food

I would not quite say that Rico is back to his old self. He's still housebound, he still needs naps, he's still on narcotics.

But he is up early enough to make business calls. He's walking well enough that I came home from Tiny's appointment and found clean counters. He's with it enough to mock the overpriced banana bread I brought home and laughably compare it to the 19 New York cheesecakes his not-so secret admirers have sent him. (OK - 18 of them were mini baby cheesecakes - but still)

Where does he find these people? And why do they keep encouraging him?!!!

You should see him sift through the fridge -  bypassing two jars of French's, gourmet garlic mustard, a bottle of Grey Poupon, just so he can smuggly slather his sandwich with Zabar's. And he'll just stare at me over the top of that sandwich like I don't even know what "good" tastes like.

He savored the bagels his friends sent him like he was eating caviar with the Sultan of Agrabah. His eyes closed, and he was all, "Oh, yeah baby, this is the stuff."

I'm like "You're kidding right? We can buy fresh bagels downtown, made right in front of us from a guy, who used to own a bagel shop in Chicago. And this bagel that you've saved for three days trumps that?!"

"It's the good New York water they cook it in." He says it like he wants to marry that water.

Ug.

It's everything.

The pizza.
The Chinese food (I'll give him that one).
The chile' rellanos.
No food is as good as the food of his childhood.

But it's cool. Maybe I'm just jealous. I mean it's not like anybody's exporting my hometown favorites 30 years after I left the place.  I haven't had a Bakersfield DerWienerschnitzel or 7-11 Slurpee in over 30 years - clearly my people are gonna need to step it up.

Comments

Treats said…
I'm with Rico. The food in this town isn't anything extraordinary. I'm glad he's got friends to send him the food from "home". Glad Rico is up and around a little.
Corkscrewed said…
Ok, so I'm biased since I grew up there as well. But he is 100% correct about the food. Except the chile rellenos. You have to head to Colorado for those.

Ed