Folk

Went to the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy on Wednesday because I heart street fairs and sausage. Had a delicious sausage sandwich with broccoli rabe (sauteed Chinese broccoli greens, only I guess it's a different, slightly tougher, more bitter Italian cousin) and a pumpkin canoli.

Now, anybody who knows me knows that I love folksy people. I love New Yorkers who sounds like New Yorkers, or rather, sound like how you think New Yorkers might sound but don't seem like they give a rat's ass what you think about how they sound. I like the lady in my neighborhood who called out, "dat's pretty, what you got on." I like the middle aged waiter at the diner who doesn't think twice about calling me "Sweethawt." I like the lady who sold me the canoli, whose voice sounded so brilliantly like a character voice, I wanted to record her and call her "Toots." (Think Ellen Greene from Little Shop or one of the three old burlesque ladies from Gypsy). And I love, most of all, the fella who called out from his sausage booth as I walked past eating my canoli:

"Hey, how you doin'? You like the canoli, huh?"