 Mother’s Home Cooking: Huzzah!
The Insufferable Gourmand
Nick Rickles
Why hello, dear friends! I am pleased to report that ever since Mother’s Day, my heart has been thoroughly aflutter—aflutter, I tell you—with good cheer! “You don’t say,” you remark, eyebrows knit with intrigue. “Whatever is the cause of this unbridled elation, Mr. Rickles?” Well, my gnomic little duncelet, I’ll tell you: on my Sunday-afternoon visit, my mother prepared for me a meal of utterly incalculable wonderment.
You see, mummsies, now edging into her eighties, served me the foods that I adored as a child—my golden era, when I was a spirited, bowtied scamp in short-pants and penny loafers. And I admit, with no shame, that the repast evoked a pleasure usually reserved for Sue-Lee, my oily-palmed Cherry Street masseuse.
Upon arriving at her scruffy studio apartment on Sunday, I kissed her on her rouge-smeared, time-ravaged cheek. Following a bony hug and a smattering of pleasantries, I presented her with a gift (a cask of grapeseed oil, harvested and cold-pressed by crippled Albanian monks), and we retreated to the davenport for a chat. Despite her age, she remains quite hale—which I attribute to her sensible diet, regular strolls, and thrice-weekly club-soda enemas. Of course, we spoke not of my late father, the vile brute, or of my ne’er-do-well brother, who, last I’d heard, was running a prostituterie from a filthy Bridesburg garret. No, we focused on more pleasant things: the knish I’d eaten the week before, slathered with piquant yellow mustard, warm as a lunatic's forehead. The Ritz crackers I’d enjoyed the previous night, standing attentively in their wax-paper stacks, orange as an apocalypse sunset. The eggs I’d expertly scrambled that very morning, their swoonsome aroma matched only by their scandalous jiggle, evoking an absinthe-pissed Parisian showgirl.
That, my dear, cretinous friend, was when my stomach burbled—and I asked if there was anything I might nibble at.
Giggling with glee, my dear old mum raised a thin finger, then tottered off to the kitchen. I played a quick, frantic game of pocket pinball, not knowing what, exactly, she was up to. But I should have known: the ancient bird returned with a heaping platter of golden-brown Tater Tots, piping hot, tatered to absolute perfection. For dipping purposes, she, the shriveled little bat, procured a dish of blood-red ketchup, with which, her eyesight failing, she had shakily spelled out my name. It had been years, nay, decades, since I had enjoyed such quotidian delicacies, and, O, did the memories come a-flooding! I was suddenly six years old, my father ginning himself to death on our wasp-filled patio. And I was ten, bawling over my goldfish, murdered by my mallet-wielding brother. And I was thirteen, sitting, as usual, by myself in the junior-high-school refectory.
But the fond reminiscences didn’t cease there! Because no sooner had I wiped the grease from my quivering wattle did she present me with the pièce de résistance: two perfectly-hewn slices of wheaten bread, generously peanut-buttered and, oh, yes, grape-jellied. A tear salted my eye as I noted that the crusts were trimmed as delicately as a Playmate’s downy pubics. I felt that I was once again a boy, furiously rubbing my nethers to Wonder Woman as sunlight slanted into our old kitchen, George, the family poodle, defecating robustly in the corner. But I was snapped back to the present by the chewing—lord, the chewing! The concoction of bread, peanut, and jam formed a ravishing triumvirate, blasting my senses and, yes, setting my Cowper’s gland a-churn.
And then, as if intending to send me into mad, hooting paroxysms, mother served dessert. Of course, it was my all-time favorite: a simple dish of Nilla Wafers, accompanied by a glass of ice-cold cow’s milk. Upon dipping, and chewing, and dipping once more, I could barely contain my thrill. For the love of the saints—yes, even you, St. Ambrose, you swine — the taste was just too gloryful! Overcome with feeling, I palmed one of the cookies and excused myself to the water closet. Amidst the reassuring scents of Vick’s, witch hazel, and Depends, I held the wafer aloft and sounded my rejoicings! “O, thank you, wafer,” I shrieked, for once relieved by my mother’s increasing deafness. “You hast restored me—you hast made me whole again!” Hastening to lock the door, I fondled the cookie tenderly, making sure to rub its sugary little groin in sweetsome ecstasy. I needn’t bore you with the hoary details, friends. Needless to say, I emerged minutes later, sweat dripping from my forehead, the cookie securely housed in my Jockeys for a late-night rendezvous.
My mother, bless her slowing heart, was now cleaning the table. It was a melancholy tableau: such an enchanting, transportive meal, wiped away like so much dung from a leper’s buttocks. After watching in silence for a moment, tears now freely streaming, I rushed to embrace her. “Thank you,” I wept, overcome by the feast and the emotions it had summoned. She simply smiled, farted gently, and asked me to leave.
Oh my, how I love you, mother! And how I love you, too, Nilla Wafer!
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South Phila. Woman No Zoe Strauss
May 12, 2009 –
Friends and relatives of South Philadelphia’s Gina Torrento, a 56-year-old neighbor of self-taught photographer Zoe Strauss, yesterday conceded that Torrento, unlike Strauss, seemed unlikely to rocket to international renown with her own fine-art photography. “Gina says, ‘If that Zoe woman can do it, why can’t I?’” said a friend of Torrento’s, who requested anonymity. “I don’t have the heart to tell her: ‘Gina, it’s ‘cause your pictures are the worst thing I’ve ever seen. They stink.’ ”
 Torrento’s husband, George Torrento, 58, reluctantly agreed. “After Zoe Strauss got in that, whatsit, the Whitney Bi-enney-al? Yeah, after she got in that, Gina goes, ‘Georgie, I want a camera,” he grimaced. He then pointed to a wall filled with posed holiday photos, laughable attempts at profundity, and candid shots of Zeke, the family beagle. “I don’t think these are gonna be in no museum any time soon, you ask me.” Family friend Rachel Nerrone, 45, was similarly dismissive of Torrento’s attempts to mimic Strauss’ extraordinary success. “I tried tellin’ her, ‘Zoe’s got an eye for this stuff, you know what I mean?’ ” she recalled, referring to Strauss' searingly honest urban scenes. “All Gina says is, ‘Whaddya mean, “eye”? Whaddya call these two things right here?”
The supposed artist, meanwhile, was looking forward to stardom. “Zoe Strauss, she’s been in magazines, an’ galleries, an’ museums, all over the world—an’ she’s from right here in the neighborhood,” she said, fumbling with a disposable camera. “But I think my pictures is even better. Look at that one there, of ol’ Georgie. Ain’t he a peach?” George Torrento, meanwhile, merely hoped that his wife would not be too crushed by inevitable disappointment. “She’s sending stuff to art galleries now, and I don’t think they’re going to be too nice to her,” he sighed. “I wish she never heard of this Strauss broad, I’ll tell you that much.”
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