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Write Around The World 2024 is nearly here! Check out this year’s event calendar and sign up for your chance to produce some great writing, engage with a supportive community and experience the magic of AWA. We’re offering groups nearly every day!

This writing was done in Barbara Krasner’s workshop “Food, Glorious Food!” during last year’s WAW.


 

Best. Food. Ever. by Linda Barlow

It was late. Super late. We were super drunk. And super hungry.
How we made it in & out of Fry’s Food & Drug was just short of a miracle (and how we made it home,
loaded & driving along the back roads of our university town – without getting either a) pulled over, or b)
arrested – was just as much of a miracle, too).
Obnoxious & loud – cuz’ we just crossed the Event Horizon of our respective 21st birthdays – we make a
beeline to the frozen food section, measuring pace up & down & among the dual rows of glass doors.
where’s the food where’s the food where’s the food
PIZZA
But which one? Round? No. Personal? No. French bread? YES
YES YES YES – each of us grabbed 2 boxes of Red Barron, dug a couple bucks out of the front pocket of
our jeans, and laughed all the way through the Express Checkout (bearing the weight of the glare of the
late-night checker, knowing that this was a mild version of what was to come much, much later during the
graveyard shift).
Home we went! Her home (technically, her parents’ home – it was one of those mid-semester breaks)
with our frozen prizes heavy in plastic bags.
Into the microwave (not the oven – an impatient pair, we) & into our mouths.
Ohhhhh … the sauce. Ohhhhh … the cheese. Ohhhhh … the pepperoni. Ohhhhh … the outer crust
yielding to the spongy innards.
The best … pizza … EVER. EVER-EVER-EVER. It was sooooo good – we’d never tasted anything
SOOO GOOOOOD. Heaven – sheer heaven.
Hours later, after getting unceremoniously dragged off the couch to face newbie hangovers against the
bright desert sun of a late Tucson afternoon, we slothed our aching bodies & pounding heads back to the
kitchen to feast, again, on the remainder of the oh-so-delicious French bread pizza.
Nuked. Waited. Bit into. And … ummm … eww?
How did something so grand, so delicious, so delectable less than 8 hours earlier, turn into a mouthful of
wallpaper paste soaked in a stale Styrofoam mess of a mother-of-vinegar that’s given up the ghost.
Our First Lesson about The Power of Alcohol and Its Judgement-Impairing Effects While Loaded.