Stick Food

Some of you may have noticed that I changed the picture in my profile to the one of me with the Wall Street Bull eating stick food. There's a reason for this.

Stick food is dear to my heart. Many moons ago, when I was just a whelp approaching early maturity (read: college guy), my Dad and I were whooping around Manhattan, specifically Lower Midtown, specifically Washington Square Park, when we decided that it was time for a pre-lunch snack. (Lunch was to be at some place arranged by my sister, a trendy transplanted Manhattanite, and results could vary wildly.) (It was also to be later in the afternoon.) Looking forward to my second cart dog in New York, both of the trip and my life, I approached to find that the cart seemed to offer shish kabobs instad of hotdogs. At first I was afraid-- I was petrified. I mean, first of all, while I can't claim to have lead a sheltered life, a kabob off a cart seemed like a fairly sporting move at that point in my young life. Also, the grill, the kabobs, and (in particular) the vendor didn't look precisely hygenic. And what was on the kabob, in addition to being totally unadvertised, was not specifically identifyable. It wasn't mystery meat, mind you. It just wasn't abundantly clear that it was, for instance, shoulder meat. As opposed to intestine.

But my Dad was standing nearby, others were waiting to order, and I figured I oughta go ahead and roll the dice. "Kabob," I said.

"Pardon?" the guy said, in the most indisticnt and muddiest Middle Eastern accent I had ever heard.

"Kabob," I repeated.

"You mean Shish Kabob?"

"Yeah," I said. I didn't know there was a protocol.

"Just a shish kabob or a sandwich?"

"Just a shish kabob," I said. He took one of the cooked kabaobs off a pile in the window of the cart, placed it on the griddle, put a trowel down on top of it to facilitate heating, and took the next order, my Dad's. (He ordered, and got, a hot dog, which were in a hidden cavity inside the cart, note to self.) A minute later he reversed the kabob and asked "Sauce?"

"Sure," I said.

"What kind," he asked, a little exasperated, offering a couple of poosibilities before coming to "Hot?"

"HOT!" I said, "Yes, hot!"

He sprayed the stick of meat with something in a bottle he fetched from a nearby rack. Finally he produced a soft breadstick, sliced it up the side, slid the kabob into it, put that in a food-service parchment, and wrapped the whole affair loosely in a foil. He handed it to me. I gave him correct change and got the hell out of the way.

The meat turned out to be rather indiscriminately butchered pieces of pork, cooked through and crispy but with pieces of fat still unmelted throughout. The sauce was hot and tangy, and the grease and the sauce melded wonddrfully and soaked into the bread, along with the heat from cooking. (This was in December, I might have said earlier.) It was delicious, it was tactile, it was a tad barbaric and romantic, sustenence at street level, the essence of the Being Human in Manhattan. About five bites in I decided I did need a soda after all. I was going to go to a different cart, but there were lines, so I ended going back to the cart where I had bought the kabob for it. The vendor who had been impatient with me before beamed at me now as he handed me a grape soda. (He didn't ask how I was enjoying the stick; he didn't have to.)

Since then, every time I'm in New York, it's the same routine. "Kabob." "You mean Shish Kabob?" When they ask about sauce, I get a dumb look on my face, and they immediately start naming sauces until I hear one I like. Actually, this pays off, since they don't always have the same sauces. One time I was offered one that sounded to my ears, like "Blgle blgle blgle."

"YES! Blgle blgle blgle!" It was delicious, but tasted just a leeeeetle bit like feet.

So anyways. Somehow, this trip, I knew I wasn't going to be seeing Washington Square Park this trip, and I figured I was going to be the only one indulging anyways, so from the first footfall I was going on about how I wanted Kolkolash. (It's from the Simpsons, folks; either you've seen the episode in question of you haven't.) By the time we got to the bottom of Wall Street, it was closing on noon, and the vendor carts were starting to warm up for the lunch rush. The guy I picked was kind of off on a corner on his own, seemed to have his props together, and would only serve me from one specific quadrant of the cart. (Honestly, he actually showed me where to stand.) The first three sauces he named sounded interesting, but I settled on hot because of the wind. (Needed all the help I could get.) Not only was it a perfect portion for a pre-lunch snack, it was the perfect kind of barbarian food for a poet scuffling the burg at street level to be snarfing in the financial district next to a big, brass monument to Kapital.

Romanatic as hell, huh?