Let's Make a Meal

Reckoning with a return to restaurants, our mutual responsibility, and memories of shared tables long past

- NATHAN GUNTER

WHEN I WAS thirteen, my mom, my brother, and I went to dinner at the Black-eyed Pea on I-240 in south Oklahoma City. The meal was odd: Every one of us ordered nothing but potatoes. Baked potatoes, potato skins, mashed potatoes, and so on—we didn’t plan it, but once our smorgasbord of spuds arrived, we ate ravenously. We still look back on that meal and laugh: What was up with all those potatoes?