Sitting on the couch tonight, looking around my apartment for something to jump out at me and inspire a blog post, I accidentally swallowed a cherry pit.  I bought the cherries at the huge Wegmans grocery store in Cherry Hill, NJ (I wonder if there was a time that cherries actually grew in Cherry Hill?).

I drove out to Wegmans yesterday afternoon in order to buy soap to send to my mom for her birthday, which is next week.  They typically have an enormous display of handmade, hand-sliced soap in the natural foods section.  I got her a bar of rosemary-scented soap there six months ago, and she liked it so much that she cut the bar in two so that it would last longer.

My mother isn’t big on stuff, which makes her fairly hard to shop for when birthdays and holidays roll around.  However, a handful of years ago, she admitted that she really loves good-quality soap that smells good.  So that (along with the occasional frying pan) is what I get her.  And thankfully, since it’s the sort of thing that gets used up, it’s a gift that is never unwelcome.

I’ve been thinking about heading out that way for the last couple of weeks to get this soap, but for one reason or another, I never got around to it.  But yesterday afternoon I was out, in my car and realized that I was starting to run short on time.  So off to New Jersey I went.  After a brief wander through the produce section, I headed for the aisles of natural foods products, so that I could get the soap and get out, without incurring too much financial damage (that store is a very dangerous place for me–so much fun and interesting stuff).  But when I got to the soap section, it was all gone.  There was just an empty display.  I stood there for a minute, hoping that someone would come along and I’d be able to ask them about it, but no one stopped by.  Disappointed but figuring they had stopped carrying it, I grabbed a couple of things from the bulk grain section and headed out.

I was finished checking out, I stopped by the customer service counter, to find out if they knew the name of the company or if there was anyplace else I could get this soap.  They made a couple of calls and discovered that it wasn’t that they had stopped carrying it, they just were changing out the display and so had packed it away for a week or so.  A staff member in that section headed into the bowels of the store to unearth two bars of rosemary soap for me and brought it all the way to the customer service counter.

I was so happy that I decided to ask about it and that they were so willing to find me the one thing I wanted (I realize it’s sort of sad to be so thrilled over a positive customer service experience, but things like this don’t really happen in Philly.  If I had been in the city and asked about soap, they would have stared at me blankly and shrugged, before turning away to tell their coworker about how drunk they had gotten the night before).  It made the trip out there doubly worth it and now I have something nice to send to my mom (I’m not ruining any surprises, I was so tickled yesterday when it happened that I called her to tell her the story.  She is excited for the soap).

Standing in the lobby of my apartment building tonight, I overheard someone say, “I’m really lucky.  I have everything I need.”  The simplicity of this statement, coupled with the totally honest tone of voice in which it was delivered floored me for a moment.  It’s not often that you hear anyone admit that level of contentment.

I rode my bike down to a friend’s house tonight, to have dinner with a group of women with whom I used to eat lunch with every Tuesday when I worked at Penn. It was part celebration and part send-off as a couple people are either graduating or heading off to new grad school experiences.

This friend lives in a neighborhood adjacent to Center City, it’s being called the Graduate Hospital area (or G-Ho for short) and despite the soaring housing prices, it’s still sort of a transitional neighborhood. Safe, but transitional.

When I got to her block, I looked around for a place to lock my bike and realized that there weren’t many options. Spotting a metal pole holding up a handicapped parking sign a little ways down the block, I started talking towards it. A group of women and children were sitting out on their stoop, right by the pole I was heading for. Before I even got stopped walking, the older woman (who I presumed was the grandmother of the group) shouted at me, “Don’t you even think about leaving your bike in front of my house.” There was real venom and nastiness in her voice.

I startled and said okay. Then I asked, “Do you have any recommendations as to where I could lock it, there don’t seem to be too many places around here.”

“I don’t give a shit as long as it’s not here.” This came from one of the other women. By this point, they had all moved one step closer to me and were all nodding and uh-huhing.

By this point the unprovoked intensity of their meanness and hostility had made my eyes sting but I looked up at the woman who had first spoken to me and said something to the effect of, “I absolutely respect your right to tell me not to park my bike in front of your house and I’m certainly not going to argue with you about it, but all you had to do was ask.”

She seemed to soften for a moment and then her eyes hardened back up and she dismissed me with a flick of her hand. I had to walk around the corner and half a block up to find someplace else.

I understand why these women didn’t want me to park my bike there. This was their territory and they’ve watched as their neighborhood has changed and many of their neighbors have been pushed out by other people who look like me. They were just doing what they could to protect what they felt was theirs, even if it was just a patch of sidewalk. But it was really shocking to unexpectedly be on the receiving end of such anger.

One summer when my mom and I were visiting my grandma Tutu (hawaiian for grandmother) in Philly, I remember my mom taking a utensil out of the drawer in the kitchen and bringing it back to Portland with us. She called it a chopped liver chopper (because that’s what Aunt Doris has used it for) and told me that she had gotten it at a garage sale for a quarter some years back. She had given it to Aunt Doris and when she died, it ended up in my grandmother’s kitchen. Since Tutu didn’t actually cook much of anything (she occasionally managed spaghetti and meatballs or a roast, but didn’t enjoy doing it) my mom figured it was time to take the chopper home.

Somehow that single chopper started a collection, and for years we scanned thrift and antique stores for unique and inexpensive choppers. We watched as they got more and more expensive, always commenting that we were glad we had gotten so many nice ones before the prices rose. My mom hung them around the kitchen, until a friend of hers made an off-hand comment that it looked like an arsenal. When we moved to the next house, they got packed away and most were never rehung.

However, over the years, we incorporated a couple into the regular kitchen utensils, pairing one with a wooden bowl that my parents had received as a wedding present. It became the nut chopper and I learned that when you chop nuts by hand, you are better able to control the size and texture of the pieces, something you can’t do nearly as well with a food processor or blender.

I also liked using the chopper and bowl because I imagined that it was how my great-grandmother, my Auntie Tunkel and Laura Ingalls Wilder would have done their fine chopping. Every year, in preparation for Christmas dinner, it is still my job to toast and chop the brazil nuts for the stuffing.

When I moved away from home, my mom gave me one of her choppers to take with me. It hangs on my magnetic knife strip even as I write. I used it today, to chop up some toasted almonds for a salad.

Last May, when I was back in Portland helping my parents clean out, one of the boxes that got put on the garage sale pile was the box of choppers. I opened it up and culled through it, pulling out the few I wanted to keep before putting the rest back into the pile. The one pictured above was one that I kept. It has an old wooden handle that is easy to grip despite the smoothness that age has worn into it. But the part that charmed me the most was the imprint.

HENRY DISSION & SONS
PHILAD’A

I loved the idea of bringing something back with me to Philadelphia that had been born here many years before (I was also tickled at how they abbreviated Philadelphia). It’s those connections to the past that get me every time.

It’s been a light-posting week over here at Apartment 2024 (as well as over my my Reading Terminal blog).  I have a couple of good reasons for that.  The first is that I spent the last two days hanging out at the Radisson-Plaza Warwick Hotel at the first ever BlogPhiladelphia Unconference.  It was a terrific event, filled to capacity with wonderful people, interesting sessions and multiple opportunities to have unadulterated fun.

The second reason my posts here have been a little slow is that yesterday I started writing for Slashfood.  It’s a group food blog that is part of the Weblogs, Inc. family.  I’m going to be posting recipes, food stories, pictures and other items of food-interest there several times a day.  So if you are suffering from a lack of my witty food writing, fear not, as it will be coming at you fast and furious over there.

I have recently found myself awash in organic, free-range eggs. I bought a dozen for myself last week at Reading Terminal, not knowing that my house-sitting gig was also going to come with a bunch. Sherri and Matt, the regular residents of the house, belong to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). In addition to a box of gorgeous produce, they get eggs every other week. I feel a responsibility to use such nice food, and so have been dreaming up ways to use up eggs.

So tonight I made a batch of ginger ice cream that called for five egg yolks. But I couldn’t just toss the remaining whites, it goes against my frugal nature. So I made some meringue cookies. I’ve written before about pinch pie before, my family’s traditional birthday dessert, that consists of a meringue base filled with ice cream, whipped cream and strawberries.  I went for something a little simpler, just a little base of baked meringue, piled with some fruit.  Pretty, yummy and, if you have a stand mixer, very easy.

I’ve been riding my bike a lot lately. Two summers ago I sprained my ankle while dismounting (I am very graceful) and that was enough to keep me off for a while. But with gas prices the way they are now, I’ve been turning to my trusty orange bike as an effective and inexpensive mode of transport. I’m currently house and dogsitting for a friend who lives about eight blocks away, and so the bike has been getting me there and back quickly and easily, a couple of times a day.

Earlier tonight, I was riding home and as I turned a corner, I saw a familiar figure on a bike, riding in my direction. I momentarily considered continuing on home and pretending that I hadn’t seen him, but he shouted hello and I couldn’t keep going once I had been spotted. It was Ted, my long-ago ex-boyfriend.

We stood, at the mouth of Ludlow Street, in front of the Salvation Army donation bins and spent a couple of minutes catching up. It was nice to see him, like running into a distant relative, someone to whom you are tenuously connected, but would never see by virtue of your own volition.

I’ve been running into people a lot lately, which has been a very comforting thing. My life has felt very much out of my control lately, and I’ve been contemplating the notion that perhaps it’s all a sign that I’m wildly off course. But then I stumble across yet another person who is known to me and I take it as a signal that in fact, I am right where I need to be.

Walking silently, second of six in a single-file line, through the organic farm that separates the retreat center from the main convent, I heard someone holler, “Is that Marisa McClellan I see?”

I looked up to see a very tan person pull the hat off her head and use it to extend the waving arm she’s pointing at me. Squinting at her, I connect that it’s my friend Victoria, just as she shouts that same information. I veer out of line and jog towards her over the uneven ground to say hi and give a hug. We chat for a minute and I promise to stop by a little later when this current activity is over.

About an hour later, I’m headed her way again, my group having splintered and separated as everyone has gone off to find little pockets of space in which to write or be quiet. When I find her, she is tucked into a patch of the farm, giving instructions to a farm volunteer. We take a little time to settle down at a picnic table in the shade and catch up. We leave out the formalities and talk in conversational short-hand about breakups (mine) and big moves (her). Before she needs to get back to work, she drags over a plastic laundry bin that has been employed as a home for tomatoes and asks me to take as many as I can carry. I balance my notebook on my arm and use it to cradle eight. Most are of a purple heirloom variety, their skins scarred from too much moisture early in their lives. She assures me that despite their looks, they are good eating.

I walk back slowly, wanting to protect this vegetal windfall I’m carrying. As soon as I get back to the retreat house, I slice into one and sprinkle it with sea salt from Indonesia that the nuns left on the back of the stove. Taking a bite, I am rendered silent, not wanting to let any of the taste I’m experiencing inadvertently escape. It is a transcendent moment, eating a soft, sweet, sun-warmed purple tomato, given to me by a friend that I hadn’t expected to see.

The latest episode of Fork You is up and running. We made summery alcoholic beverages on my friend Jen’s Wash West roof deck, with a view of the city serving as our backdrop. We should have kept the cameras running, because things got good when we finished recording and started drinking. Scott finished off almost an entire bottle of Pimm’s and Jen killed off a good portion of that pitcher of margaritas. We sat outside, talking and laughing until the bugs and the threat of work (well, not so much for me, but for everyone else) sent us back in.

If you had been walking down the 1700 block of Chestnut Street on Tuesday morning at around 11:30 am, you would have found me sitting on the sidewalk, just next to the Men’s Warehouse, talking with a woman who was sitting by my side.

I had been walking down to the Staples at the corner of 15th and Chestnut, to buy a new ink cartridge for my printer when I watched the woman in front of me step on an uneven bit of sidewalk, twist her ankle and fall, landing prone on the sidewalk.  Several people stopped to make sure she was alright, but soon the crowd scattered and I was the only one left.  I didn’t want to leave until I knew that she’d be able to stand and walk.

After she found her way off her stomach and into a sitting position, she broke into fits of laughter.  Tears of tension, embarrassment and probably a little pain (she cut up her knees and a palm pretty well) streamed down her face as she processed the fact that she had just fallen in such a dramatic fashion.   I took a seat beside her and waited, chatting a bit to pass the time until she was ready to get up.

She told me that she was from a small town in Georgia and that she was a retired school teacher, in town for the NEA meeting.  She’d really been enjoying Philadelphia, particularly the history and the shopping.  She told me about her grandchildren, and how she makes a point to volunteer at the NEA registration every year so that she gets a chance to see everyone.

After a few more minutes of conversation, she was ready to try to stand.  She got up pretty easily and seemed okay.  We walked down another block and a half together, until we got to the address she was looking for.  She pulled me in and gave me a huge hug, and said, “Honey, thanks so much for helping me.”  I told her it was my pleasure and wished her well.

As I walked away, another woman who had witnessed the hug stopped me with a touch on the arm and said, “It’s good to help people, isn’t it?”  I smiled and nodded and said, “It really is.”

I’ve been dealing with a lot of sadness lately, and so getting an opportunity to be helpful and interact with someone in a loving and caring manner was just the gift I needed.