basket of poppyseed rolls at our table, even before we looked at the menu. Grandma ordered cabbage soup. She bent her small cabbage head over the bowl to bring the spoon to her mouth. I ate flanken in barley soup. Flanken’s a meat that gets real soft in soup. The waiter kept filling our water glasses, even if we took only one sip.
“When we returned to the efficiency, I smelled the boiled chicken my grandmother made every day. The smell was in the air all the time. I said, ‘Grandma, I don’t want to eat chicken.’
“Putting her hand to her mouth, she said, ‘But darling, what will you eat?’ Hot dogs, hamburgers never entered her mind. She didn’t get frantic, though. You’d think she would have, since chicken was the only thing she made in those days, and if I ever refused food, she was afraid I would immediately go into a coma.
“We put sheets on the little cot they had for me and we all went to sleep. The next morning, I was awakened by the rattling of paper. Grandma had walked to the grocery store four blocks away. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you what I bought.’ There was a loaf of white bread, Kraft American cheese presliced in squares and wrapped individually in cellophane, and a carton of milk. ‘I’ll teach you to make a grilled cheese sandwich. You can make them whenever you want.’ My face lit up. I’d never made one before. We cooked it in her thin tin frying pan and used a white dinner plate for a lid so the cheese would melt. I went mad for those sandwiches. I made at least three a day, and whenever we ran out of cheese and bread, my grandmother and I would walk to the grocer together.
“One night I woke up at midnight—we went to bed about 9:30 every night. I snuck over to the stove in my white cotton nightgown with yellow embroidered daisies, and by the streetlight coming through the window, I made a grilled cheese sandwich. This time I even used two slices of cheese. As I was waiting over the pan for the butter to melt, I heard my grandfather whisper, ‘What’s she doing?’ My grandmother said, ‘Shh, let her,’ and they turned over and went back to sleep. So there I had full permission to learn a thing and do it whenever I wanted. I waited until the cheese melted out of the sides of the bread, and with a spatula I put it on a plate and sat by the small kitchen table and looked out the window at Collins Avenue. The Carlyle Hotel sign blinked pink over and over again. I didn’t cut the sandwich in half. I ate it whole in the humid heat of Miami Beach, with the heaven of my grandparents snoring nearby. It was the most wonderful grilled cheese I ever had.”
“Better than mine? With avocado, tomatoes, and green chile?” Gauguin teased.
“Yes, the best I ever had.” I nodded.
6
I T WAS A RAINY Saturday in April, and I was acutely aware that Taos was not Brooklyn. Now, most of the time I was glad of this, but when it rained on a Saturday, I wanted a matinee movie. There was only one movie theater in Taos and that theater had a peculiar affinity to only one movie, Jaws , and they only played that at seven and nine in the evening. You watched the movie eating stale popcorn out of a round cardboard container. Once in a while, on a Tuesday evening out of the blue, they’d sneak in a Russ Meyer flick, something like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! , and Gauguin and I would sit in the audience and eat our stale popcorn faster and faster.
It didn’t rain much in Taos. The Anglos of Taos couldn’t handle it. Most of us were refugees from the outside world, and a slight change in weather shook our delicate balance with the universe. If it rained, Blue headed for her fireplace and sat inside it all day, and Big Barney moved his curtain a quarter of an inch from the window, saw clouds, and went back to sleep instead of going on a wood run near Tres Piedras.
So what was I, Nell Schwartz, supposed to do with the realization that I was not in Brooklyn and it was a Saturday and
“When we returned to the efficiency, I smelled the boiled chicken my grandmother made every day. The smell was in the air all the time. I said, ‘Grandma, I don’t want to eat chicken.’
“Putting her hand to her mouth, she said, ‘But darling, what will you eat?’ Hot dogs, hamburgers never entered her mind. She didn’t get frantic, though. You’d think she would have, since chicken was the only thing she made in those days, and if I ever refused food, she was afraid I would immediately go into a coma.
“We put sheets on the little cot they had for me and we all went to sleep. The next morning, I was awakened by the rattling of paper. Grandma had walked to the grocery store four blocks away. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you what I bought.’ There was a loaf of white bread, Kraft American cheese presliced in squares and wrapped individually in cellophane, and a carton of milk. ‘I’ll teach you to make a grilled cheese sandwich. You can make them whenever you want.’ My face lit up. I’d never made one before. We cooked it in her thin tin frying pan and used a white dinner plate for a lid so the cheese would melt. I went mad for those sandwiches. I made at least three a day, and whenever we ran out of cheese and bread, my grandmother and I would walk to the grocer together.
“One night I woke up at midnight—we went to bed about 9:30 every night. I snuck over to the stove in my white cotton nightgown with yellow embroidered daisies, and by the streetlight coming through the window, I made a grilled cheese sandwich. This time I even used two slices of cheese. As I was waiting over the pan for the butter to melt, I heard my grandfather whisper, ‘What’s she doing?’ My grandmother said, ‘Shh, let her,’ and they turned over and went back to sleep. So there I had full permission to learn a thing and do it whenever I wanted. I waited until the cheese melted out of the sides of the bread, and with a spatula I put it on a plate and sat by the small kitchen table and looked out the window at Collins Avenue. The Carlyle Hotel sign blinked pink over and over again. I didn’t cut the sandwich in half. I ate it whole in the humid heat of Miami Beach, with the heaven of my grandparents snoring nearby. It was the most wonderful grilled cheese I ever had.”
“Better than mine? With avocado, tomatoes, and green chile?” Gauguin teased.
“Yes, the best I ever had.” I nodded.
6
I T WAS A RAINY Saturday in April, and I was acutely aware that Taos was not Brooklyn. Now, most of the time I was glad of this, but when it rained on a Saturday, I wanted a matinee movie. There was only one movie theater in Taos and that theater had a peculiar affinity to only one movie, Jaws , and they only played that at seven and nine in the evening. You watched the movie eating stale popcorn out of a round cardboard container. Once in a while, on a Tuesday evening out of the blue, they’d sneak in a Russ Meyer flick, something like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! , and Gauguin and I would sit in the audience and eat our stale popcorn faster and faster.
It didn’t rain much in Taos. The Anglos of Taos couldn’t handle it. Most of us were refugees from the outside world, and a slight change in weather shook our delicate balance with the universe. If it rained, Blue headed for her fireplace and sat inside it all day, and Big Barney moved his curtain a quarter of an inch from the window, saw clouds, and went back to sleep instead of going on a wood run near Tres Piedras.
So what was I, Nell Schwartz, supposed to do with the realization that I was not in Brooklyn and it was a Saturday and
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