It must be love

Gerard: "You could get yourself a reputation as a really weird teacher without even trying that hard."

Me: "Because I want to keep a pencil case full of beef jerkey?"

Gerard: "Yes."

3 minutes of slow, silent walking through the aisles of Target

Me: "Beef jerkey is a lean and delicious snack that is also a useful motivational tool for hungry teens."

Gerard: [he laughs because I am so right] "I can see you tossing it to them for each right answer."

Me: "See?"

we look at pencil cases 

My left hand, as a mouth: "Miss, can I borrow a pencil?"
My right hand: "Sorry, I don't have any pencils."
My left hand: "But isn't that a full pencil case?"
My right hand: "Yep, but it's full of jerkey!"

Gerard: Ha


3 minutes of slow, silent walking through the aisles of Target

Me: You really think I would be a weird teacher? My kids love me!

Gerard: I'm sure they do.

     

Luiggi's

My mom worked at Luiggi's Pizzeria in the 70s. It's still in Lewiston, Maine, where, according to my mom, "all the riff-raff hang out" - never mind that she once lived in Lewiston and attempted to raise two children there.

I took Gerard to Luiggi's last week.

I know, it's the second story in a row about Gerard. My writing class - the people who told me to "concentrate on the carnage!" for my lobster story - pointed out to me that he is my comic foil, and gushed all sorts of things about how brilliantly hilarious I was for writing him as my straight man. Unfortunately for Gerard, he is not a made-up tool of humor, but a real man who simply has no choice other than to go with me to these things and try to remain calm.

Thus, I took him to Luiggi's, and, because it has TWO "g"s in the name, I could offer him TWO promises: 1. a better understanding of my childhood and 2. the off-menu sandwich known as "the A-bomb."

We parked outside the Blue Goose, a dive bar to which my 15-year-old future mother once delivered Luiggi's lunchmeat pizzas. All the pizzas at Luiggi's are lunchmeat. Even the "cheese" pizzas come with thin shavings of salty deli ham. The restaurant has many signs that point out this unflinching commitment to sticking it to vegetarians, but no signs explaining why.

Luiggi's offers no such thing as a "dining experience." If you asked one of the middle-aged counter workers about "ambiance" they would laugh you out the door. There's a counter, where you order your pizza or spaghetti or sandwich, and there are some booths and tables, where you eat them. The lighting is fluorescent, the decor wavering between non-existent and bizarre. There is no memorable color to the plasticky tables and chairs, no pictures - and no visible health department rating - on the walls.

This was a cherished piece of my childhood. Though I had not intended to fill Gerard's head with visions of little me as a grimy street urchin, I was sticking by it. This time around, I would not be embarrassed by Gerard's compassionate gaze as he stared deep into yet another Bell family vacuum of reason and good taste. I braced. I set my eyeballs to "blazing with pride" mode. I stared him down, and...

I'm taking Gerard to his first lobster boil.

“Now, you should know that this isn't the type of 'lobster boil' they have in Cape Cod.”

“I've never been to one of those either.”

“Good – those are dumb. All kinds of corn and potatoes rolling around, getting in your way. Those fancy pants think they are too good for a plain old lobster on a plate.”

My lobster is simple, approached the way my family has approached everything since the grands-peperes and grands-memeres crashed over the American border in a wave of French-Canadian immigration a century ago. My family has un-recipes: Corn – boil water, toss it in. Potatoes – bake. Boiled dinner – heat broth, add whatever you find in your fridge, wait.

Newspaper reports from the early 20th century widely assume that Franco-Americans are  simpletons. Our highly literal interpretation of what we still call “a lobster boil,” adds some muscle to that idea: We take a lobster, and we boil it.

The boiled lobster is my summers, my birthdays, my family parties. It's so entrenched in my family's life processes that when we moved from Maine to South Carolina, there really was no question of where to have my first birthday south of the Mason-Dixon line -- it was Red Lobster or bust. 

Six-year-old me had no idea the gasps of horror that this decision would elicit from foodies hearing this story years later.

In Hot Water (and other food puns about a pickle I'm in)

Excellent thing: I'm in this class at the New York Public Library, and they are paying me to read and write and hang out with other teachers and eat way too much catered food.

Not-so-excellent thing: I am expected to complete 750 words of "food writing" by Friday.

Here's the thing about food writing: it's amorphous. It's nothing and everything and a little bit crazy and a little bit boring. Describe the sandwich that you ate today. Bam! Food writing. Recall a recipe your grandma gave you. KaBoom - food writing! Tell me why artichokes are considered a sexy food. Woohoo! Food writing (and thanks for explaining it because seriously - do you know what they do to your digestion? It's the opposite of sexy).

I came in with some ideas, but the more I research (fine, attempt to research. I am stupid at computers.), the less clear I am on what I want to do or how to do it. I feel like I'm lacking some revelatory food experience that would anchor my story. I don't "experience" food - I just shove it in my face. I haven't had a supremely memorable meal that changed my life. My family doesn't have recipes that have been handed down. My grandmother made fried baloney sandwiches. My parents cook a lot of pasta. I eat nachos almost every meal.

I enjoy food. I have questions about it. I want to talk about it with other people. I just don't know - based on what I have to offer them - that they would want to talk about it with me. I have 3 days left to write, and I am stuck. I'm in hot water. My goose is cooked. I'm in a pickle. My sandwich has no mayonnaise. I'm one egg short of a carton. (I promised puns - but not good ones.)

So, hey, here's an idea: help me. M'aidez (that's "help" in fancy French restaurants). What can I write? What food experiences do you want to re-live? What food questions do you need answered?  I have some ideas below - vote on these or write in your own.

- All you can Kill Buffet: A friend of mine recently suggested to me that you shouldn't eat anything you wouldn't be able to kill. That effectively strikes spiders from my diet (I can't bear to get close enough to smash them), but what about other critters? Do I really need to kill, or consider killing, them to enjoy their tender flesh?

- Home Cooking: I'm curious about what I consider my "childhood food": Italian sandwiches, whoopee pies, lobster (but not lobster boil), boiled dinner. Where does Maine "cuisine" (haha) come from? If it were the French, why don't we have more poutine?

- Home Ec: Don't really know where this piece is going.  I think I'm still just mad that I got a B for burning my waffles in 8th grade.

VOTE NOW or STARVE (intellectually speaking. I will not take your food. Unless it is poutine.)

A Funny Story that I Should Probably Write but Won't Get Around To:

Phil Collins Attends the 6th Annual 'Phil Collins Day'  in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Disguised as a Man Who is Not Phil Collins