Two Wednesdays ago my father’s cousin Madeline passed away. She was 86. As the only member of my family in close enough proximity to the funeral service in Pittsfield, Massachusetts to reasonably make it, I’d been gently asked if I could attend. I spent a lovely afternoon with Madeline last year and found her company pleasant and her resiliency and sense of humor impressive. She served as part of the WAVES in WWII, and just last year drove herself to Daytona for Spring Break! I told my parents I could take the day off from my job and head to the Berkshires, to the town where my father grew up and Madeline never left, but didn’t want to make the trip alone. A day out of the city was what I needed to adjust the balance and, it being early April, I knew it would afford some breathtaking scenery of the first brilliant colorings of the season. Luckily, my good friend and Take the Handle editor Sam was free to join me, so on an otherwise sunny Spring day that provided rain in all the right places, we set out. I’ve spent little time with my father’s side of the family, and even less in Pittsfield. I don’t mean to crudely write about food on a trip to a funeral, but for me it served in part to establish a more tangible connection with my family’s past. I found it necessary and, though somber in parts, an entirely uplifting and affirming experience.
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What’s for breakfast? No, what’s breakfast for? We grow up knowing that breakfast is “the most important meal of the day” but I went several years in my twenties neglecting the meal entirely and never felt I was missing much. I understand its advocates when they say breakfast aids a healthy metabolism, literally breaking the fast since the previous night’s supper, awakening the system while providing energy. I certainly respect this now more than I did eight years ago, but I’m more interested in the routine breakfast becomes, and for many ritualistic. Generally, I reject routine, and combat its easy grip, for it makes dull boys and old scenery. Ritual, despite obvious roots in spirituality or religion, is still vital to the success of even a most unorthodox or spontaneous existence. I’m not sure where the line is drawn between ritual and routine, but I can say that with breakfast it is perhaps one instance where I find a daily routine necessary; a point of balance, and a chance to regroup with yourself, if just to see where – literally – you are the next day.
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When I was 14, my sister, who must have been 35 at the time, introduced me to what would become for several years my favorite comfort food: “Chicken Broth and Noodles.” A can of College Inn broth, a generous heaping of egg noodles, and a few turns of freshly ground black pepper, and I was in HEAVEN. It was nothing special but had some addictive quality, which I later discovered was monosodium glutamate. I’ve been toying with the idea of buying one of the gigantic containers of MSG they have at Food Bazaar, and seeing what would happen if I added some to otherwise home-cooked, natural food, but don’t yet fully believe it’s a good idea. Alongside the noodles, I’d always have an unreasonably large glass of milk. Sorry, I’m blind to you haters, because I LOVE MILK. I can never get enough. It makes everything, except pickles, better. Chicken broth and noodles and milk was my favorite late night snack in high school, or what I’d eat for lunch or dinner when my mother wasn’t around.
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My father, who can’t make anything, was always great at making popcorn. Once or twice a week, throughout my early years, the sound of popcorn kernels hitting the pan would reach my ears and send me running to the kitchen to watch the process. There wasn’t a lot of junk food around, so making popcorn was cause for honest delight. It meant sitting with my parents or sometimes my sisters if they were home and watching a movie. The popcorn was always lightly salted and never buttered. My father – or more likely my mother – noticed I was fascinated with the process of making it – of how a handful of those tiny, rock hard kernels could be transformed in minutes to a bowl of light, irresistible popcorn, to say nothing of the grace of the actual pop. It remains my earliest memory of cooking. Though my mother toiled everyday in the kitchen to cook us dinner, I was oblivious. I liked what my dad was doing, that he was making a delicate snack by immediate and violent means.
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I got a job and have been eating too much. I got one of those soul-crushing, spirit-sucking, stare at a computer, click a mouse, wonder the weather, creepy co-worker, count the minutes, cursor over minimize jobs, because I had to. Such a job makes lunchtime a lot more special, and for what other reason would I have to wander the maze of Chinatown several times a week, at that most New York of hours, lunch? The job has resulted not yet in any relief of debt, but with a vague promise of it I’ve been indulging in lunchtime meals out, and in dinnertime explorations in outer boroughs. Such decadence has reminded me that only in New York can one eat all of Earth’s food, fit for a king, and for pocket change, but that such a lifestyle is cyclic and necessitates keeping the shitty job, while not having time for anything.
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Each day last week as I returned home from work, I would find a plastic bag tied to the metal bars on the ground floor window of my apartment building. As it was impossible to untie, I would clumsily hack at it with a key while pulling until finally the bag would give way, where I would bring it up to my kitchen to reveal its contents. One day there were little individually (and hand) wrapped Bresaola sandwiches, roasted sweet potatoes, globs of guacamole over salad, tarragon chicken kabobs, a can of coke. Another day yielded pasta salad, pesto, cheese and crackers, another an assortment of roasted vegetables, more chicken, Fizzy Lizzy, and so on. The daily deliveries were courtesy of an old and dear friend of mine who was working on a photo shoot near my house, and leaving me a bit of the leftover catering from each day’s shoot. Every day was a little different, though always exciting, and exemplary of my favorite way to eat. If I were to put it into a sort of wisdom or mantra it would be simply, “eat what you have.”
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Since I left it, I’ve always been uncomfortable with people’s perceptions of Connecticut. There’s an idea that the state is made up entirely of Fairfield County; where the wealthy go home, play croquet on their lawns, or frolic in the idyllic, rolling hills of the west. As a result, it’s unfairly influenced my own perception of the state in which I grew up. While not exactly ashamed, I haven’t been fair to the place that, for the first 18 years of my life, I called home. Recently, I think—can you ever tell?—I’ve fallen in love with my home state, due firstly perhaps to its mind-bogglingly plentiful offerings of the food of old America—its indigenous steamed cheeseburgers, classic hot dogs, fried fish, world class pizza, and ice cream. For being the third smallest state, it is positively bursting with iconic food options.
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Store window displays rarely get me inside a store, though when executed with the right dose of humor or taste I can appreciate them on an aesthetic level. I’m also consciously avoiding stores, or anywhere I could potentially spend money, because I have none. The other day, though, I lifted this self-imposed ban when I wandered past the AmazingSavings on the corner of Broadway and Rutledge in Williamsburg. Stacked in neat disarray in the window were piles of appliances, running the gamut of functionality: Food processors (could come in handy), infrared toasters (!), and a ridiculous electronic pizza oven that I seriously doubt could ever yield any decent pizza. The slogan scrawled along the windows promised “amazing” prices. With a birthday and a new apartment, I justified my visit. The store is typical of those in the area, part of a wonderful and anachronistic vortex of stores that remain untouched by the tornados of mall-ification and the shackles of national chains. Here, under the shadow of Broadway’s elevated train, the small guys do more than just survive — they seem to thrive!
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I used to have a job — sometimes I still do — that required going into strangers’ houses and looking inside their fridge. The thinking was in part that you can learn a lot about a person by what’s in their fridge; by what they eat, what they don’t eat, or what they haven’t eaten yet. This week, I moved into a place I can call home for the first time in a long while, and I was looking forward to getting my fridge started and stocked in the right way — a delicate, enriching process. A fridge at its best is a diary. It’s a record of the past several months in its stray pickles, arcane condiments, obtuse Goya experiments and of the more recent: Half-used vegetables, questionable cheeses, and, if time has afforded, the past few days’ leftovers. What is more satisfying than opening your fridge and enjoying, with no preparation, yesterday’s effort?
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My father has never cooked anything in his life. Seventy-six years on, and I don’t know if he’s ever purposefully opened an oven door, other than to see what was inside. My parents live in a charming little house on an island in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Fort Myers, Florida. That little house was newly quiet last week, as my mother, who provides it its energy, was hospitalized for her heart. I was glad to be there to cook for my father, while also indulging in my favorite therapeutic act: A day in the kitchen.
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