Food, Family and Memory

The guy to the right of me, wearing a stained #13 Alex Rodriguez jersey, grabbed his glove and screamed “Here it comes!  Here it comes!”

The woman behind me was yelling “Oh my gawd! It’s comin’ this way!”

The man in front of me put down his beer and said “I got it, I got it.”

All I could see was that spinning white orb against the summer night sky, getting closer and closer.  It was like it was looking right at me.  All I could think was “OHMYGOD”.

I was 7 years old the first time I went to Yankee Stadium.  It was the summer of 1977; the Summer of Sam; a blazingly hot summer of serial killers, blackouts, and punk rock.  My folks were good friends with a few people that were rabid Yankees fans.  How could you not be that year?  Willie Randolf, Ron Guidry, Thurman Munson, Bucky Dent, and, of course, Mr. October, Reggie Jackson.  My birthday is in October and so I always felt he and I had a special connection.

It was different then.  It was mania.  It was terrifying as we shuffled our way through the concourse- beers sloshing onto me, cigarette cherries burning my arms, sweaty crowds of smelly New Yorkers pushing to get to their seats in time.

Well, maybe it wasn’t that different.

Nothing I make ever comes out the same way twice.  Maybe it’s because I don’t measure?

I make my brother cookies all the time, usually his favorite- chocolate chip, and he knows they will always be a bit different.  I use the same recipe, really I do.  By the way, this is the disclaimer for the recipe below.  I wrote it down out of my head.  Good luck!  Don’t be afraid to adapt. 

Maybe that’s the deep lesson from my refusal to remember what I did last time?  Nah. 

I just like having fun in the kitchen.  In college, I lived in what we affectionately called “the treehouse.”  It was a converted attic surrounded by big pines (I think it was pine).  My kitchen was so small that I could practically wash dishes, stir my veggies, and stand inside my fridge all at the same time.  I loved it.  

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.

I pretty much know where everything is in every supermarket in LA. Owen’s Market has the best meat counter. Elat Market has the best hummus and eggplant dips. Whole Foods, as much as I don’t want to admit it, has the best pre-cooked shrimp. The Farmer’s Market in Santa Monica is great for heirloom tomatoes. Fresh & Easy has the best olive bread. Bay Cities has the best baguettes. I could go on for pages. It’s not my fault. It’s genetic.

When I was younger, I thought it took five hours to drive from LA to Santa Barbara because my mom convinced us we had to stop to eat at least three times on the way (at John’s Garden for fresh juice, at the Malibu Fish Market for fried fish sandwiches and at some divey Mexican place in Oxnard for tacos). When I went away to college I found out it takes five hours to drive to San Francisco and about 1 1/2 hours to drive to Santa Barbara, and, in fact, you probably don’t have to stop to eat even once on the way.