“Order three-zero, you’re my hero!”
The quirky words beckon me forward, and I mutter a quick thanks as I snag the brown paper bag from the counter. I am four, ten, seventeen, twenty years old eating my favorite food.
There are neon signs and bicycles hanging from the ceiling. A red weiner dog sits happily in a bun, smiling at me from the bag, my styrofoam cup, the signs on the walls.
I empty the bag’s contents: two plain hot dogs, fries, and a cheese cup, and I smile like the logo as my Alabamian boyfriend returns with his own bag (“Order thirty-one, time for some fun!”). “This hotdog better change my life,” he teases, shaking his head. “You’ve been hyping the food here up since we met.”
“It’s the best there is,” I quip back, but a part of my mind worries. Sure, it’s the only hotdog I’ll eat, but how could I begin to explain that it’s more nostalgia than flavor that keeps me running back?
“Every day I wake up and wish we had Portillo’s in the south,” I sigh dramatically.
He laughs, shaking his head again. He’s ordered a Chicago Dog and a hotdog with only ketchup. My mother, another Schaumburg native, looks on in mild amusement as she unwraps her beef (“Order twenty-nine, your time to shine!”). We watch him take his first bite, hesitant but willing, and wait as he chews for the verdict.
Schaumburg, Illinois—Chicago to those who are unfamiliar with the area—the reason I still get made fun of for saying “pop” and “ope.” Cornfields on every other block, fall festivities that rival the best fairs, sights and people and food I’ve spent twelve years missing, glimpsing a living past only through brief trips for holidays and family deaths. A time capsule that doesn’t wait for me to open it. I can remember my younger self, can feel her buzzing within me, can see the purple bedroom in Huntley where she watched fireflies through the window whenever she couldn’t sleep.
“Okay, you win. That is the best hotdog I’ve ever had,” he finally announces, and my mother and I exchange delighted looks. It’s a wonderful start to his journey of trying Chicago foods and witnessing whatever scraps remain of the life my mother and I left behind.
I’m eager to dive into my own meal, peeling off the aluminum wrapping to reveal the poppyseed coated bun, quickly dipping it into the cup of concerningly-yellow cheese and ignoring the look of thinly-veiled disgust on my boyfriend’s face. In my youth I’d sit at my grandmother’s dining table trying my best to rub the seeds off before giving up and discarding the bun entirely, but in this newfound adulthood my palette has matured to appreciate the texture they add, as if the southern drawl that’s crept into my accent has changed my very tastebuds. The first bite makes up for the fact that we’ve spent a total of sixteen hours trapped in a car, and the little girl I once was takes full control of my spirit.
We chatter about our plans for the rest of the week, from meeting my extensive northern family to visiting my favorite farmer’s market where I first tried strawberries fresh off the vine in the summer and snacked on apple cider donuts before knocking out two of my baby teeth in the fall. We’ll drive by the old townhouse where my mother used to make hot cocoa while I played with my father in the snow. We’ll go to Johnnie’s for a beef and Giordano’s for a good stuffed deep-dish pizza. The Baker’s Square whose french silk pie we used to love has closed, as has the Colonial Cafe whose pancakes I used to obsess over. I think back to every time I’ve sat in this very Portillo’s, eating the same meal, looking forward to the same things.
“I’m worried he won’t like stuffed pizza since he’s not a big fan of cheese,” Mom sighs, speaking to me as if the subject of her concern isn’t sitting directly to my right.
“He’ll be fine,” I say, casting a glance in his direction. There’s a desperate desire within me for him to like everything we force him to try, as if his rejection of my favorite dishes would be an indirect rejection of me. After all, I’m still the child who once sat at this table in a booster seat with a bunless hotdog in my hand and a stupid grin plastered across my face. These menus carry pieces of my life—opinions that have earned me the title “picky eater” and comfort foods that feel like family Christmas.
“I’m sure he’ll love it. Chicago has the best food in the country,” I boldly declare, and my mother is quick to agree. We shake our heads as my boyfriend tries to argue, bringing up seafood and Moonpies and any other Mobile favorites he can conjure in his memory, and we reassure him that “it’s okay to be wrong.” I relax against the cold vinyl seat and laugh as the cheese fries warm me from the inside. Mobile’s grip on me has gradually tightened over the twelve years I’ve called it “home” (though that word has never felt quite right), and the king cakes and crawfish boils have nestled their way into my heart, but Chicago’s staples will always taste the most like the joy that’s only known in youth.
Nostalgia and loss are irreplicable ingredients, their blooming flavors bringing to mind images of summer days that didn’t swelter, autumn evenings spent jumping in an oil painting of dead leaves, winter nights wrapped in layers upon layers of clothing. Their aftertastes are regret for what the years could have been, helplessness for how my earliest memories are rapidly fading, and longing for the simplicity of those formative years spent surrounded by family and old friends I haven’t spoken to in nearly a decade.
While I’m in this loud, chaotic restaurant eating their famous Chicago street food, I’m not only freshly twenty (filled with hope and fear, talking about Alabama football and saying “y’all”), but also seventeen (sitting with the daughter of my mom’s childhood friend, whom I’ve known since she was born) and eleven (visiting town for my Grandfather’s funeral, comforted by the warm, familiar food in my stomach) and seven (complaining about how I don’t want to move to the south, asking if they have Portillo’s in Florida) and every age before that. I feel old and young all at once, foreign and at home, old and new. I have changed but I have stayed the same, just like the food I’ve loved my whole life.
Aubrey “Bee” Case is a first-generation college student from Schaumburg, IL (or Mobile, AL, depending on your perspective) with a heart condition and many things to say. When she’s not writing or swamped with school, she loves listening to music, watching shows with her roommate, and having off-putting existential conversations with anyone who’s willing.