A LITTLE COLOR ON THE PLATE
Once upon a time, my secretary and I would lunch at a mediocre Chinese buffet. When we’d come to the end of the line, she’d examine my plate and glower. This was my cue to return to the buffet and retrieve a spear of broccoli.

This was more a culinary issue than a health concern. You eat with your eyes before your palate. A plate has to have a little green on it. Rice, chicken, potato kugel, brisket, naked on a plate, bode of dreariness. A touch of color around the edge? Vivid. A hint of springtime. A stroll in the park. An intimation of youth. Just ask Dr. Phil or my secretary.

Even the best colorful intentions go awry when they turn obsessive. Example: At dinner on the weekend of an interview, I was presented a plate of the balaboste’s specialty, gefilte fish napped in aspic of raspberry Jell-O flecked with horseradish. “Doesn’t the color add a pretty touch?” she gloated.

Then there was my ditzy former sister-in-law. She thought that her chicken soup looked a little listless. So, she added in half a bottle of yellow food coloring. You’ve probably figured out that a perfectly tasty broth turned into a radiant pot of “pea” soup.

My winner of the color wars is not among Yehudim, but yokels. Traveling the rural South, I stopped at a country store for a Coke. If you’ve ever been in one, you’ll always see a five-gallon jar of pickles on the counter. Strange, I thought. I’ve never seen pickles that were dirty mauve.
“What kind of pickles are those?” I pointed.

“Why don’t you try one?” answered the balabos. “It’s on me.”

I reluctantly agreed to taste a nub.

I gagged. “Now will you tell me what they are?”

“Around here we eat our pickles purple,” he proudly announced. “After they’re just right, we soak ‘em in Kool-Aid for about two weeks.”

“They taste even better when you eat them with one of those pickled eggs,” pointing to the pink-stained ovals on the other counter.

I offered him a blessing and paid for my Twinkie, hopping into my Volvo, and praising God that the worst I’d had to eat until then was my Aunt Leah’s pitcha.