TELLTALE CULINARY POLKA-DOTS
I feature myself a fashionable man. I own ten suits and two drawers full of sweaters. I have a huge collection of designer ties, all polka-dot.
No, none of them was intended to be that way. I am not obsessed with polka-dots. They simply tell the story of another of my obsessions: sloppy food eaten by a man who cannot eat it without slobbering it on his tie.
Red polka-dots, for example, are the remnant of blobs of ketchup from a juicy hamburger that I have just eaten. Suspicion falls on me when I am nowhere near a kosher eatery. The discerning critic might assume that I have indulged in a treife hamburger at McDonald’s, to which I can only roll my eyes heavenward and swear to klop an additional “Al Chet” next Yom Kippur.
Then there is the yellow polka-dot, a sure sign that I have recently returned from New York. There I have certainly indulged in a hot, thick corned beef sandwich slathered in bright yellow mustard. Thank God, it is not the chazzerei that pretends to be a corned beef sandwich in my rural South – a single slice of smoked beef on white bread slathered with mayonnaise and served beside a glass of chocolate milk.
What about my fashionable pink polka-dots? Ah, that was when a snooty congregant insisted that I try her specialty: gefilte fish congealed in raspberry Jello. A huge polka-dot of it plopped onto my tie as I tried surreptitiously to feed it to the dog.
Finally, there is the telltale green polka-dot, whenever I swear to Linda that I’ve had a healthy salad for lunch. She knows that the green is simply a cover up for the fat, juicy, carcinogenic steak that I had really eaten.
My brothers: If you enjoy the same eclectic cuisine that I do, make sure to purchase a multicolored polka-dot tie that confuses your messy eating with haute couture. Better yet, take a job that allows you to leave your tie at home. Become an artist and spatter your smock with today’s lunch. Only you will know the truth while everyone around you will think that you have become the next Rembrandt.
December 18, 2006
December 03, 2006
LUTHERAN NEW YEARS
Last year, Linda made the mistake of telling my colleague Steve that we had “no plans” for New Years Eve. “Wonderful!” Steve said, “Then you must spend the evening with us.”
Steve is a Lutheran pastor whose social life is less exciting than watching paint dry. His anemic wife, nebbish, suffers from chronic depression. Steve goes on to say that since I was a “Jewish scholar,” we might spend the evening viewing Rosenstrasse, and discussing its implications for a “true understanding” the Holocaust.
Rosenstrasse is at least as depressing as his wife. It sugar-coats the Holocaust to a distasteful romp. The ghetto is a strict summer camp, the Nazis are its crabby counselors. Ah, this is precisely the movie that gives Steve a “true understanding” of the Holocaust.
But, enough of the film and on with the food:
First, a perspective on what the typical American Jew eats on New Years Eve: a corned beef sandwich on rye, potato chips, a sour pickle, a bottle of beer, a Tagamet, and then off to bed.
But, what did we eat at the buffet that they prepared? Wisely, he told us that they would serve no meat because of “your dietary restrictions.” Instead, we dined on what a Lutheran pastor must think is a feast: Eight cubes of cheese, eight slices of pickled herring, eight gherkins, eight slivers of Stollen . . .all stabbed with toothpicks.
When the Bavarian cuckoo-clock struck midnight, Linda and I embraced. Pastor Steve and his wife sat on opposite sides of the room and nodded at each other.
As I picked up a pizza to eat at home, Linda asked why the wife was so depressed.
“Are they getting divorced?”
“No, silly!” I answer. “If that was a feast, what do you think they eat every other night, stuck with toothpicks? Prozac won’t help. We need to fatten her up on brisket and kugel.
“Well," Linda responds, “let’s have them over next New Years Eve, watch cartoons, and show them what a festive dinner really is.”
“I don’t think so,” I tell her. “But for God’s sake, from now on let me be the one who answers the phone.”
Last year, Linda made the mistake of telling my colleague Steve that we had “no plans” for New Years Eve. “Wonderful!” Steve said, “Then you must spend the evening with us.”
Steve is a Lutheran pastor whose social life is less exciting than watching paint dry. His anemic wife, nebbish, suffers from chronic depression. Steve goes on to say that since I was a “Jewish scholar,” we might spend the evening viewing Rosenstrasse, and discussing its implications for a “true understanding” the Holocaust.
Rosenstrasse is at least as depressing as his wife. It sugar-coats the Holocaust to a distasteful romp. The ghetto is a strict summer camp, the Nazis are its crabby counselors. Ah, this is precisely the movie that gives Steve a “true understanding” of the Holocaust.
But, enough of the film and on with the food:
First, a perspective on what the typical American Jew eats on New Years Eve: a corned beef sandwich on rye, potato chips, a sour pickle, a bottle of beer, a Tagamet, and then off to bed.
But, what did we eat at the buffet that they prepared? Wisely, he told us that they would serve no meat because of “your dietary restrictions.” Instead, we dined on what a Lutheran pastor must think is a feast: Eight cubes of cheese, eight slices of pickled herring, eight gherkins, eight slivers of Stollen . . .all stabbed with toothpicks.
When the Bavarian cuckoo-clock struck midnight, Linda and I embraced. Pastor Steve and his wife sat on opposite sides of the room and nodded at each other.
As I picked up a pizza to eat at home, Linda asked why the wife was so depressed.
“Are they getting divorced?”
“No, silly!” I answer. “If that was a feast, what do you think they eat every other night, stuck with toothpicks? Prozac won’t help. We need to fatten her up on brisket and kugel.
“Well," Linda responds, “let’s have them over next New Years Eve, watch cartoons, and show them what a festive dinner really is.”
“I don’t think so,” I tell her. “But for God’s sake, from now on let me be the one who answers the phone.”
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