Personal Yummy #71

It’s two-thirty in the morning.

Shane, Jack, Bianca, Nina (our main hostess), a crew of regulars, and I, after having had some beers and shots at The Grill, have walked over to Shane’s apartment on Darlington Road, just about a block away, to hang out and talk.

Shane lives there with his roommate, Doreen, a pretty, skinny, pale, reddish blonde, friendly, mild-mannered girl. She often comes to the bar with Shane on his days off, and they relax in one of the booths, talking and smoking, their eyes resting on each other.

Continue reading “Want Some Coffee?” →

Personal Yummy #70

Tree trunks
and
Toast

Continue reading “A Shade of Brown” →

Personal Yummy #69

Following a full day of copyediting and proofreading e-mail invitations and white papers at the financial services firm where we work, my colleague Carolina—an intelligent, attractive woman in her seventies who has assisted me as a freelance editor for many years now—takes me nearby to La Bonne Soupe for an after-birthday dinner.

La Bonne Soupe is an elegant and lovely French bistro on 55th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, with tiny, wooden tables and chairs lining uninterrupted purplish-blue booths on each side, and colorful posters of Folies-Bergère dancers above—the perfect place for two artistic people to dine.

Continue reading “Conversation and Quiche at La Bonne Soupe” →

Personal Yummy #68

She’s been a waitress here at The Grill for almost five years now, and I’ve worked with her for the past two. Tomorrow, however, she says goodbye to this station and enters the big leagues—as a bartender.

And it’s about time.

At least I know she thinks so.

Continue reading “The Next Level” →

Personal Yummy #67

I am getting ready to transfer to the 6 line, but the subway is a mess—with many delays, and with hordes of people waiting on the platform—so I escape up the concrete steps and out onto 59th Street. It’s a warm summer evening, and it feels so good to no longer be sitting at my desk in the office.

Continue reading “A Much-Needed Delight” →

Personal Yummy #66

Kumquats
and
Sherbet

Continue reading “A Shade of Orange” →

Personal Yummy #65

“Jenna,” he begins, slowly. (I am mixing a gin and tonic at the corner of the bar.) “Have you seen The Nutcracker yet this year?”

I look up, my hands frozen for a moment. “No, Irwin, actually, I haven’t,” I reply, as I manage to put the dark green bottle of gin back in its place on the shelf.

“Well, I was…uh…sort of thinking about maybe going to see it, and…uh…uh…”

He pauses for quite a while, apparently having a hard time getting his words out.

Continue reading “Not Enough” →

Personal Yummy #64

He has that kind of mysterious sexiness that you can’t quite describe, the stuff of Nicolas Cage. And he looks particularly attractive when he smiles, which accentuates his always-there mustache. Plus, he is friendly and easygoing, coming into The Grill at least twice a week, around three or four o’clock or so (when the place is rather empty), to hang out with Curt for a while and to drink a few cups of coffee before he has to leave to go to work.

Continue reading “The Unlikely Profession of Craig Newbert (aka Globy)” →

Personal Yummy #63

It’s Saturday afternoon, and I move hurriedly from table to table, taking one order after another, separating each with a thick blue line on my tiny pad of paper (I don’t dare leave anything to memory—too much room for error). Call out any alcohol orders to Adam (or even any juice or soft drink orders, which he’ll happily prepare for me if he has the time) while I quickly punch the food orders into the machine by the bar.

Continue reading “What It’s All About” →

Personal Yummy #62

At approximately 4:05 I jump off the 61B at the corner of Forbes and Wightman and rush to my building and up the stairs to my second-floor apartment. Once inside, I peel off my tights and my stretchy dance top. There’s no time for a shower, so I wash my face, fix my hair a little (it’s already pulled back), and apply some deodorant. What’s the use of a shower, though, really? I’ll be saturated with grease and smoke by the end of the night anyway. It’s just a shame that I don’t have time to eat anything substantial. A raspberry breakfast bar will have to do for now. So I inhale it without a thought and then grab the ironing board, realizing full well that I should’ve ironed my clothes the night before. For some reason, I can never get myself to do it.

Continue reading “No Time to Waste” →