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Celeste Teale and David C. Fischer, residents of Fjord, in Galloway County, drove to Madison on Thursday to see a doctor, or, I should say more properly, for a doctor to see Celeste.
By mid-afternoon, done with the doc and almost done with a lengthy errand, Celeste, who had consumed nothing all day but her morning pills, a cup of coffee, and a buttered-and-jammed slice of toast, was in urgent need of a meal, so she and Dave went to — Pizzeria & Grill, which was open and nearly empty. They were happy to find a great distance between occupied booths and tables. Old-time posters and sketches of Chicago scenes adorned the walls.
The server looked to be in her mid-twenties, a white woman with bright brown eyes above her dark, snug-fitting face mask, which had a small UW logo embroidered on it. Dave later judged her to be “pleasant but insufficiently attentive.” Celeste concurred.
Celeste and Dave ordered the most expensive item on the menu, not a pizza, but just the one order, and they shared it, half, half. It was a perfect-sized meal, if not quite an entirely perfect meal, but part of that was Dave’s fault, for his confusing in his mind the terms “sirloin” and “New York strip.” Nonetheless, the two of them enjoyed the place and the food, and they took their sweet time, as they had not yet decided whether to return to the interrupted errand or to attempt to finish it on another day. They studied the six dessert offerings on the single-sheet, two-sided menu.
When the server asked if they were considering having dessert, Celeste looked at David, who nodded in reply and told her, “Choose it!”
“We’ve narrowed it down to two choices,” Celeste told the waitress.
“Oh! What two?” asked the waitress, happily.
“The brownie sundae or the cake.” Celeste tapped a fingertip on those two choices on the menu.
RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME
INSANELY LARGE CHOCOLATE CAKE
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8.99
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DEEP DISH BROWNIE SUNDAE
A rich brownie made with Ghirardelli® chocolate chips baked in a deep-dish pan
and topped with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream.
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8.49 |
“Oh, I love the cake!” exclaimed the waitress. “It’s so good! It’s really big! It reminds me of Matilda, did you see the movie Matilda? It reminds me of when they are in the restaurant and the cake flies through the air and lands on the table in front of Matilda! Do you remember that?”
David and Celeste smiled at each other, slightly puzzled. And they smiled at the waitress and nodded as if they recalled, and Celeste said, “Yes! The cake! We’ll have the cake!”
“One slice of cake, please,” said Dave. “And two forks, please.”
When the waitress went back to the kitchen, David suggested to his wife, “Maybe, dear, it’s about time for us to see Matilda once more.”
And the cake? Ohhh, yes, Fischer and Teale agreed, the cake lived up to its praise. They ate precisely half of it and asked for a box for the rest. And if you are acquainted with Fischer and Teale yourself, particularly the Fischer part of the team, you must surely realize that a good chocolate cake slice would have to be “insanely large,” as advertised, for any part of it to go uneaten in the restaurant.
♦
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