Prompt: Write a story involving food

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. 

She could practically keep time with the steadiness of the white fence posts passing as her car hugged the winding road. She rounded a sharp corner, her foot lifting off the gas to touch the brake. A large truck passed her in the opposite lane and she held her breath. The road didn't seem to fit two sedans, much less her and the wide, red Ford pickup that seemed to speed up as his vehicle approached hers, not bothering to hug the curb more when they met. 

It was hard to imagine the younger version of herself, speeding along this route, carefree and perpetually late, untouchable in the banged-up Volvo she'd had when she was 16. She'd always been embarrassed by that car, with its scratches and dents from the owner before, but she had nonetheless felt safe in there. It was her cocoon. In it she had disavowed country music, blaring alt rock on burnt CDs. She'd crammed chocolate covered donuts from the gas station into her mouth as she drove to school, discarding the wrapper onto the floor of the passenger seat. Honey buns, donuts, a Hardee's bacon, egg, and cheese—her mother's insistence on clean eating be damned.

She couldn't imagine eating Little Debbie's for breakfast these days but suddenly she felt a pull of nostalgia.  

The car's clock blinked 9:28. She could get there in 15 minutes and still have 15 minutes before they stopped serving breakfast. Tight, but worth the attempt, she reasoned, taking a left instead of the right that would take her straight to her parents' place. As long as she didn't get stuck behind a group of cyclists or a tractor, she would make it. 

Her car lifted and fell on the familiar slopes. Unlike her Brooklyn neighborhood with its rotating door of storefronts and new build apartments that sprouted up from block to block, the scenery on these roads seemed to never chang. A fallen tree, a new entry gate, an appaloosa she'd never seen before — those were the only variances here. 

She slowly pulled into the gravel lot, careful not to fling up rocks as she parked and took in afresh the anomaly of the little restaurant tucked in between horse farms and far from roads that had more than one lane. Inside the restaurant was just how she remembered — wood floors and a hodgepodge of decorations that looked as though each item on the wall was presented to the owner by a different person and she'd said, "Sure, hun, hang it on up."

She ordered and was handed a table number holder with a cartoon rooster wedged between the coils, the laminated corners rolling up. She sat down and took in the smell of fried batter as she watched the moving line of boots, belt buckles and Carhartt that the patrons hadn't paid overpriced Bushwick vintage fees for. 

Steam broke her trance as a plate of gravy and biscuits was set down in front of her and she breathed in a scent she hadn’t smelled in years.