Garlic and Sapphires (38 page)

The shopkeeper was now trotting at Ed's side, trying to stay with us. “You promise?” he asked.

“Yes, yes, I promise,” said Ed.

“I'll be waiting.” The shopkeeper, reluctantly, gave up the race. “I have some new eggplant dishes you
need
to taste.”

“See you tomorrow,” said Ed, diving into the car.

Winded by the race, neither of us said anything for a few minutes. But when we were safely in the tunnel, halfway to Brooklyn, I asked, “Will you really go back?”

Ed stared at me incredulously. “Of course,” he said. “I promised.” He raised his hands to the sky. “I love all these people; they have so much passion. They're a little bit crazy, but they use their craziness for their business. They live right.”

“Uh, sure,” I said, wishing he would reconnect with the steering wheel. “You're right. Yes. Passion. Watch that car!”

“Oh, don't worry,” he said, patting my leg as if I were a fussy old lady, “I've never had an accident. Really.”

We came out of the tunnel and nosed deep into Carroll Gardens. Ed gestured around and said happily, “Isn't this neighborhood wonderful?” He parked, setting off a couple of car alarms in the process. They were howling as we walked into Esposito's Pork Store, but Ed paid them no mind.

It was comfortable in there, rich with spice and personality, a throw-back to a vanishing New York. Housewives with loud nasal voices demanded this piece of veal breast, that slice of
bracciole,
and a little salami, not too thick, are you listening to me? They examined the heap of softly steaming stuffed peppers, asking when they were made, and wanted to know if this was yesterday's sausage and where the hell was today's? Fire-men from the around the corner stood shouldering their axes and arguing over their order, scooping up mountains of chopped meats and cold cuts.

“Isn't this great?” asked Ed, as if he had personally conjured the scene. “Isn't this amazing? Doesn't it make you happy that places like this exist?” His enthusiasm was irresistible. “Meet George,” he said, offering up a handsome man with tattooed arms and a thick gold chain around his neck as if he were Exhibit A. “His grandfather started this place. And you know, they still make all their own dried sausage, even their own pancetta.”

“Dad's in back now,” said George, “making sausage.”

“See?” said Ed, as if I had doubted him.

In the darkened kitchen an old man stood quietly tying sausages with string. The air was deliciously funky, filled with the scent of pepper seeds and the fine aroma of aging meat. The man pressed a dried sausage with a weathered thumb, rejected it, tried another. He nodded to himself, sliced off a few hunks, and handed them over. The sausage was sharp, spicy, and very fine. “That's my
sopressata,
” said Dad, emphasizing the possessive. “It's good.”

Ed's next gift was a tiny shop filled with bakers mixing dough, melting chocolate, pulling pastries from industrial ovens. When Ed stepped through the door they all stopped to welcome him, and there was something in the gesture that made me think of those sweet moving figures department stores put in their windows at Christmas. If the bakers had broken into song, I would not have been surprised. “What they make here,” said Ed, grabbing a small pastry from one of the pans, “is the most amazing rugellach I've ever found.”

He popped one buttery little morsel into his mouth, and then another. By his eighth he was shaking his head sadly and saying, “It makes you realize how much bad rugellach there is in the world. Oh, okay, I'll have just one more.”

The car alarms had finally subsided when we climbed back into the car, but as Ed pulled out of the parking space they started up again, sending us off with a flourish we could hear for blocks. The sound faded into the distance as the car plowed through the Brooklyn traffic, heading for Bay Ridge.

“Look,” said Ed, suddenly slowing to a crawl. He pointed out the window, simultaneously lifting his foot from the gas. “Look at that collision of cultures!” As Ed indicated a Mexican grocery store, an Asian emporium, a Scandinavian shop, the car slowly drifted to a standstill. He gazed beatifically out the window as a cacophony of angry honking started up. “Don't you just love New York?” asked Ed, setting the car back in motion.

 

 

 

 

 

T
he Family Store greeted us with a virtual onslaught of sensations. A riotous mixture of caraway, cumin, cardamom, and sumac perfumed the air while bins of seeds and spices spilled onto the wooden floors. Behind them a rainbow of olives and pickles created a colorful backdrop. The refrigerated cases were filled with vivid jewels of food: pale spheres of stuffed cabbage, billowing mounds of beige hummus, bright pink muhammara, and deep emerald zucchini fritters.

“We've come for your yogurt,” Ed told the smiling man behind the counter.

“Ah, my friend,” he replied, running out to greet Ed, “first you must taste this.” In an instant he was spooning up soft white curds with the consistency of double cream and plopping it into our mouths. It was smooth and tangy, incredibly good. He looked delightedly at our faces. “This,” he cried, “is no ordinary yogurt. This is
goat milk
yogurt. I have to go to the Amish to get the milk. It is very good for you. So much calcium.” He was a large man, but light on his feet as he danced through the store, insisting we try his homemade cheese (“One customer comes all the way from England in his private jet just to get this”), his pomegranate molasses, his baba gannouj. As he spoke he was taking foods from the cases and feeding us with his fingers. “Wonderful, wonderful” he crooned as we ate.

“Save your appetite if you can,” whispered Ed.

 

 

 

 

 

W
e left, the yogurt cradled in my arms, and I held my breath as Ed banged the car out of the parking space and headed toward Coney Island. We nosed down streets with names like Neptune and Surf toward the looming Cyclone, a great construction of white boards and twisted metal. “There's Totonno's,” said Ed in a mournful and reverent voice and the car began to slow of its own volition. “Their pizza is really great.” He stared longingly out the window and then said, “Stop! Oh my God, Gerace's is gone.” His foot stomped on the brake and he came to a complete halt in the middle of traffic. The honking started up. Ed, filled with lamentation, paid it no mind.

“Oh my God. The sign said ‘For rent,' did you see that? This drives me crazy. They taught me how to make prosciutto bread. That place had been there forever. Oh my God, this is a tragedy.” He took his foot off the brake and started forward, keeping up a keening wail for Gerace's as we drove.

Near the crumbling roller-coaster we pulled up at the original Nathan's hot dog stand, which presided over the litter-strewn sidewalk with the proud air of an ancient relic. We got out, and as we approached Phillip's, a battered candy shop, a toothless man began begging for money. With the instinctive gesture of the easy touch, Ed reached into his pocket and handed him a dollar.

He was not even aware that he had done it, for he was standing, rapt, in front of the candy shop window. “Look at that!” he said reverently. “Charlotte Russe, a classic Brooklyn confection! You can't get these anywhere else anymore.” He dug another dollar out of his pocket, plunked it onto the outside counter, and burrowed his face into one of the little white cups. When he looked up his chin was covered with whipped cream and he looked like an overgrown ten-year-old.

“Hey, big guy!” A gray-haired leprechaun of a man emerged from a side door. His face ablaze with a grin, he stared up at Ed as if the sun had just come out and swung the door wide, inviting us in. In the tiny shop lollipops dangled from the ceiling, a wild swirl of colors, their sizes ranging from a few inches to a few feet in diameter. Candy apples marched along the counters, and bags of cotton candy hung from the walls like a soft rainbow. In one corner a huge, battered copper candy kettle filled with bright red sugar syrup balanced precariously atop a hot plate. Next to it apples, sticks raised like so many exuberant tails, waited to be dipped. “John makes everything you see,” said Ed. And then, shaking his head as if this fact were both incredible and undeniable, he reiterated, “I swear he does!”

I reached for the largest lollipop. “How much do you charge for the big ones?” I asked, staggering as the candy fell onto my shoulder. It was as tall as I am and stunningly heavy.

“Ten bucks,” he said.

“That's all?” I asked, reaching into my pocket for a bill. “I've wanted one of these since I was a little kid,” I admitted, slinging the giant confection over my shoulder, “but I thought they cost a fortune.”

“Other places,” said Ed, heading for the door, “they do. John's the last of the old-time candy men.”

“I don't know for how long,” said John. “This is a dying way of life. Nobody wants to do this anymore.” And then, as if talking to himself, he added, “Who can blame them? The kettle alone weighs thirty-five pounds, you get burned all the time, and you should see me when I'm finished.” Then, as if shaking off the gloomy burden of his thoughts, he hugged Ed and opened the door, and as we navigated the broken sidewalk, he called out, “Don't be a stranger!”

“Isn't he amazing?” asked Ed, unlocking the car door. “People like that just make me glad I'm alive.” As I settled the lollipop in the car I realized that for the first time in months I was feeling the same way. We drove past the sign in Gerace's window, which caused Ed to retreat once again into the keening wail of loss, heading for Flatbush and what he assured me was the best jerk chicken on the planet.

It was late afternoon as we drove back to Manhattan, accompanied by the ever-present music of the cars. My yogurt was nestled into a bag, waiting to turn into aushak, and all around us were sausages and pastry, lollipops and spices, chicken and cheese. Any world that contained all this, I thought surveying our loot, was a very fine place. I felt reinvigorated, alive, optimistic. The thought of getting back to work suddenly seemed like fun.

“Oh Mommy,” said Nicky when he saw the lollipop, “this must be the most beautiful thing on earth.” He gazed at it, dazzled by the gorgeous object that had just entered his life. “Can I really eat it?”

“Yes,” I said, “but it might take a couple of years.”

He stood back and examined it. “I don't think I will,” he decided, petting the giant candy. “This isn't one of those foods that you eat. It's one of the ones that's only supposed to make you happy.”

Emily

D
o you have a reservation?” The woman's voice was so cold it sent shivers down my back.

“Yes,” I said.

“And the name is?” Her eyes, above the horn-rimmed glasses, were hostile.

“Newman,” I said. “Toni Newman.”

She peered at the book, pushed her glasses higher up on her nose, and looked again. “Ah!” she said at last, as if she had been searching desperately for clues, “here it is. And your guest?”

“She doesn't seem to be here yet,” I replied, looking pointedly around the eerily empty room.

She frowned. A handsome woman with a trim body clad entirely in brown tweed, she had an unforgiving face framed by short, glossy silver-streaked black hair. “Over there,” she said, one twiglike finger pointing at a carved wooden chair beside the cold fireplace. “Sit.” As I folded myself into the chair's uncompromising lines she turned back to the reservation book she had been studying when I entered the Box Tree.

I looked around the small parlor, trying to figure out why this restaurant was voted “most romantic” year after year in the restaurant polls. The Zagat guide had this to say: “exquisite,” “a jewel box,” “ideal for Rodgers and Hart romance.”

It certainly wasn't the warmth of the welcome. It must be the stained-glass windows, I thought, the profusion of fireplaces, the walls covered with old portraits. The room I was in resembled one of those Ralph Lauren ads, the ones designed to look as if the lord of the manor might come striding in at any moment, dogs capering about his boots as he peels off leather gloves and calls for a beaker of ale. But as the minutes stretched on, the door remained resolutely closed, and when it finally opened it was to admit a tall blonde woman wearing a short black skirt and a black leather jacket. She had three miles of leg, a Polish accent, and a need for a job.

The woman at the desk surveyed her with narrowed eyes. “Are you legal?” she asked.

The blonde hesitated for a moment, looking uncomfortable. “No,” she finally admitted.

This did not seem to faze the tweed woman. “Leave a resume,” she said, holding out her hand. “We'll call.” The blonde handed her a sheet of paper and stood, uncertainly shifting her weight from one long leg to the other. Tweed twisted her lips and made a little shooing motion with one hand while reaching for the ringing phone with the other.

“This Saturday?” she said. “Impossible!” She hung up and glared at the blonde standing before her. “Why are you still here?” she asked.

“Ven vill you call?” asked the blonde, the
w
's all
v
's.

The woman shrugged. “How should I know when we'll need help?” She reached once again for the phone. “No, nothing for Friday at eight,” she said, “although I might be able to squeeze you in at nine forty-five. Suit yourself.” She slammed the receiver into the cradle and glared at the blonde.

“Go away,” she said sharply. And then she turned to the phone, which was ringing again. The blonde glanced at me, gave a defeated little shrug, and left.