No picture this time because food was so bad. The kitchen, which prepared the takeaway in front of me, tried hard and worked like crazy, getting it hot and out. I was excited, in my narrow, private way, because it was New Year's Day, and I was solo. Waiters in Italy strew salt on platters as if they were trying to melt ice on streets. Invisible sugar fairies did the same on my chopped pork ribs, green beans in garlic sauce, wet-mop sesame noodles. Only the egg roll, a silly schoolboy crush, rose to its hot, greasy promise. Not a … [Read more...]
The Big Crack
[contextly_auto_sidebar] The polite ones pretend to remember, because they don't want to show they aren't down with your age. "Down with" is their age. And the smart ones know what you're talking about, though their eyes twitch as they grin. Old candy is what we liked when we were young candy. No one warned me not to take candy from strangers because I was a boy. Anyone who passed a piece of fudge into my small, sweaty hand was a friend, whether or not I paid with a Buffalo nickel or Mercury dime. Sweet boys like candy -- though no … [Read more...]
“Dirt Always Wins” — A Story, Part Two
Sterile Technique There’s a curiously moving photo in a 1930s medical handbook put out by Dr. Elliott P. Joslin, who started a clinic in Boston that still specializes in treating diabetics. It shows a sweet Shirley Temple clone, almost 3 years old, the caption says, sitting on a wooden table and injecting her doll-like thigh with a needle and syringe that contains a dose of insulin. (A darling voice muffles an “ouch!”) She’s just a baby, yet she’s her own life-saving nurse. I became diabetic at 7 and almost died because the family doctor … [Read more...]