It glistened while it spattered. A dangerous smell had already filled the second-floor apartment. What in the world was I to do? The Weinsteins had moved from an elm-lined, tulip-strewn street in Midwood, Brooklyn -- two-family houses built in the 1920s -- to a "development" in Howard Beach, Queens, the year before I would have graduated from eighth grade in Public School 238. I was confused about being uprooted, which sounds like a common U.S. story, of army brats and kids of World War II parents looking for postwar jobs. I'm not claiming I … [Read more...]
Learning To Cook: Meatloaf
Neither my brother nor I can recall sitting down to eat meatloaf when we were Brooklyn kids. But we must have, because we share a childhood "meatloaf ghost." "It had something red and burnt on top," he told me on the phone. "But I can't remember anything else about it." That must have been tomato sauce or, more likely, ketchup -- probably Heinz in our conventional household. We have no idea how the ghost's corpse tasted. I wouldn't blame Mom's particular meatloaf for that. No matter how good the food she gave us every single night was, our … [Read more...]