Custody Cuisine

The first slice of summer was always perfect. Across the formica countertop and glass divider, the rectangular oven door made its spring-loaded creak and filled the room with radiant heat and the garlic fumes. With a quick flip of the long-handled peel, the pizza guy would flick the slice from the recesses of the oven to a well-dented circular aluminum pan, then to a waiting styrofoam plate. Big as a saddle blanket and dripping molten mozzarella, the slice -- ninety degrees of a perfect Neapolitan pie -- would slide across the counter and into my hands.

Of the good things to come out of my parents' divorce, one of the big ones HAD to be the pizza. Sausage with extra pepperoni.

Actually, it was the near endless parade of foods that I loosely defined as "city foods"-- a group of exotic dishes that could only be eaten during summer vacation and were available only within the confines of New York. This in the days before Lender's bagels were available in your grocer's freezer or the Nathan's Coney Island franchises appeared in mallside food courts.

For roughly two weeks every summer, an amicable custody agreement provided for an early education in edible American culture. We kids -- myself and sisters Charlotte and Elaine -- loved it. Upon reaching an age of relative responsibility (approximately eight years old), we could visit our father in the Big City -- AT LEAST a million miles away from our hometown in rural Louisiana.

These trips gave the kids their first taste of city life and provided my newly-bachelorized dad with a dose of round-the-clock parental responsibility. We'd shoehorn ourselves into his one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment and try not to bounce around too much. During the daytime, we'd walk the streets between tourist attractions and learn the Rules of the City. (No eye contact on the subways. Most people don't own cars. The third rail is NOT a toy.) At night, watch the harbor lights through the apartment's huge picture window and… of course… jump around until the downstairs neighbors complained.

In between our many adventures (Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Central Park), we'd walk through the neighborhood, shopping at the tiny storefronts. Early in the morning we'd march down to Moishe's Bagels where the air was always humid and yeasty from the boiling kettles. Apples from the little greengrocer's stand. Glittering cookies and mysterious cannoli from the Italian bakery. Milk from the tiny corner store. All without a supermarket in sight.

And then there were the walking foods -- delicacies that emerged from stainless steel carts stationed on just about every street corner. These magical mobile cafes could provide foods to satisfy almost every possible eight-year-old whim. Meaty, messy hot dogs for lunch. Soft, doughy pretzels for afternoon snacks. Brightly-colored Italian ices and synthetic Good Humor bars for any time in between.

As soon as we learned how to recognize the different kinds of carts, Charlotte and I would spring into full tag-team parental erosion mode ("Pleeeeese? Canwecanwecanwecanwe?"), hoping to trigger an appeasement snack. And Dad, our beleagured temporary authority figure, quickly learned to dread the carts' multicolored umbrellas.

But the best of the lot had to be the pizza. It was perfect.

Back home, on the rare occasions when you could get to the chain parlors, there was always a ritual of compromise. Charlotte liked her pizza plain. I liked it with pepperoni. So we'd fight. Our mother would break us up and decide on a swift Solomon-like compromise. Twenty minutes later (at LEAST two lifetimes), the waitress would bring us a small pie topped with mushrooms -- the topping that Mama liked.

In the City, however, there was no need for compromise, patience, or any other drawbacks of communal eating. When Dad would take us to one of the million "Pizza By The Slice" joints that pepper the boroughs, we could choose our own slab of pie, then add whatever toppings we wanted. With a creak and a blast, the oven swallowed our cold pizza and spit it out seconds later to hot to eat and made to order. Immediate gratification from our favorite food. For a brief moment, there were no fights, no negotiations, and no problems. We kids couldn't have been happier, and Dad relished the mealtime lull in the action. When our mouths were full, at least we were quiet.

After the "grab and go" meal, we'd gather our stuff and head back to the bustling sidewalks. You could see Dad frantically doing the logistical math as we started the walk home. "Three blocks down and two over to the subway, then across the river to Brooklyn, then down for a nap."

"I just hope they don't see that damn umbrella…"