The Fall of a Dish and a City

The sound of the plate hitting the floor is still ringing in my ear as I feel the glass shards hit the bottom of my leg. I look around and see fear take over everyone’s face as the legs of the dining table quiver uncontrollably knocking over the once-filled pasta dish flat on the ground. The white sauce of the Fettucini Alfredo splattered across the marble ground stands out above the dark surface. Everyone’s heads dart to the window as the sunny, sea-blue skies are suddenly filled with coal-black smoke. The calmness we had felt earlier thinking the shaking was a mild earthquake was now buried under an avalanche of doubt and panic. Amidst all the quivering and the turmoil, my mind wandered to the steamy pasta and the memory of trying the dish for the first time.

I wake up on a sunny August morning in my still dimmed room in Beirut, Lebanon. I sit upon my silky bed, which is decorated with green vines that seem to intertwine all along the sides, with the dreams from the past night still hazy in my mind. I look in the circular mirror that hangs perfectly against the white wall and I see my hair tangled up reminiscent of the long night of sleep I just had. After having brushed my teeth and gotten ready for the day I am about to head out my bedroom door when I’m hit with a strong scent of creamy richness that fills the entity of the room, and every nook and cranny is absorbed by the odor of what feels like Christmas morning. Just the smell of the dish allows me to envision what it would taste like to devour the buttery, smooth fragrance filling up the space around me. I immediately walk towards the part of my house releasing the steamy scent like a mouse does a slice of cheese in a mice trap, and as I approach, the clattering sounds of the pots and pans across the stove get louder. I walk through the kitchen doors and my focus shifts from the loud sounds and strong odors to the bright smile my mom shoots my way. I smile back suddenly noticing the delicious pasta being cooked in the distance and as I take a deep breath of the thick, smooth, creamy sauce, my mom says “It’s Fettuccine Alfredo, my special recipe.” My sister and I sit around the table as my mom is slowly placing the Fettucini dish between the both of us. My fork turns several times between the long strands of pasta and white, rich sauce and I take a bite. I can taste the different spices mixed within the creamy sauce, along with the lightly buttered mushroom and crispy chicken pulling the whole dish together, forming the perfect bite. The explosion of flavors in my mouth is overpowered by the muffled sounds of my mom and sister’s laughter in the distance. I look across the table and smile at them as my chewing slows and Fettucini Alfredo begins making its way down, and I know that here I feel safe. I was away from the outside world where Fettucini Alfredo is nothing but an Italian dish you get at Applebee’s on a Friday night, where the smell of creamy, rich, white sauce doesn’t wake you up in the morning allowing you to forget all things wrong. However I was about to find out that it takes more than a dish that smells like home to keep me safe. 

    After having tried my mom’s special dish that week, I made plans to visit my friend and take some of the Alfredo for her to try. I get to her place on Sunday night, pasta dish in hand awaiting the moment I get to share such a delicious meal with my friends. After catching up with everyone, we begin to gather around the dining table that is surrounded by large, rectangular windows looking out at the clear-blue sky, and the sea that extends into the abyss leaving us to wonder what is to come . As everyone begins filling their plates up and the steam of the Fettucine fills the air around us, a rumbling sound begins taking over and shaking can be felt all over the house. The tables, the chairs, the chandelier, all swaying violently as though the ground below was waiting to swallow the world whole. “Splat” the plate to my left falls, spilling all the pasta and its ingredients onto the floor leaving nothing but glass debris from the plate, and remnants of what once tasted like home. The feeling of safety and hope escape all our minds as the dark, coal-like smoke fills the once clear skies and the sea no longer stretches into the abyss, but is now buried under utter darkness. Slowly but surely our focus shifts all around the room as the objects on the shelves begin falling to the floor and breaking into a million pieces, and every time something falls a gasp escapes someone’s mouth and eyes begin to widen. In the distance, amidst the dark smoke and chaos, there’s a red light, bright enough to see but small enough to remain calm. As it gets bigger and bigger fear consumes our bodies as we look around frantically hoping someone understands what’s happening. “Lightning?”, “A plane?” we all start inquiring. “It’s an explosion,” Emma says, knowing that this is not what we think it is. The words escape her mouth and a wave of intense shaking hits the room, the building, the street, and the entire city of Beirut, as it crashes and burns in an explosion that we once thought was nothing but  an earthquake. The black skies surround the city and the Fettucini Alfredo sits on the marble floor below us not having moved since the explosion hit, a dish meant to unite us, has now become collateral damage in the destruction of Lebanese lives forever.

    I get a call from my mom saying our house didn’t make it and I sit and realize all the memories lost with the fallen architecture that was once my home. The laughing, the crying, the screaming, the dancing and all the in between that slowly disappears as the debris accumulates. That is where I once felt safe, where Fettuccine Alfredo was a dish that felt like home and hope instead of destruction and debris. Where the smell of smoke meant the pasta was cooking, not the city was burning.