There was a commotion at the meat stand.
Or, that’s how the story would begin, were we living inside Cork Street, Next to the Hatter's, R. suggested, rightly, when I returned from the market with my grocery bags and tales of adventure.
Though, how today’s visit actually began was with me setting off on a perfect summer morning — blue skies, sun, and just enough heat that a girl of my inclinations needn’t be forced to choose between shade or sweat — with a grin I couldn't manage to rein in. Yesterday I met Samuel Thomas, five-hours-new to this world, and the image of his beatific little face — no bruising, no old man wrinkles, just a rosy, cozy bundle of sweetness occasionally parting his little pink bow lips to sip at this strange, new oxygen-filled world — still hadn’t left me.
I was smitten.
I was also a few ounces lighter in the shoulder, as in preparing for his arrival, Sam’s parents had misplaced their camera and so borrowed mine, which meant I was zig-zagging the leafy streets up to Grand Army Plaza also telling myself that I didn’t need photos, was no good at photos anyway, and would rely instead on my other senses.
At the Green Pirate juice truck parked across from the market, I tuned into the buzz-saw whine of the juicer and the mingling scents of fresh carrot juice and truck exhaust. And at the first table I arrived at across the street, I ran a finger over the wobbly wooden bushel basket coddling a heap of apricots, their skins mottled red and gold like nectarines.
From there I made conscious note of the pyramids of peppers — one each of red, yellow and orange — then clear plastic containers of strawberries and half gallon jugs of strawberry cider, as well as raspberries, cherries, onions (red and white) and jams (peach, berry-berry, apricot, Dutch apple, blueberry, pear and raspberry).
There were tiered lines of rough, blue cardboard cartons of green snap peas, sturdy wooden crates of apples — golden delicious, Jona gold, matsu, empire, red delicious — and dried apple rings in sandwich bags. And that was all just at the Williams Fruit Farm stand, hailing from Ulster Park, New York.
What began the events around the Arcadian Pastures meat stand was that R. had determined a compote was the ideal destiny for a pint of gooseberries* we’d picked up at a Nork Fork farmstand earlier in the week, and I had been tasked with finding something to put the compote over.
“Lamb?” I asked R., before leaving the apartment.
“Maybe beef…” he’d answered.
Which sent me perusing the offerings in a long, ice-cooled wooden meat case featuring organic, free-range, local pork products, lamb and beef.
When I arrived, a rather large gentleman — sweating, bearded, jovial — was talking up the woman behind the meat case, a fresh-faced, freckled blonde with the look of someone who had run track in high school. She'd noticed me come under the small awning, but he hadn't, and so when he swung around I took a few quick steps backward, wanting to save us both the embarrassment of him barreling into me.
The path to her now cleared, I asked, “Which cut of beef do you think might go with gooseberry compote?”
“Oh, you should ask that man who just left,” she said, and we both turned toward the next stand, where his back — a swath of pink gingham — was toward us.
Hearing her, he whirled around. “What’s that?” he asked brightly.
“She was wondering what type of beef to pair with gooseberries,” said the track star.
“Or is pork the better fit?...” I wondered.
“Oh, definitely pork!” he said, delight pouring off of him.
“Salt it, and then put it in a pan with just some white wine. Then, let it simmer until the wine disappears and the fat renders out, giving the pork something to cook in. Let it cook like that for, oh, maybe 45 minutes. And then, you know — ” he made a flippant gesture with his right hand. “You can drain off the fat then, if you want to.”
I thanked him, and with a final, friendly flash of white teeth, he was off.
“Pardon me…” said a British accent in my left ear, and I turned to find a tall, thin man leaning in toward me. “Did I hear you say gooseberries? They’re quite rare to come by, you know. Wherever did you find them?”
I told him about the North Fork farmstand, and he nodded with a slight furrow of jealousy that made me want to offer, in consolation, that they were actually a bit mealy. Which, along with their tartness, was what had made them a candidate for the compote.
I turned back to the meat case.
“Excuse me,” asked a pleasant, thin older woman, who quickly replaced the Brit. “But who was that you were just talking to?” She indicated the direction the chef had gone off toward.
“I don’t know,” I said, and looked to the blonde, who also shook her head.
“He said he was a chef. And he knew a lot about sausages,” she offered.
“You know..." said the older woman, "I heard him talking to you and — that voice was just so familiar! Is he on one of those food radio shows, perhaps?” She tipped her head, clearly still searching her mental database.
“He did have a familiar voice…” I agreed, trying to replay it my ears. The three of us hmm’d and squinted for a few seconds longer, and then I went on my way, with a vacuum-sealed package of pork spare ribs.
“Or…” Rich said later, reconsidering his Cork Street reference while helping me unpack the grocery bags in the kitchen. “Maybe how I imagine it is more fun than what actually happened.”
{*The gooseberries are the light green offering, second from the right. Up close, they have thin, white stripes, top to bottom, giving them a look like paper party lanterns.}
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