RYE, PLEASE

I am a whitebread (actually cornbread, if truth be known) convert, Southern raised and deli-deprived. Though I don't remember any corned beef, any pastrami or lox, there was one close approximation, especially for that Deep South area. There was a little hole-in-the-wall "cafeteria" in an adjoining town, the town where “the” dress store was, for a special occasion which called for store-bought. The small "hot-line" could always be counted on for sauerkraut and some enormous juice-bursting sausages, two per order, with a dainty string-bow holding the little garlicky garland together. Another pan held slumpy stuffed peppers, the beef-and-more-garlic bread stuffing wafting its siren-call up and over the other fragrances in the display.

Scalloped tomatoes, crisp latkes the size of thick saucers, their tiny frill-cups of applesauce and sour cream awaiting your choice, a deep pan of the yellowest noodles I'd ever seen, halves of shiny-brown baked chicken and their roasted potato-wedge accompaniments.

And the first and only "green" green beans of my experience, barely poached, then tossed with oil and onion and peppers. They were a far different breed from the low-cooked snap beans of our table, and had a "beany" tang to them that ours never had---perhaps the long cooking in our kitchen removed all trace of their former lives, imbuing them with the salt and hammy, porky goodness of their additions, making our beans merely the conveyor for all the rich tastes of Southern seasonings.

But way down on the end, after the deep-meringued desserts, the tapioca in little cut-glass dishes, the high-standing squares of kugel with its proud golden crust, stood THE LADY. The lady with a moustache to rival my Uncle Fate’s, the avert-my-eyes-so-as-not-to-stare-at lady, who took our measure, our unused-to-the-fare tenor, our redneckness shining through, and asked, in a charmingly lilting accent, "RRRRRRRoll or conbraid?"

I would draw up my shoulders, nodding knowingly and cloaking myself in all the worldly air assumable by my ten-year-old clunky little self, and say, "Rye, please."

She'd smile conspiratorially in approval, reach beneath the counter, and bring forth two slices------inch-thick grayish-tan, soft, pillowy caraway-studded slices, crusted in gold. Onto a tiny plate they went, slid across the silvery counter to my waiting hand.

I LOVED that bread. It was Dorothy's door after a lifetime of black-and-white Wonderbread movies. It was always freshly made, sometimes still warm, with a lovely silky crumb, a stretch-and-chew to the crust, and a little ping of sour-sharp surprise when you crunched one of the seeds.

I remember that little twelve-foot counter as one of the brightest memories of my restaurant past. And now, when we enter the sanctity of the fluorescent brightness of Shapiro's, with its tantalizing scents and tastes and tables to seat two hundred, I still take up that little plate of rye and bear it to my table with the same child's anticipation.

And it never fails to live up to the memory.

DEEP ROOTS

I've been looking into some of the names of my forebears, just Googling a surname now and then, running an eye down the lists and the branches, finding kin, finding even from this remove an unexpected sprinkling of names of friends-back-home whose lineage parallels or channels with my own, merely by dint of a far-ago marriage in the place we both are from.

Memories kindled, smiles of recognition and astonishment at our links in the long chain---it's been fun to scroll across the names of old friends and acquaintances whose names echo mine in the long past. Something about being from the South, of the near-and-dear relationships, the kinship of place as strong as of family---it's a heart-thing, absorbed through the air and the heat and the long vistas of flat Delta gumbo, from that primal scent of first-plowing to the nip of Fall, with Winter delineated by getting out jackets and gazing on the drab scape of gray fields shorn to stubble.

My own raising, deep in the moist heat of that fertile flatness, was centered around family gatherings---Sunday dinner and birthdays and holidays and reunions and sitting together in the shade, waiting for the ice cream freezer to do its magic to the custard whose recipe was older than anybody present. The old recipes and jotted-downs and clipped-outs and the mainstays---we repeat the gestures, the measures, the tastes.

I cook Southern, but have been known to throw foie gras or caviar onto a table with crawfish, catfish, mallard, mountain oysters, rooster fries, buffalo and wild hog. I cook whatever we feel like at the moment, whatever is freshest from the garden or the Farmers' Market, or whatever was just brought back from a trip South. Food and cooking and the cultivation of both have been a greater part of the Southern perspective for time beyond memory, and the dedication and methods from the old ways have hung on longer in the South, it seems.

I own white gloves, lacy hankies, opera glasses, a well-sharpened hoe, a TALL ladder and a Troy-Bilt. A lifetime of food raising, hoeing, picking, canning, pickling, freezing and preserving has given me a deep appreciation for all methods of hunting and gathering. Deer, duck, crappie, barbecue and gumbo have appeared as often on our table as pasta, hamburgers or Mapo tofu.

The ladylike rosy shade of my own nape was earned honestly, bending over the beanrows, pea-vines, cornstalks and squash hills in that extremely HOT Delta sun. Redneck is as redneck does, I reckon.

But sometimes it would be nice not to have to waste so much time dispelling the notion that the lowest IQ in the room necessarily must belong to the person with the Southern accent.

RUNNIN' OFT

We went out to an Italian restaurant in honor of DS#2's birthday this past weekend, and I think it was probably the first time we'd gone for Italian in a couple of years, but one time was memorable:

Flashback to a Saturday night---Italian place in Georgia, people-watching while waiting for our table: Two couples waiting near us; two jeans-and-boots guys, all slicked up for a big evening out. Two ladies, mid-thirties, tight jeans, big hair; waist-length-halter tops which covered their fronts only.

First lady: "Hairl, go get me a beer."

Hairl: "Wait til the table. We'd need a tab, and I don't want two bills."

First Lady: "I don't know why he wants to come here---he don't like spaghetti."

Second Lady: "It TAKES too long to COOK---why do you bother with it? HE (motioning to other guy) likes Chinese....and MINIT RAAAAS is so quick---you just dump it in. I'll be glad when they get spaghetti like that."

(More conversation re: the remarkable marvel of those lasagna noodles you just lay in the pan right out of the box; I probably missed the best part when they were called to their table). I'm a shameless eavesdropper---sometimes I don't even avert my eyes. But I do hide the notepad.

Lest anyone think I'm being too hard on the Georgia contingent here, I'm FROM the South, a Dyed-in-the-Cotton G.R.I.T.S. Girl, so I'm ALLOWED.

After the above Hairl and his three companions departed, we were soon called to our table for eight. We had been separated for a bit, with the grownup kids finding seats in the crowded bar, while Chris and I sat in the knee-knocking-small "lobby" area with the little ones. I had expected their tab to follow us, to be added to our check, as is customary. We had been given one of those little house-arrest beeper things, for goodness' sake.

This place had been open only three weeks, I learned later, after we all had a giggle at the young woman who stood in the middle of the dining room, shouting almost hysterically, "SOMEBODY needs to PAIIIIIY this BAR TAB!!!! Who RUNN OFF and left this BAAAAAARRRR TAAAYABBBB???!!!"

We waved her over and took care of things, to another chorus of: "I come back in there and y'all had done RUNN OFF!!" I kept waiting for her to spell it out like in O, Brother, Where Art Thou?: R-U-N-N O-F-T.

That's us all right---we go on the lam all the time, but we're easy to spot: eight people, a babyseat and a BIIIIIG diaper bag.

RANDOMONDAY III, PEEPEE

The upstairs kitchen was oddly bright and yellow when we returned from dinner last night---I hadn’t seen it without that huge cage and all the accoutrements of Richie’s living up there for a really long time. It was still full of THINGS, but not his things, and felt stripped to the echoes, hollow with a wideness that reached way past walls. I spent a lot of the evening and night thinking of all the little creatures we’ve had as companions over the years, and remember them all fondly.

When we first moved here, for Chris’ training which would last a couple of months, (our time has stretched to nineteen years, because we LIKE it here) we had a little one-bedroom apartment, and I missed all the menagerie we’d always had. One day in WalMart, I was just strolling and looking, when Chris sidled up and held out what looked like an over-grown animal-crackers box. I peeked into one of the little round windows, straight into the twinkly pink eyes of the most beautiful and enchanting white little girl-rat, whom we named Penelope.

She was a bit small for such a grand name, and of such historic portent, but the first time DD picked her up, she tinkled in her hand. DD exclaimed, “Well Pee-Pee!” and the name stuck, going on down through seven incarnations, though they were not kin, as far as we know.

They were pretty, soft little white girl rats with bright pink eyes and the softest pale pink ears. They lived quite long happy lives ensconced in a nice glass-walled aquarium home, living in aspen shavings, napping in small silver-lined bags redolent of coffee beans, making their little sojourns across the counter to the big wicker stand atop the throne in the guest bath. A handy box of Kleenex served as day-residence at the “Lake House.”

When we traveled, the aquarium went into the back seat; the world in that shavings-lined home was business as usual. Food and treats went in, Peepee went out for a glimpse of the world flashing by. Only once did she escape, during a midnight drive through the West Virginia mountains; a little white phantom appeared in the darkness between Chris’ feet in the front floor, and we put her gently back into her house. Only later did we realize how long she had been at large; she had nibbled almost the entire spine off my much-coveted Martha Stewart Wedding book. Glue---it’s a GOOD thing.

Guinea pigs and mice and especially white rats are lovely traveling companions---an aquarium with some nice shavings, a water bottle, a bite of leftover dinner, and a coupla icy cold coke cans from the cooler nestled in the bottom when you have to get out for a moment, and the car would get hot save for that snuggly place next to the cold cans.

When we stopped for the night, she went into a pretty birdcage, covered by a lovely silk scarf---I swept grandly into hotels which bowed me welcome, and which might have put me unceremoniously on the street had they known my cargo. A bite of muffin, a segment of breakfast orange---those served to nourish her, along with her accustomed rat kibble.

One evening, we stopped for dinner at one of those buffet/salad bar places, and I saved her a scrap or two from my plate. I had just wrapped two green beans in a paper napkin, and was licking the dressing from a cherry tomato, when I looked up into the faces of an elderly couple, staring in horrified fascination at this weird woman stashing pre-licked food in a ratty-bag.

FLOWN

Our Birdie's new Family just arrived in a bright red truck to carry him home.

They know his habits, his quirks, his menus, the name of his vet and all his little phrases and words. They have the battered old tough rawhide barbecue gloves which have transported his wicked talons in and out of the house for about five years, and they have our address, so, as DS said as they left, "They can send us a Christmas picture."

They loaded cages, food, dishes, toys, a big bucket of his favorite kinds of nuts and a baggie of fortune cookies, wrapped him gently in a big fluffy towel for safe transport, and drove away into the West, sunshine all the way. They were smiling with delight as they pulled out of the drive, her pretty red hair gleaming in the sun, and Richie's blue head leaned WAY back, looking up at the sky.

Neighbors waved from doors and porches as they left, and the parade from street to backyard will not be happening again this Summer---all the children stopping in to hang out with Rich as they passed on the sidewalk. Folks will ask about him for some time to come---the Mailfolk and the FedEx man and the UPS guy whose lap Rich filled with his own rattly food as the sweaty, tired guy sat for a moment with a glass of sweet tea while I signed the board. The little ones from the daycare down the street, a colorful link-chain of tiny folk, making us a stop on their daily outings, and the clients who drop off and pick up their machines and stop to pass the time of day.

The little wide-eyed wisp of a girl from across the street, whose grandmother walks her over every now and then, getting her out of that smoky house, and who has uttered only one word in the five years she's been coming here---Richie. And the little creatures whose meals were greatly enhanced by all his discards scattered in the grass---they'll surely wonder where he is. The bird's social calendar was WAY more filled than mine.

It's been a long, wearying day of mixed feelings and odd emotions. And if I didn't have a birthday party to go to, I think I'd go hide under the covers right now.