Stories

As the world becomes shortage and space obsessed, I realize how ahead of the curve I've been in making myriad reuses of everything and everyone. Call me frugal/economical and/or exploitive/anal.

I reuse big tissue boxes as snowshoes for a friend's kids (kids become two-pronged sources of love and laughs, lumbering around like "transformer bots"); I use their abandoned toy cars as conveyances for salt and pepper shakers glued on top, as "pass the salt" makes the dining room table a speedway.

It’s officially less than one week until a global earthquake causes the entire world to shatter into pieces. I thought we had another year and a half, but subway signs—and sign holders have informed me that the true end of the world is not in December of 2012, but is creeping up on us quickly. According to subway posters and people raising awareness outside of City Hall earlier this week, the end of the world is really May 21, 2011! So now it’s time to grab your parachute and your bungee chords and try something you’ve never done before! Or, in my case, eat all types of food that I’d like to smother my taste buds with before this global earthquake officially hits. Because while some people like to live like they will be dying—I’d much rather eat like I am dying.

So let’s say this hypothetical earthquake does hit. What’s on the final week’s menu? In any ordinary situation where life didn’t have an expiration date shorter than the one printed on my recently purchased gallon of skim milk, I would be exchanging out my sweets and diving into a vegetables, taking out the juices and drowning myself in water – but this week—this hypothetical last week of life – no way.

Someone wise once told me that ’shoulds’ lead to anger, and that if I ever found myself experiencing irrational irritation or annoyance I should look for ways I’ve decided someone or some thing ‘should’ be behaving, then decide if that ‘should’ is rational. This has proven a very useful technique for me, since I can pretty much chronicle my life through a series of frustrations with how the world behaves, in contrast to the way it behaves in my fantasies. ‘The World Is Not Enough’ would be a good title for the story of my life, had it not been taken already by the James Bond franchise.

A fairly recent exception to my chronic state of dissatisfaction, one that leaves me hopeful that I may have at last conquered my demon, comes in the form of smartphone applications (apps). What makes me especially hopeful that I’m cured is the massive potential for disappointment the smartphone presents. If you think about it, a device that can access the internet wirelessly, take high-resolution photos, talk, sense touch, recognize speech, know exactly where it is in the world (including which way is up), know whether it’s moving and how fast, and recognize the direction and strength of magnetic fields should be able to accomplish some pretty amazing feats.

To my surprise, I find that smartphone apps that should exist, often do. For instance, I take comfort in the fact that there is an app that finds the cheapest gas near my current location, and one that listens to a song whose name I can’t remember and identifies it for me, and one that overlays the constellations over the sky when I point my phone at any part of it.

No story, memoir, recipe or review here…just a list.  My food list.  There are certainly a few people who won’t understand this, like those who don’t wake up thinking about what they’re going to eat that day or the unfortunate man I once met who had no sense of taste or smell.  But if you’re reading One for the Table, you’re undoubtedly a foodie, bon vivant, epicure, connoisseur, gastronome, gourmet, gourmand, grazer or nosher – and you will understand.


First food I ever loved:
Gerber baby butternut squash

Favorite dishes my mother used to make:
Breaded veal cutlets
Spaghetti with her homemade meat sauce
Fry beef sandwiches (the kosher answer to a BLT)
Mac and cheese (yup, made with Velveeta)

Food I disliked as a kid and love as an adult:
Beets

Food I loved as a kid and dislike as an adult:
Lamb

Two foods I love that I wish I could live without…but can’t:
Cheese & Bread