So what's the first thing to order in the Florida Keys, after the
mojito and conch fritters? Key lime pie, of course. So we did. We
ordered a slice just about everywhere we ate, and the hands-down best
came not from a fancy waterfront restaurant or anywhere on Duval
Street, but from the Key West Key Lime Pie Co.
We went to the store on Big Pine Key at mile marker 30, next to Pizza Works in the scenic Winn-Dixie plaza. The company sells pies out of about twenty other locations.
Perhaps it was the slant of late afternoon sunlight filtering through
the vine-laced pergola, gracing the plank of organic crudités. Maybe
it was the large grape leaves serving as blotters and platters for the
abundant array of fresh foods presented that perfect June day.
Of course, it also had to be the occasion. It was 1984. Northern
California was still new to Manhattanite me. We were celebrating the
opening of my girlfriend Jessel’s Gallery, birthed in an abandoned
granary building on Atlas Peak Road down the hill from the Silverado
Country Club in Napa. Diane Jessel, an artist, author, impresario,
was a patron of other female artists, and had a gallery full of gifted
gals’ tantalizing take away ceramics, California impressionist
canvases, and funny, functional, folk art pieces.
But I had NEVER seen a tuna salad quite like that one...
Once upon a time in a kitchen far, far away, I was often babysat by my grandma in our fairy tale of a family deli in downtown New Haven, Ct. I could have done worse. She, a sorceress of superb taste, made ruggelach fresh daily, with me assisting, eating fistfuls of walnuts that 'just happened' to fall from the dough, licking the battered bowl of elixir from the cake
preparations, eating crumbs that magically broke off the babka. My mouth was as busy as my hands as I ingested the mysteries of grandma’s cuisine.
We were major meat eaters in those innocent days, breakfast, lunch, noshes, suppers and snacks. How could we not be, with kosher creatures sticking out their tongues or lolling seductively about in grandpa's display cases? Lunches of exotic fare like liverwurst, baloney, pastrami, corned beef and melt-in-your-mouth scoops of the Chartoff chopped liver filled my plate. Pieces of the ubiquitous Hebrew National salamis were served in challah sandwiches, on toothpicks, fried up with eggs or put on my grandpa's homemade pizzas. Grandma's brisket was to die for, and she and grandpa left the earth from heart disease far too soon to prove it.
What do you get for the man who has everything, wants nothing, but gets anything he does want for himself? No, it’s not a trick math question; it’s my real life, eternal conundrum.
My husband has worked since his early 20s. He has taken care of his children, his parents, bought homes, cars, and all that he has ever needed. Now it’s his Big Birthday. All that I have to give him is love.
But shouldn’t we do something to mark the occasion? What? Where? A party?
I will give him a name for the sake of this story. Michael. Michael will tell you he has no friends, so no on a party, since there will be no one to invite. He exaggerates. He has some friends. Most of them live in New York. That is where he’s from and where he would like to live. But we live in L.A. He goes to New York whenever he gets the chance. He is a much happier man there. I rarely see him as happy as he is during those few days before leaving to go home to Manhattan. He often tells me he only came to Los Angeles on a business trip. It turned into a very long business trip. One, in which he married, had two kids, divorced, and remarried – me. But, how can I make him happy by moving with him back to New York when all our kids live here in Los Angeles? This is our home.
Months before the Big Day, I began coming up with ideas. “I think I know where we should celebrate your birthday. This is perfect. You want to visit your aunt so – Miami?!?” I didn’t get a big yes on that. I only got an “I’ll think about it.” Moving on, I came up with, “Let’s go to Santa Barbara for a night -- but with all the kids and everyone can have a room in the groovy hotel?” I got another, “I’ll think about it.”
If a group of 10 people playing the word association game were given the word “summer”, chances are at least half would say picnic. Probably more. For me, the best summer picnic, the only summer picnic, is a beach picnic. My family wasn’t park picnickers or picnic in the woods people. We were Long Island beach lovers. And that’s where we did our picnicking.
Every summer from the time I remember, until I was 18, my family belonged to the Lawrence Beach Club on the south shore of Long Island, New York. When school let out in June until after Labor Day, my sisters and I were there, rain or shine. If it rained while we were in the pool, we just opened our mouths to catch the drops.
On hot days after school started back up in September, my mom would pick us up at 3, the station wagon idling at the curb, and take us to the beach until 5 well into October when it was starting to cool down and get dark early.
Memories of Lawrence Beach Club own prime real estate in my memory bank. Beach picnics on summer weekday nights with my family are among the most precious. So precious they are usually keep vaulted in the back of the bank and brought out to be viewed on rare occasions.