Personal Yummy #50

“Ready, Jenna?” Mike asks.

It’s now approaching two o’clock in the morning. I worked the late shift, but for the past hour I’ve been talking with Beth and her boyfriend, Mike, a sweet, kind, gentle, intelligent, attractive, and extremely funny guy who likes to tell innocent jokes. They often come to The Grill together around eleven o’clock or midnight on Friday nights and hang out and drink a few beers until closing, and they always offer to give me a ride home.

“You bet, Mike. Just let me grab my things.” Continue reading “The Three of Us and Primanti” →

Personal Yummy #49

He suddenly appears through the front door with a white cardboard coffee cup in his hand (Coffee Tree Roasters fancily written in green on the side), his heavy key ring jingling as we are preparing to open—Anthony chopping up vegetables, heating up the soups, and lightly cooking some pasta; Adam filling up the sinks behind the bar and wiping off the liquor bottles; me making iced tea and coffee and setting all of the tables with a paisley place mat, napkin, knife, and fork, writing Soup du Jour with an erasable marker on the lit board above the poker machine; some old movie playing on the TV. It is always a good feeling when he shows up, though—never a tensing of the shoulders or neck or an eerie feeling of doom. I mean, I’m sure he comes in to check up on things and make sure that we are arriving reasonably on time and doing our jobs properly. But Bobby is about the most easygoing boss you could ever get. Continue reading “An Executive Decision” →

Personal Yummy #48

We meet in early January for a late Saturday night dinner at Robataya—an upscale Japanese restaurant on East Ninth Street near Second Avenue. Even better, two gentle and skilled Japanese men sitting on tiny mats, and with their legs bent underneath them, prepare the food directly in front of us. Continue reading “Japanese Food and Universal Desire” →

Personal Yummy #47

“Jenna, would you mind coming over here for a second?”

It’s Curt, calling to me from behind the bar.

“Sure,” I reply, walking toward him. “What do you need?” Continue reading “Generosity and Coffee” →

Personal Yummy #46

I don’t have a lot of time to get ready, so I take a quick shower, wash my hair, dry it as fast as I can, straighten it with my flat iron, and then pull it into a sleek, low ponytail. I do my makeup next, applying a lot of liner, mascara, and shadow—a combination of hot pink and blue—as well as a dark pink lipstick. I usually don’t wear this much makeup, but it is a cold, Friday night in February, after all, so it calls for something extra. Continue reading “The Tea Quandary at Pera Soho” →

Personal Yummy #45

Every time she walks in—a bit unsteadily—with that big, black, book-laden leather satchel hanging over her left shoulder (I swear it’s a permanent fixture there), holding—in her left hand—her metal, Chatham-insigniaed container of coffee (she must drink at least ten to twelve containers-full a day), I’m so happy to see her. Some days she’ll sit in my section and order a skinny glass of cranberry juice, the sun-dried tomato pesto pasta, and a side salad (which I always cut up for her) with blue cheese dressing; other days she’ll sit at the bar and de-stress with a cigarette and a seven and seven and chat with Curt, whom she can’t say enough good things about. But no matter where she’s sitting, she takes out her books and works, whether writing poetry (which is always so interesting) for her creative writing class, or working on her tutorial about the massacre of the American Indians—her forehead furrowed. And whenever I get the chance, I’ll sit down for a while and visit with her.

Somehow, no matter my mood or outlook, this always makes me feel wonderful. Continue reading “The Grill on Murray Avenue: Teeli” →

Personal Yummy #44

It’s a beautiful day at the beginning of May—sunny, in the eighties, and absolutely no humidity—and for the first time this spring, I decide to go to the park for lunch. Continue reading “Central Park Reflections: Lunch by the Water” →

Personal Yummy #43

On a cool Tuesday evening in April, my mom, our friend Bella—a silver-haired, smooth-skinned, elegant, and beautiful woman in her eighties who loves to come to New York City with my mom to visit me—and I take a leisurely walk to Luna Rossa Ristorante, a charming Italian restaurant on 85th Street, between First and Second Avenues, and not too far from the apartment that I had rented when I first moved to the city. Continue reading “Italian on 85th Street” →

Personal Yummy #42

I’m in the kitchen, picking up a New York strip with a side of mashed potatoes, and there’s Mary Ellen and Tommy, chomping on chicken wings taken from the large bowl sitting beside my steak.

“Hey, kiddo,” Mary Ellen says. “When you’re finished dropping that off, come back here and try these. They’re something new we’re testing—garlic-parmesan-flavored.” Continue reading “The Race” →

Personal Yummy #41

Toward the end of a long walk on a gorgeous spring day, I decide to stop at the grocery store to pick up some chips and guacamole and a piece of salmon to make for dinner. So I head east on 89th Street, on my way to the C-Town supermarket on First Avenue, where I regularly shop. Continue reading “Eavesdropping on 89th Street” →