I like to cook. But so far in New York, there have been about two dishes that have required me to turn on the stove: porridge and pasta.
The bodegas and grocery stores yield incredibly expensive bargain brands: shitty food at shittier prices. Safeway ain't the greatest, but I LONG for one now. The meat in the place next to my building is priced as though the owners had sentimental attachment to whatever animals it came from. The produce is laughable - the kind of laughter you only emit to staunch the flow of tears. Having not had vegetables in weeks, nor fruit in almost as long, I stopped short of eating the paint chips off the wall to get some vitamins into my system, and went for a short walk to one of the local stores with some fruit outside. Anything. God. I settled for three squashy, rather mealy nectarines and a bunch of sad bananas. The nectarines I ate all at once, both out of necessity as they threatened to rot before my eyes and as I was eager to stave off malnutrition. I ended up eating two of the bananas, but the rest are up for grabs as I got four giant mosquito welts on my thigh that night, despite my settling in every evening covered in a fine mist of 25% DEET.
Thursday brought salvation: on Wednesday I looked up all the New York City Farmer's Markets and resolved to go to the one I'd found for the next day by the Columbia campus.
It's small. It's pretty expensive. It ain't nothin' compared to some of the ones in the SF Bay Area. But for me, it was like getting a big hug from back home.
It was such a joy to see fresh peaches again, free of wormholes. Beautiful pears with a coy little blush on 'em. Broccoli to which the word "sinewy" could not be applied! I had to reign myself in, reminding myself of the time I bought, among other things, eight mangoes from the Queen Victoria market in Melbourne and needed Mira's help to carry my bounty back home. I settled for five pears, three peaches, a bunch of broccoli, two baskets of grape tomatoes, and a small assortment of bready things from the bread lady.
Now, bread lady's wares are dangerous fayre. She makes little bread pizzas, sort of, kind of a cross between bruschetta and pizza. The woman in front of me, an apparent regular, bought 5 or so (the sour woman behind me pulled me in so she could whisper shrilly into my ear (with an accent): "She's going to get fat!") I ended up with a round filled and covered with cranberries and goat cheese, a pizza thing with tomatoes, basil, raw garlic and mozzarella, and one with tomatoes, spinach and cheese. The lovely bread lady also threw in an extra little sourdough loaf as a welcome and good luck; we had a little chat and she asked if I were a student, where I was from, what brought me out here; I told her about my cravings for the Farmer's Market. It's that thing about good nature again. I've met nothing but nice people, downright neighborly, in fact.
Another episode that made me happy: I was walking home from the subway station on Monday, wearing the purple dress (1 of the 2 dresses that I own!) over a pair of jeans. I made eye contact with a woman going the other way with her kids, and I smiled a hello. She called out, "Dat's pretty, what you got on." I called out a thanks in return, and we each went on our way.
Oh, and I have a (sort of) job now. I hock tickets for AltarBoyz and other shows in Times Square. This basically involves going up to people and saying, "Would you like to see a musical for half price?" The first day I sold 13 tickets. The next day I sold 2. Yesterday I sold zero. It's very Water for Sale. If I had had this experience before doing Good Person of Szechuan it would have greatly enriched my performance.
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