She’s Picky About Her Cheese

My mother exposed my siblings and I to a wide variety of foods and cuisines, but as the world turns and thus our cultures mix in an ever shrinking world, she may have missed a few, like East Indian or Middle Eastern or African or Vietnamese foods. No problem, I eagerly tried the, albeit, Americanized versions of such dishes at restaurants that opened in recent years in urban areas. Somehow, despite my mother’s good efforts at exposing her clan to a wide variety of cuisines, I have a younger sister who is quite the “picky eater.” If given a choice between aged cheddar and Kraft Singles, she will take the “Singles” every time. I've witnessed her peel the toppings off of a perfectly crafted pizza and eat just the crust. If you were to serve her one of her favorites, a cucumber salad, made with unpeeled homegrown and thus unwaxed cucumbers, she would promptly pare the skin off and then eat the interior of the cucumbers. And wait! She also doesn’t imbibe, at least if you consider occasionally drinking watered-down “frou-frou” drinks as actually consuming alcohol. In fact, if I wasn’t so certain, from my mother’s detailed stories of the difficult birth she experienced with my younger sister, I’d almost swear that my sister was adopted. I mean, come on, there is no way that someone with our genes doesn’t embrace both a variety of goods foods and good alcohol. 

**

I’ve a good friend who told me that babies, from the part of India where she was reared, are given milk and formula laced with hot peppers for the purpose of acclimating them to the taste and sensation. To some this type of conditioning might seem tantamount to child abuse, but I’m able to file this in my “it’s not right, it’s not wrong, it’s just different” method of acceptance of our wacky human adaptations to life.

**

I consider myself to have a ‘cast iron’ stomach, impervious to common food intolerances.  Why, I could practically eat nails! Rarely do I experience indigestion. As a child, it was with relish that I ate my vegetables and asked, no, practically begged for more.

**

And so it was I found myself in Japan, a half world of culture away from the good ol’ USA. My younger sister, who has less than a dozen foodstuffs which she can tolerate, and I were visiting a “beloved” family member, who lived and worked in Japan for three years. Culture in Japan, so I was told, dictates that you embrace the “gifts” they put forth to you as a visitor, and they put much thought and effort into finding and presenting these gifts, including food. There is also a desire to honor the “head” of the family and an expectation that this “head” would exemplify the proper behavior for the family.

“Beloved” was, in addition to her job, taking special instruction in the art of the tea ceremony. Her instructor and a friend had arranged a banquet, or kaiseki, for the three of us, at a traditional renowned tea room. We’d removed our shoes upon entering, and were seated at a traditional low table in our own private screened room, with floor cushions for seating. We were served by women in traditional garb.

Now a kaiseki is as much an art form as it is a degustation. The menu is carefully chosen to include the freshest of seasonal ingredients and the food is prepared to emphasize flavor, as well as appearance and texture.  The courses of food are artfully arranged and garnished on beautiful porcelain vessels, each cup, bowl, saucer or plate to be marveled over as much as the food itself.

And the food itself... Well, it was overwhelming, I’m almost at a loss... But, well you know what a banquet is. Ours included (interspersed with saki, small glasses of other beverages, and palate cleansers, mind you): appetizers, a second course including sushi and sashimi, then vegetables steamed with fish, then a soup, then grilled meat, then a hotpot dish, then pickled vegetables and some tempura as well. And then, just before dessert, came the pièce de résistance, (forgive my french).

“Beloved” was a vegetarian, which excused her from any dishes containing meat or meat broth. And my sister wasn’t able to eat anything, save the rice and maybe a couple of pickled vegetables. The two of them could help out with marveling over the vessels and the beautiful presentation, but they wouldn’t be much help with the actual eating of the food. So, it was on me, my friends, as the official head of the family, it was all on me, to devour the food with appropriate gusto.

Our hosts had limited English and “Beloved” did the translations. While biting into a bit of strange looking vegetable I asked her what it was. “You know,” she sighed, “sometimes it’s best not to know. Just eat it.”

So, when the pièce de résistance was placed in front of me and only me, all eyes were upon me. First I gave just due to the beautiful bowl in which the food was placed. And actually, it didn’t look too bad, I thought. It looked like clear cellophane noodles in a watery broth with a dusting of coarse, freshly ground black pepper. And so I happily slurped all that was in the bowl, to the delight of our hosts, whose hands clasped to their chests and whose eyes shining in contentment, seemed pleased that they had laid out, what was probably a small fortune, just for the pleasure of entertaining their American guests.

But no, the dish hadn’t tasted like clear rice vermicelli, it had more of a oyster-y, briny element to it. I couldn’t help myself, I had to know. “What was it?” I asked. Translations went back and forth and “Beloved” smiled smugly, as if to say, “Now, I warned you...” 

“They were live baby eels.”

My sister, who as I remind you, does not imbibe, grabbed for the sake, feigning a cough to mask her gasp, as she took a swig and then actually did cough, as she realized it was the sake she’d grabbed.

Okay, just keep your eyebrows in check and smile, I told myself, as I nodded and grinned at my hosts, realizing that what I’d thought were flecks of black pepper, had been the poor eel's eyes.

I don’t remember much detail about the finish of the meal. The desserts included some tiny chocolate candies, some fresh strawberries and maybe red bean ice cream. Of course, the three of us had a good laugh in the cab ride back to “Beloved’s” apartment, where we rolled out our futons and bedded down on the floor for the night. We all fell asleep pretty quickly. I woke up suddenly at about 2 a.m. and tiptoed to the bathroom as my stomach expelled its contents.

Yet still, I do not blame my cast iron stomach. I’m pretty sure, it was my brain that just couldn’t get past those black pepper eyes looking up at me from that beautiful porcelain bowl.

Through Her Eyes

She stood about two feet away from me, just a little below my eye level. I was sitting down and she was standing. She looked straight at me, first looking directly at my eyes, then taking in my whole face. Her gaze was unwavering. After a minute or so, she said, emphatically, “You are not my grandmother.” Then she put her "blankie," that she’d named, “Woobie,” to her face for comfort.

I waited only the seconds it took for my brain to process the situation, laughing inside at the reality of what she was seeing, then I swooped her into my arms, Woobie and all, buried my face in her neck and said, “Of course I am. And here are your too-many kisses, mwaa,mwaa, mwaa, mwaa, mwaa,mwaa, mwaa, mwaa...”

She melted in my arms, laughed and said, “Do it again, Gagi!”

She was a bright kid and could talk a “blue streak,” and because there are not too many demands for visual acuity put on toddlers, no one in the family had suspected that she was farsighted. I don’t recall ever seeing her stumble into any furniture. The blurred detail of objects hadn’t prevented her from learning all of her colors. She could count to twenty and recite the alphabet. She could name all of the family members in the photo albums, but what we hadn’t realized was that she’d memorized the sequence of pictures. Oh, she was a bright little rascal, alright. She had us fooled.

They say that when one of your senses is afflicted the others will often compensate. She’d become expert at impersonations. She would watch the movements of others from afar and imitate. To see her tuck her doll into the doll stroller, murmuring comforts to the doll and occasionally shaking a finger at the doll in reprimand, kept me from suspecting that anything was amiss. Once, she and I had listened together to Southern folk songs. Later I’d sung the tune to her using the words, “Lord, Lord...” from the song. She said, “No, it’s like this: “Lawd, Lawd...” her sweet voice in perfect mimicry. 

Sometime between the age of two and three, a sharp instructor at the local park district noticed something and mentioned it to her parents. A trip to the pediatric eye specialist and an explanation of hyperopia and it all began to make sense. “Duh,” I said to myself when I heard the news, “You idiot! Why else would a toddler put on an adults’ reading spectacles and actually enjoy viewing through the glass? And you call yourself a grandmother?!” But, that’s the trouble with hindsight, in most cases it’s pretty much a useless tool.

I spent a couple of days with her on her first week with her new eyeglasses and I saw through her eyes, so to speak, some of her revelations. It was time for a snack and I’d baked muffins for us. She was hungry and anxious for them to cool. “Let’s cut one in half and it will cool faster,” I offered. She was standing next to me as I split the muffin. I saw her step back in surprise when she saw the steam rise from within the treat. She’d never seen steam before. As I explained the science of it to her, I thought of how she’d missed this subtle sign that would warn a child that food was too hot to bite into.

Raisins were a favorite of hers, but with eyes that could now clearly focus on the much-wrinkled fruit, she looked at them with distain, as if to say, “Is this what I’ve been eating?” I encouraged her to try them anyway and eventually she agreed that looks weren’t everything and she happily munched away.

Which is why I immediately saw the humor in her first-ever, clear look at me. Hyperopia had softened and blurred all the hard lines, creases and wrinkles time had sculpted onto my face. It must have been quite the shock to her eyes. But, a hug, some whispers of love and kisses were all it took to help her discern that “Yup, looks aren’t everything.” 

On a Beachfront Elevator

I walked onto the elevator and pushed the button for the 7th floor, the floor of the lovely gulfcoast condo we'd rented for the week. Just then a handsome young lad, with stylishly cut and neatly combed hair rushed in the elevator door, followed in quick succession by his two older brothers and their father. The youngster was probably about 10 years old and his brothers looked to be in the 16 to 20 year old range. I was standing closest to the elevator panel, so I asked which floor they'd like and the boy piped up, "The eighth floor, please."

I recognized them as the family I'd seen while walking on the beach that very morning. They were movie-star-good-looking and well-dressed, like the models you see posed in J Crew catalogs. You know that photogenic, but fashionably dressed-down look similar to Kennedy clan? I could easily picture them frolicking near a beach house on Nantucket Island. This morning the youngest had been running barefoot on the sand. In fact, I took a photo of his footprint, when I'd noticed that he was a forefoot strike runner, a style I'd been forced to adopt when my arthritic knees defiantly refused to tolerate my lifelong habit of landing on my heels.

The family, including the mother, trailed about 100 yards behind the barefoot boy, who ran full out, seemingly effortlessly. The mother had caught my eye because her hair was so perfectly coiffed, in one of one of those styles you get from top notch salons, but can't seem to duplicate at home.

I pushed the eighth floor button and the youngest called out," What about Mother!?" His brothers and father looked up in surprise. They hadn't noticed that she wasn't with them. Panic ensued, and the youngster leaned out and said with relief, "Here she comes." I reflexively reached over and depressed and held the button that keeps the elevator door open.  As he ducked back in the elevator, the boy noticed that by pushing the button I had stopped the elevator door from closing.

"What?!" With incredulity he looked to his brothers, "Did you see that? She stopped the elevator door with that button."  By now his mother had joined us in the elevator. So, I let go of the button I'd been holding and pressed the button that closes the elevator door. The family marveled over the two buttons. "Well, indeed!" said one of the older brothers, while the other stroked his chin, looked at his father in bemusement and said, "I had no idea..." The father shook his head, almost in disbelief, "Nor had I."

I moved against the back wall and the boy quickly stepped in front of the panel and ever so gently, almost reverently, ran his fingers over the elevator buttons. He looked over at me, as we neared the 7th floor, "I'll hold the door open for you," he said his hand moving toward the door open button.

I smiled politely at him and said, "Thanks." As I walked off the elevator I noticed that they all had crowded around the "magic" buttons.

This well-mannered family possessed no trace of foreign accent. They'd spoken with the near-perfect English of well-educated, native-born Americans. They were well-groomed and wearing the latest, high-end fashions. Their demeanor indicated obvious intelligence.

But, it's the little details that will give you away, and while these guys might dupe some people, they hadn't fooled me. No, sirree. What I can't figure out is from which galaxy had these alien beings come.

Beckley, WV

Just as he was about to walk past me he turned his head in my direction, and almost as a reflex, touched the brim of his railroad cap with his crooked index finger and thumb. He raised the brim the slightest fraction of an inch and his head dipped an even less discernible amount.  He smiled one of those genuine, corner-of-the-eye crinkling, kind of smiles. It was infectious, because I found myself smiling back. And then, he stopped short, not that he'd been moving at any great speed. He'd had a wooden toothpick he'd been chewing on in the corner of his mouth, which he now removed. His smile became a grin that revealed a small gap between his upper front teeth. Orthodontists now correct such dental "imperfections" but, I've always found it to be an attractive feature.

"You from 'round these parts?" he asked from where he stood, a comfortable distance away.

"No," I replied, "I'm just passing through. I'm from the North."

He nodded and asked for no more explanation than that, as if everything above the Mason-Dixon Line were all one giant conglomeration. He didn't move on, just stood there, kind of rocking back and forth ever so slightly on his heels.

"How about you? Are you from "these parts?" I asked borrowing his vernacular.

"Yep," a nod went along with the continued gentle rocking. I don' t know why but it reminded me a the way a cow will eye you from the field all the while slowly chewing her cud. I could almost sense him slowly digesting my words.

"Have you lived here your whole life?"

His rocking stopped and he looked up and off over the nearby busy intersection as he pondered my
question. His eyes took on a faraway look. "Yep, pretty much my whole life I been livin' round here." The smile had faded and I wondered where his thoughts had taken him. Was he recalling time he'd spent in the armed forces in Korea? Could he have actually been a railroad engineer, who'd traversed this country for weeks at a time? Had he spent collective years toiling deep in the not too distant coal mines? Or was he merely nostalgic for his boyhood days before tourism, development and progress stripped some of the natural beauty of this once pristine area? He remained immobile, yet something was ruminating inside of him.

"Well, it's a beautiful part of the country," I told him.

His eyes twinkled and his beatific smile returned. His head slowly turned again to my direction as he  nodded. With a chest-puffing pride usually seen in a parent talking about their talented child he said, "Yep, she shore is!"

I'd been standing in front of a store waiting for my husband, who just then strode out of the door and caught my attention. I turned to my new acquaintance and said, "I have to go, but it's been nice talking to you." He touched the brim of his hat, smiled and turned away to continue his walk.

"Chatting up the locals?" my husband asked with a raised brow, as he glanced  sideways at me smiling with amusement. We headed toward the car. He paused as he opened the car door, "Wait? Did I just see him tip his hat at you? Hmmm, you don't see that much any more, do you?"

Cigs at Casey's

“My parents got an Irish Sweepstakes ticket from my aunt in County Cork!” “I know. That’s cool, isn’t it? We got one, too, from my uncle in Dublin.” These were the words of my excited Irish classmates on the Catholic schoolyard, back in the early ‘60s. How I wished back then that we had something similar here in the USA. Just imagine, I used to think, you could have a chance at wealth and riches just by buying a ticket. You didn’t have to be born wealthy, which I wasn’t. Your family didn’t have to work hard, save and invest, which somehow seemed beyond my parents capabilities. One of the younger nuns came out with the brass handbell. As she began to rhythmically wave her hand back and forth, the bell sound rang out, and the students quieted and made their way to the entrance door, thus signaling the beginning of our school day and the end of my daydream. I’d needed fuel for the car today and pulled into Casey’s General Store. The words on their signboard reminded me that the PowerBall has rolled over into one of those awe inspiring figures. So, when the gas pump LCD message popped up, directing me to go inside to pick up my receipt, I figured it was a sign that I should buy a chance at nearly 200 million dollars for the bargain price of two bucks, you know? like eight measly quarters? Who could not? Heck, if my memory served me correctly, my school friends’ parents were paying 20 bucks back in the 60s for a chance at only 20,000 pounds or so. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that even allotting for both inflation and the currency difference, the U.S. MegaMillion and PowerBall lotteries promised even more payout than the old Irish Sweepstakes ever did. I remember going home back in the day and asking my mom about the Irish Sweepstakes. She told me that in Ireland it was a way to raise money for charity. She thought it was for healthcare or something. Mom almost made it sound noble to purchase such a ticket. And she also informed me that she’d no opportunity to make such an illustrious buy, so I better just “forget about it.” Many, many years later I would read that the Irish Sweepstakes actually gave less than 10 percent of its assets to “charity,” and that their system of picking “winners” was suspect. So, today I marched purposefully into Casey’s to pick up my receipt and to buy a chance at my childhood dream. I figured I’d be out of there quickly. I felt lucky, you know what I’m saying? Plus, it looked like the store was empty, a rarity in itself, so I was doubly sure I was destined for some good luck. As I went through the door I saw an older woman draped across the counter staring straight ahead. She was facing the clerk. A slightly overweight woman, she had both forearms firmly planted on the counter, which was absorbing most of her body weight. Having no choice but to stand and wait my turn, I noticed that the woman was staring at a wall of cigarettes and various tobacco products rising behind the checker. I mean it was a wall, over six feet tall and at least equally as wide, lined with cigarettes, pipe tobacco, snuff and cheap cigars. After a time, sufficient to cause me to wonder if she was alive, I saw the woman shift, just ever so slightly, as she muttered, “Oh, heck, I don’t know...” The checker quickly interjected, “Like I told you before, the distributor will be here around 3 o’clock this afternoon, so you can always come back then. I’m sure he’ll have some...” “Oh never mind,” she cut the checker off, “I take 4 packs of the Marburra “shorts. They’re a quicker smoke but, they pack a nice punch.” The checker moved fairly quickly to grab the cigarettes and ring them up, but the mostly one-sided conversation continued. “I jest can’t believe you’re out of the longs.” “They go quickly. Marlboro’s are one of our biggest sellers.” “Well, heck yah, they’re a darn good cigarette. I just wisht they din’t cost so much. If the guvment keeps raisin’ the taxes on ‘em, I’m gonna hafta give up some of my luxuries, such as food, just to pay for ‘em. That or go to the tobacco store and buy the tobacco and them tubes with filters on ‘em and stuff my own. I figure I can roll 3 cartons for just about 20 bucks or so.” “That’ll be $24.95,” again the clerk takes advantage of the slight pause to get in a word. “You know I can remember when they’s a quarter a pack, but that was before your time,” she chuckles. “Made a dollar and a quarter an hour back then and paid twenty-five cents for my cigarettes.” The woman, still depending on the counter for support, shifts her weight enough to allow for the slow process of removing cash from her purse. She continues talking, “They got us in this country to where’s we can hardly get by. Taxin’ this and taxin’ that. It’s ri-dic-a-lus. No one can afford anything if, like me, their folks din’t have no money to send their young ’ens to college and so they’ve only been able to get barely decent jobs their whole lives. I wuz workin’ at the slaughterhouse in town until my car accident. Yeah I know, folks in town say how can you work there? The smell is so bad, ‘specially in the summer. You know what I tell ‘em? I tell ‘em: ‘That so-called offensive smell, that’s the smell of money’ ” Why do I always get behind people like this? But, I’ve invested this much time, so just out of principle, and the fact that I have that lucky feeling, I continue to wait for my receipt and lottery ticket. Outside of removing the money from her purse she hasn’t moved from her position of leaning across the counter. She continues to talk, “I quit cold turkey for nine and a half months when I was in my 30’s. You know the nicotine habit ain’t all that hard to break. I read somewheres it only stays in the system for ‘bout six, seven days. I started smokin’ when I was 16. I still smoke now at 59. ‘Cept now ya can't smoke in public places. And at work, I had to go to a designated area outside the building when I wanted to have a smoke, even when it was bitter cold outside. But that was back before that kid in the silver pickup truck with the bumper sticker that says “No Fat Chicks Allowed” pulled out in front of my car over on Route 64. That accident busted my knee and broke my ankle in 2 places. I hadta have surgery to put screws in my ankle. Ya know you can’t smoke in the hospital, right? And since then, I been on the couch. Doctor says to keep the leg rested and elevated. Or somethin’ like that. Somethin’ about rice, I think, rest, somethin’, somethin’, and elevate. I can’t remember what else. Anyway since I been outta work, I watch T.V. all day, and now I smoke more than ever. I tell ya, it’s a cryin’ shame. I was makin’ 9 and a half bucks an hour at the slaughterhouse before I was injured. And here I'm on disability and paying six to seven dollars a pack to enjoy my one and only vice, smoking. I have one of them air filters that cleans the air in my home, so it's not like I'm inconsiderate of those around me. I realize it's my habit. And I have complete respect for those that choose not to smoke, and that includes my own grandchildren. But, tobacco's been around since the beginning of time. Or whenever it was that God seen fit to put them seeds here on this land.  When I was a kid, doctors advertised cigarette smokin’ on T.V.  Heck, my daddy fought in World War II and risked his life so that this country could be so called "free." And the guvment seen fit, back then, to put cigarettes in his C-rations. So I’m pretty sure smokin’ was one of them guaranteed freedoms. All’s I know is I’ve worked hard, fur as long’s I can remember. And now I can't work because of some textin’ driver.” She takes a breath, coughs a bit and hands the clerk the cash as she is pushing her body up into a walking position. It is then I notice the cane she has propped next to her. She starts toward the front door. I rush to hold the door open for her as she ambles out of the store. As if just noticing that I’ve been waiting in the store all this time, she offers to me, “Thanks. Anyway I think the guvment should leave cigarettes alone for Pete's sake!” The door closes behind her and I raise my eyebrows a bit as the clerk and I exchange shy smiles. The clerk gently sighs and ever so slightly shakes her head in response. Back in my car with my receipt and lottery ticket tucked in the cup holder, I start for home and when I pull onto Route 73, I notice that the car in front of me has slowed considerably. It’s the woman, who just bought the “shorts,” right in front of me in her car. She has just tooted her horn at a passing farm implement. The farmer slows and stops, she rolls down her window and they begin to chat, no matter that they are both at the top of a hill and on the crest of a curve. The double, solid yellow line and “do not pass” sign let me know I’m not legally able to pass her. You know, maybe that luck I’ve been feeling up until now wasn’t “good” luck after all.