A Literary Feast

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Posts from the “Uncategorized” Category

La Dolce Vita, Deep Fried

Posted on March 18th, 2013

I hate planes and suitcases, so I’ve never been much of an international traveler. But I did see the better part of Italy and Greece on a whirlwind Mediterranean tour back in the 1990s. When I tell people this, they usually share tales of their own travels: their honeymoon in Rome, sightseeing in Florence, a memorable walking tour of Pompeii… Of course they also talk about food: the arrabiata from a back alley trattoria, the little cafe with the flaky sfogliatelle, the beauty of a classic margherita pizza. I smile politely and nod, but I wouldn’t really know. Sadly, I went on the french fry tour of Italy. The trip was organized through my high school and run by one of those educational touring…

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Hawaii Five-D’Oh

Posted on March 18th, 2013

I’m not the best food planner. This was evident when I decided that a block of cheddar cheese was a wise grocery purchase to keep in my tent during a week of tropical camping. I rumbled into the park on my moped, the sun dipping low out of sight as the island wind rose to a ferocious peak and the sky opened up, dropping a thick blanket of warm rain over the beach. Ripping open my tent flap I threw my body under the canvas just in time to avoid sleeping in a stinking nest of damp, dirty clothing. Pleased with the success of finally having beaten the storm home, a feat I had not yet accomplished as it rained every evening and I…

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A Trip For The Almost But Not Even Remotely Famously Food Rich

Posted on March 18th, 2013

Jan 8th: Aspiring foodie adventurist/traveling hipster doofus Hawksbill “White Raisin In The Sun” Free Turtle  wikiconjures a leeward image of the local USVI food culture.   Jan 9th  am:  Lunch pail list completed:   1.Try conch, fungee, callaloo, and mauby.   2. Eat as much fresh fish as possible   3. Drink each of the following local beverages: pumpkin punch, sorrel, soursop punch, banana punch, peanut punch, bush tea and lemon tea among others.   4. If all else fails, subsist on coffee, painkillers, and Johnnycakes.   Jan 9th pm: Reads friend’s email informing him “Caribbean actually imports most of its seafood!” Notes #2 on list will take some extra panache. Uses the word panache for the first time in his notes. Notes this.  …

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Four Narrow Escapes

Posted on March 18th, 2013

A bottle of wine (so I’m told) can be an escape from the bite of late winter, from the grind of a nine-to-five job, from any of life’s little woes. The lush sun itself can burst forth when the cork pops out of the bottle.   I am not here to tell you about those wines.   A weekday evening found me in the discount wine section of a local grocery store with twelve dollars to spend on morbid curiosity. My simple mission: find and purchase several bottles of wine so unforgivably foul that the sheer thrill of tasting each would outweigh any contingent suffering. At $3.99 apiece I walked away with specimens from Chile, Italy, Spain, and what I can only assume is…

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The Night Market

Posted on March 18th, 2013

With dusk comes the feeling that this place is magic. A silent hum builds in the concrete walkways and swaths of lawn, vibrating up the legs of unsuspecting tourists. A man shows up with a folding table, then another with a large wheeled cooler; it’s beginning. Spotting the park intermittently at first, then in regular city blocks (which the narrow and winding streets of Old Stone Town are not), food vendors set up for the Night Market. People of every shade gather at the edges, gravitating towards the square as the sun sinks lower over the ocean, the small dhows anchored in the bay made sharply dark against the shimmering heat of the Indian Ocean. The light pulls back from the heavy stone walls…

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The Long Hill

Posted on March 18th, 2013

It is March and here, miles inland, gulls are circling around the barn-buckled roof of my house. I imagine my recently acquired mid-century modern swan lamp feeling some sympathetic tug towards the window, to be out. To be away. The light is slowly dialing itself down between the houses. Everything going pale gold, the clouds sporting some darker breath at the horizon. Weather in the offing. Spring has yet to fully arrive, necessitating this heavy wool cardigan, the hiking socks I have on my feet, propped on an empty wine crate beneath the desk. But—we feel it running now, in the vein. The sap’s high. Leaving a store downtown on an errand, I feel something like breath on my cheek, and turn, startled to…

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A Final Resting Place For The Loved And Lost

Posted on February 14th, 2013

Somewhere, deep in the more nostalgic regions of my psyche, there is a mausoleum for some of my dear departed friends. It has rooms and hallways and niches lined with shelves to memorialize the loved and lost. But it’s not a particularly mournful or melancholy place–instead it’s kind of wistful, full of sentimental memories and the stuff to launch a million mouth-watering daydreams. Every now and again I spend some time there, reliving good times and soaking in the inspiration of the deceased. It is where I place the food and drink lost from my life. There are a variety of reasons these friends of mine were taken from the world. Some arrived in these culinary catacombs long ago, some quite recently. Some were…

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Sugar.

Posted on February 14th, 2013

Sugar. Sweet sweet sugar. I just can’t seem to quit you. Everyone is telling me you aren’t right for me, that you don’t treat me well. My friends say that you don’t love me the way that I love you. But they don’t know how it is when we’re alone together. They don’t know how you comfort me when I’m feeling forlorn in the middle of the day, or how you give me something to look forward to when I am driving home after a long, draining shift at work. They don’t know hard it is to give you up when you are woven into almost every aspect of my life. But, the doctors say you’re the root of my problem, and they’re professionals,…

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La Petite Auberge

Posted on February 14th, 2013

Circumstance recently brought me to the drab, cluttered 3rd Avenue stretch just east of Manhattan’s Flatiron / Murray Hill neighborhoods, and my mind immediately conjured the late La Petite Auberge. It was my favorite French restaurant for its last couple of years of existence, though my sporadic patronage – the meals were neither healthy nor cheap – obviously failed to save it from demise about a year and a half ago. The restaurant occupied an unlikely location on a street corner surrounded by a mix of Indian eateries, Middle Eastern dives, and various mediocre holes-in-the-wall catering to college students. It was easy to miss from the street, but once inside, you knew this was a magnificent dinosaur. La Petite Auberge (French for “The Little…

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The 3 Musketeers’ Lament: A Failed Love Triangle

Posted on February 14th, 2013

Lover One: 100 Grand?   Lover Two: No. Thanks, I have a Snickers. But, I miss Skittles, I want to Taste The Rainbow. Peeps give me Hershey’s Kisses and Tootsie Rolls and all the Good and Plenty I ask for. Sugar Daddys galore. We cruise ’round the Milky Way.   Lover Three:  You want to go for an Almond Joy ride?   Lover Two: Yes, thank you. Now, I want some Swedish Fish Mafia…my BBBBBaby Ruth back, my Bbbbbaby Ruth back? HAAHAHHA.   Lover One: WhatChaMaCallIt?   Lover Three: Bbbbbbbaby Ruth back, Bbbbbbbaby Ruth back, can I bbbbbbbuild you a Gingerbbbbbread House? ..You know, out of MMMMMM&MMMMMM’s?   Lover Two : I do, I do! But, how ‘bout a fffffffffriggin’ PAYDAY…. Mr. Bigglesworth!   Lover…

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