people have prepared for me, and all the other prepared salads had meat; peas and corn, cucumber slices; other vaguely ethnic side salads that were either cabbage-based or quinoa/other similar grains-based; the flavored croutons; and a little waxed cup each of ranch and blue cheese dressing. Then I would get pasta, usually macaroni and cheese or occasionally fettucine alfredo, or a different pasta if it sounded better than the mac & cheese; and a soup if it wasn't too hot outside (usually the unhealthiest vegetarian soup). I'd get four little slices of pizza, two little slices of focaccia bread, and a cup of water. We always got water because it was cheapest, but occasionally dad would have a coupon (we always used a coupon) that required one person to get an actual beverage. I had their strawberry lemonade a few times; it was delicious. I'd eat the salad first, to get it over with, then the vegetables, then the other salads (which were usually tastier). I'd dip the foccaccia bread and the pizza pieces into the dressing cups, alternating bites and dressings. For dessert I'd always get a brownie muffin, or the lava cake if we stayed until their dinner menu (lunch was cheaper so we often went right before the cutoff time), as well as a gluten-free muffin (mmm, coconutty) or occasionally a blueberry muffin with honey whip butter. I got ice cream a lot when I was younger, from a soft-serve machine that always had chocolate and vanilla; the middle one was always a choco-vanilla swirl. I can also recite my other family members' orders by memory, but I'll spare you that. When I heard the news, I panic-pinned a bunch of copycat Souplantation recipes, but it won't be the same.
This year has really taken a lot from us, hasn't it? I really didn't think it was a big deal, at first. I had lived through the H1N1, swine flu, avian flu, several other scares like that. I was actually excited to work from home in my pajamas, sprawled on my purple chaise lounge with my laptop. I enjoyed sleeping in, too; it is now kind of impossible for me to wake up before noon. I miss putting together cute outfits and doing makeup looks and shopping without worrying about contracting a deadly disease. I miss going to church and seeing my friends. I miss hugging my friends and family. I miss my extended family; I haven't seen them since my mom's birthday party. Some were sick and couldn't attend, so I haven't seen them for longer. I haven't seen my dad's side of the family since... maybe my dad's birthday? Did we drive up then? Or maybe my uncle's 60th bday party. One of my cousins and his wife had a baby, and I haven't been able to hold her because I was getting over a cold before covid. I haven't seen her since I dropped off a pasta dish a few weeks after she was born. She's 6 or 7 months old now, and doesn't know me. We used to get together with my mom's side of the family (the CA ones) every month or so, since there was always a birthday or holiday to celebrate. This is the longest I've gone without seeing them.
I miss seeing my family without feeling guilty about it. I always drove to my parents' to have lunch with them every Saturday, and usually stayed until the evening (I stayed the night if I had laundry to do). I decided to socially isolate from everybody except them, but then my sister and her husband came to stay with our parents for the summer (which of course I'm happy about) and my aunt and other brother and sister in law come over and have lunch with us a lot and then my brother in law's sister will come over to hang out with him and my sister, and none of us are wearing masks or keeping our distance. This pandemic must be so hard on all the other latinxs and POC. I know people who hadn't seen their families in months, because they all lived in separate apartments/houses. I feel bad about that, but I don't want to wear a mask around my family, and I don't want to stop seeing my parents and sister & brother in law. My mom is going to start working with covid patients in September. I should probably stop coming over then, but I don't want them to be alone. My sister's working in a nursing home, and that's dangerous too, not to mention my brother and sister in law are doctors and work in hospitals. What can you do, though? To round up this paragraph of things I'm doing wrong during the pandemic, I've also eaten at restaurants a couple of times with my family (sit in, for my dad's birthday), shopped more than once a week almost every week since May, and had a pedicure a month ago.
If Lotus Garden closes down too, I'm going to lose it.
