Eating as I Go: Scenes from America and Abroad

THANKSGIVING IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

37 New฀York฀and฀Englewood,฀New฀Jersey,฀1990 I shift the heavy shopping bag, brown paper in white plastic, from my right hand to my left, flexing the tired muscles before I press the elevator button marked “8.” The tall, burly man who has come in after me inspects my parcel, sniffs for telltale odors, and then abruptly glues his eyes to the elevator door. “Happy holiday,” he says unexpectedly, exiting on three, and I just about manage a “You, too” before the door shuts and he is gone. I check my watch, knowing full well that it is already 7:00 p.m. and that I am uncharacteristically late. On the eighth floor, I rush down the familiar corridor, past the nurses’ station and the patients’ kitchen, toward 827, where Eli is waiting. We lower the table, which Eli has already cleared, and swing it around between the bed and the chair. Our holiday feast—two containers of miso soup and two handsomely boxed deluxe sushis—will just about fit. I open a bottle of hastily chosen Mondavi Chardonnay, pour some into a plastic cup, and place the bottle discreetly on the floor. I pour some of Englewood Hospital’s best water for Eli, and we toast to his return home in less than twenty-four hours and to many more Thanksgivings together. Our typical Thanksgiving consists of twenty family members for the big feast, most of them bedding down in our house for a chunk of the long weekend. But this year, a birth, an extended honeymoon, and a pair in Central America who can’t come north in November open up the holiday to alternative arrangements: some minor surgery for Eli and a quiet interlude for recovery. The week before Thanksgiving, instead of joining our neighbors in an orgy of frantic food buying and provisioning, Eli and I shop unhurriedly for hospital gear: a good Walkman, a 600-page World War II thriller, sheepskin slippers to replace his torn ones, and a pair of medium-weight long johns. We even have unhassled time for tennis—Saturday, Sunday, and Monday—before delivering Eli into his surgeon’s hands on Tuesday morning. D THANKSGIVING฀IN฀THE฀฀ GARDEN฀OF฀EDEN฀ DELICIOUS ACTS OF DEFIANCE 38 The members of our clan are elsewhere and accounted for—except for my eighty-seven-year-old mother in Manhattan, who relies on us for holiday celebrations . I have promised her that we will have a Thanksgiving lunch in the city. Correction: my proposal is for a lunch on Thanksgiving Day, not turkey and trimmings surrounded by noisy extended families at a holiday-priced restaurant, but something mildly unconventional. Just the two of us. I envision a Chinese duck or crispy chicken along with pan-fried noodles and sautéed broccoli or asparagus with black mushrooms. No wild experiments, just a conservative bird and side dishes. When I pick her up at her apartment at 1:30 on the dot and steer her toward Broadway, my mother admits to being a little bit hungry. A good sign. For this elderly woman who has just about ceased to cook for herself, a “little bit” hungry means that she will eat whatever is placed in front of her. I am seriously hungry, but determined to eat moderately in order to save room for the planned evening sushi with Eli. As my mother and I wait for the traffic light to change, I debate whether to order wine or beer with the meal. I imagine the smell of garlic frying in peanut oil, mingling now with fresh ginger and sesame oil; greedy fingers reach for the plastic chopsticks, and I smack my lips in anticipation of the soy-flavored fowl. But I am rushing things. The Hunan Balcony, on the corner of Broadway and 98th, which never misses a day of business, is, to my surprise, closed this Thanksgiving day, as are the two Szechuan restaurants on Broadway and 97th. How curious! Have the owners of these 365-day-a-year establishments met together over scotch and soda and decided to shut down for this holiday? Has market research shown that North Americans will not eat Chinese food on Thanksgiving ? Is the daughter of one of the owners being married this evening at a classy Westchester country club to the son of another owner, with everyone who is anyone in the industry in attendance? Continuing south on Broadway, I worry about my mother in her spring...