Tell Me A Lie

Who hasn't told a lie? In Tell Me A Lie one of 16 stories in Black Pepper Visions: Original Folktales & Stories You Can Eat (FolkHeart Press 2012) Terry wants to know - and doesn't want to know - about her husband's affairs. Can you blame her? 

Enjoy the Clam Chowder recipe!

  

Terry had been waxing the floors of Jerry’s Pacific Dance Hall when the unexpected phone call came. Dropping her supplies, she ran home to find her husband Mickey lying dead on the kitchen floor. Stunned, she ignored the volunteer firemen who had contacted her. She circled her husband, hoping to catch sight of his eyes opening.

“Jesus!” She had said when the firemen told her it had most likely been a heart attack. Ray, the mailman who usually stopped by each morning to say hi to Mickey, had found him on the floor.

Silent, Terry rubbed her plump hands together and waited. Moving around his body, she held back her words. “Mickey,” she thought to herself, “Is this some game? Are you playing with me?” She wanted to hear him say “yes,” that he was a playing a cruel joke on her.

They had met during their last year of high school. He had let her know then and there, the Midwestern winds whipping around them, that he didn’t take life seriously. His casual attitude was appealing. It suggested to Terry that problems didn’t have to exist. All was well if that’s what one wanted. “My world is filled with laughter and I plan to keep it that way,” he had said.

It was that same 1960’s promise of easy living and freedom that drew him, and then her, to California. Mickey’s joviality had been punctuated with days and sometimes weeks of sadness. He could not shake or wipe it away like he did the dirt on windows. A professional window washer standing high on ladders, he had a knack for polishing glass that gave others a clearer view of their world. But, unlike airborne dust that collects on windows, his sadness could not be removed. At those times it was only in the beds of other women that he found temporary relief.

“You’ve got to do something about this! Go to a shrink. Get some help before it’s too late.” Terry had cried many times.

“It won’t work,” he’d say. “’Besides, I’ve got a handle on it.”

His dark moods were seasonal. When they came, he was not able to work. So Terry dutifully filled in the gaps. Besides doing light janitorial duties at Jerry’s Pacific Dance Hall, she cleaned littleneck clams for chowder at the Clam Shell Café, soaking and then scrubbing their barnacled shells until they were grit-free. A strong woman whose hands grew more rugged with age, she’d sometimes stay late to prepare the clams with chipped shells.

“Must be a way to use the one that aren’t perfect,” she’d said more than once to the café owner who wasn’t interested. “We won’t serve these here,” he had explained. “They don’t look good.”

For years Terry had held steady during Mickey’s changing moods. A large woman with soft blue eyes and light blond hair she had a way of putting her feet into places that needed her weight to hold them down. In that way there was always food on the table for their two teenage children, even if it was only a bowl of blemished clam chowder.

“I’m like gravity for this family,” she had confided from time to time to her friends.

“Sure, it keeps everything from completely falling apart, but don’t you get tired of it?” Her friends used to ask. Now they just listened as she’d say again and again, “I keep my family together.” The words were meant to erase the way her own family fell apart when her brother took his young life. It pulled them hard in many directions; first came the arguing over everything and then her parent’s divorce. It left a hole in Terry’s heart that felt sometimes as big and as deep as the ocean.

Each time Mickey siphoned their bank account for unexplained expenses or lied about where he spent his time, and with whom, she would chant repeatedly “For better or for worse” until, on the pier of her own protective shore, she couldn’t hear anything else.

“It was a mistake, okay? Don’t worry. I’ll never see her again. You are my family, remember?” Time and time again her husband’s words soothed her.

Walking around Mickey’s still body Terry recalled their conversation earlier that day. While sitting on the porch in the squeaky wooden chair, she had closed her eyes and listened to the sound of familiar movement inside the house. She could hear the tea kettle’s whistle and then the screen door closing behind Mickey.

Not a word passed between them as he squatted down and lit a cigarette. There was nothing to say. Eyes partially shut with unfinished sleep, Mickey had come home late again. He hadn’t said where he had been and Terry hadn’t asked.

“Not today,” she softly announced. She too, was tired. “Right now I only want the truth.” The words rolled out on the waves of a long-held sigh. She couldn’t explain how right then and there she had run out of steam. Just like that. Made her think of the countless times she had tried to find a purpose for the café’s damaged clams. The tender sea meat irrevocably exposed, the shell would never close again. She was not going to be able to stop Mickey from sinking into the quicksand of his making anymore than she had been able to keep her young brother’s promising future alive. Like it or not, she was going to have to let her husband go.

During their early years, Terry had only half-heard Mickey’s promises and lies. She had been too busy raising children to sort through his behaviors and explanations. There had been no time for her to try to figure out whether or not he had been telling her the truth or what to do if everything he’d said had been a lie. Above all else, she had a family to protect.

“I can’t listen anymore,” she had said to Mickey that morning while rocking back and forth. “Nothing has changed.”

Without her prompting that morning on the porch, Mickey got to his feet and said, “Last night was the last time.”

And it was.

Terry kept circling Mickey’s breathless body on the kitchen floor, expecting him to clear his throat, to say “This is a joke, really. I’ll be back.” But he said nothing. Defenseless beyond words, he just lay there.

Eyes fixed on Mickey, Terry finally stopped walking around him. In her stillness, the volunteers reached down for his body. As they carried him through the room’s narrow archway, one of them speculated that Mickey, still in his blue flannel bathrobe, had been near the stove warming his hands against the morning’s coastal chill.

Terry shrugged her shoulders. Her still dry eyes followed the men one of whom whispered to another, “Have you got a good grip?”

“Wait!” Terry suddenly called out as they headed towards the front door. In less than a moment she had removed a safety pin from the stretched waistband of her own pants and pointed to the floor. In response the men put her husband down. She quickly bent down to his side and carefully pinned together the front of his now-opened robe so that his very white chest was no longer exposed. Then she pulled on the robe’s hem until it lay neatly over his pants.

Terry patted his thigh. In that instant she was 18 again and, in the darkness, had just crawled out of bed to watch him sleep. She stood like that over him now, no longer the young woman who had been warm butter in his arms. In the shadows of that early afternoon-lit room, Terry blushed as she reached out to the man at her feet. Again he had eluded her.

Questions flooded her: What had he been thinking before he died? Had he even known what was happening? Where had he gone and would he be coming back? Terry let them wash over her as they had done for years. The slight touch of a hand upon her shoulder brought her back into the room. She looked down at her calloused hands and then closed her eyes in an effrt to stop the tide of anger welling up inside.

“How long?” she asked herself, “how long must I wait?” She silently demanded that he open his dark brown eyes and tell her to get back to work, he’d see her that evening for supper.

The sound of his silence lingered like sea mist in the house after his body had been removed. Mickey would not be coming back. In his absence, Terry clenched her fists and struck out at the air around her.

“Damn you!” she cried out, “Tell me a lie!”

 Clam Chowder

1/2 pound bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

4 unpeeled potatoes, diced

2 carrots, diced

salt and pepper to taste

1 pound of chopped clams

clam juice

1 medium leek, finely chopped

1 quart Half-and-Half

Cook bacon in large pot over medium heat until brown and crisp. Remove bacon but leave drippings in the pot. Add potatoes and carrots to pot and season with salt and pepper.

Cook for approximately 5 minutes.

Pour in the clam juice and add enough water to just cover the potatoes. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer covered until the potatoes are just tender, 10 to 15 minutes.

Gently stir in the leek and then the clams. Add bacon and half-and-half. Stir about 10 minutes more until the chowder returns to a simmer and thickens.

Isalene: Rose Petal Jam

Isalene is someone we all know. In Black Pepper Visions: Original Folk Tales & Short Stories You Can Eat (2012, FolkHeart Press) she fell in love with a man whose heart was elsewhere. Her Rose Petal Jam magic, however, still blossoms. 

Bon Apetit, Karen

Isalene

I have been making platters of sweet candied fruit for years now. I take them to the children after school. They must spend all day in class learning how to read and write and I know they love the quince and the jellied orange peel. They always empty the trays I bring, their little hands eagerly reaching out for all they can hold.

It has been this way for a very long time and I am glad to see the children happy. I especially like watching Asher’s round, smooth face. He has his mother’s deep-set black eyes and his father’s thick-lipped grin. This young boy is proof that my rose jam is perhaps the sweetest. It is what brought his mother out of her shell and into the arms of a man who had spent his young adulthood watching her from a distance. It wasn’t until after they tasted the jam that they discovered their happiness together. Although it took some time for her to be able to return his gaze, it took even less time for her to say yes. But I did not start out making the fruit for them. I first made the fruit for a man whose love I fed.

My hair was still chocolate brown then. I wear it now woven into a bun beneath a scarf. My eyes were bright with hope. Today they squint against the day’s brightness and can see best only what is right in front of them. Ah, but if I close my eyes and think only of then, I can remember the sun’s warmth on my face and how I would wait for him to appear. My

skin tingled and my palms grew moist with anticipation.

I would save a few pieces of the fruit I made just for him. Closing his eyes he would taste them, one at a time. Each time, telling me how delicious it was. My lips would grow moist just watching him.

 “There is no one in all of Turkey like you, Isalene,” he’d mutter, “no one.”

But that was long ago and since then he has left this place for another. Why think of it now? The hot Mediterranean sun overhead quickly dries my palms and I can barely make out the schoolhouse before me. Hadn’t it been on a day such as this that he told me goodbye? That day my heart broke into many small pieces. Sometimes, I can feel the scars where the parts reunited. They are what I have left. I still remember the look on his face as he spoke.

“I have good news,” he began, the words moving quickly.

“What is it, Raphael?” The children had already gone home and I brought out what I had saved for him.

 A stout man whose high cheekbones rose above his beard, he took the tray and motioned for us to stand in the shade of nearby trees.

Curious about the news, I followed him.

“Isalene, you really are a help,” he had said as we reached the trees. “The children are so much more willing to practice spelling new words now that they know they will have some of your sweet fruits when they are done.”

Was he praising me because he suddenly saw what I had been doing? Had he tasted the rose petal jam and at last found love for me in his heart? As he spoke, I could feel a flush wash over me. I was sure my face was red, so I looked away just as I am doing right now. What right had I to think that he would be interested in me? I was plain to look at and did not have much of a dowry to other. There were many other girls he could choose from. What chance did I have? And yet, because of the jam, I hoped.

That is why I made the trays of fruit. They gave me a reason to see him almost every day and that was what I wanted more than anything else.

He was older than I, much older, but I didn’t care. To me he was more handsome than any of the young men in our village. When he first arrived, already a widower whose wife had died before she could give him children, he barely spoke to me. Not that I didn’t try to get his attention. It just wasn’t easy because women of my age were not to talk to men their families had not approved. Without family I could not gain anyone’s permission to speak to him. For me there was only an orchard of skinny trees that had long been neglected. It was in tending those trees and making something of the fallen, ripened fruit that I found a way to reach him.

“For the children,” I had explained when I first made the fruit, hoping he couldn’t hear how fast my heart was beating. He grinned, and, as time went on, he grew to enjoy my visits. Often he’d engage me in debate about what lesson plans children should be taught in school. Then we would talk about the students and how, as a child, he’d been slow to learn.

“If only I’d known someone like you,” he would wink at me and laugh. Those days seemed easy and full of promise. I believed back then that it was only a matter of time. Through the eyes of memory I remember our standing that day beneath the trees that lined the schoolyard. My pulse raced as I waited to hear of what news he had.

“I am leaving ....” he paused to nibble on a bit of quince.

“Leaving? Is it your family?” I took a step forward. He had gone to visit his family in the fall. That’s when I had given him the jam, believing it would remind him of me. At the time I did not tell him that the jam was sweet enough to soften even the hardest of hearts.

“Yes, in a way it is family, Isalene.” At that Raphael brought his gaze directly to me. He cleared his throat. “I am getting married.”

Without thinking, I reached out for the tray and grabbed it from him, holding it out before me like a shield. But it did no good. I could not ward off his news. And I could not hide the cracks that had begun to appear in my heart.

“Isalene, are you all right? You’ve suddenly gone pale.”

I couldn’t even move. What had happened? My mind moved swiftly over the possibilities. Had he shared the jam with someone else? I was afraid the rose petals I had picked in the morning had somehow soured. I was sure they were the most fragrant I could find.

“Isalene, can you hear me?” Raphael reached out for my hand but I would not let him touch me. Instead he stumbled over his own words. “I… I have said nothing until I was sure. She … she makes me very happy.”

Then he dropped his voice to a whisper, “Oh, Isalene, I am sorry, I… I had no idea,” he asked me to open my eyes and look at him. I only shook my head. He started to speak again but then said nothing; the weight of his silence touching the tray between us.

At times I must blink to drive away the moisture that appears in my eyes. It is a sign, I am told, of growing old. In the opening and closing of my eyelids, I sometimes forget what I was thinking. And, standing here, waiting for the children to finish their lessons, this can be good.

Back then I thought I would never forget the way my throat closed, not letting a sound escape. His efforts to comfort me were lost, too. Hearing that I and my fruits would be greatly missed did not touch me with the tenderness he had hoped. They could not erase the pain of my tightened face.

Sometimes, like today, I remember more than I want to. I can see again the way the sun ran its warm fingers through his dark hair as he bent down to pick up the fruit that had fallen from the tray. This is the best fruit and the children here are very lucky to have you,” he had said.  

Much time has passed since then and now there are wrinkles where once the skin was supple with youth. I look down at the faces that smile up at me and wonder who among them will miss the beating of their own hearts? Who will harden against the loss of love? Searching their bright, shiny eyes, I tell myself not to forget how soft my heart had been

and how I had been able to make the blossoms of another heart bloom.

For him and for the little ones who now stare up at me with no knowledge yet of how their hearts may grow, I will continue to make the jam that once brought me great promise.

Rose Petal Jam

• 2 cups of rose petals (deep red and very fragrant)
• 2 cups water
• 2 ¼ cups honey
• Juice of a lemon

Wash and drain freshly picked rose petals. Cut in ¼-inch strips, removing the base of each petal. Gently cook in water approximately 10-15 minutes until tender. Strain the liquid

and put the petals to the side for later use. With the liquid make a syrup by mixing 1 cup of rose petal liquid with honey.

Cook to a soft-ball stage. Add drained petals and cook over low heat about 15 minutes longer. Pour into sterile jars and seal with wax.

Do not store in direct sunlight.

Black Pepper Visions: The Pizza Gondola

It is a pleasure to be able to share a few folk tales/ short stories with you this month.

I start with The Pizza Gondola from  "Black Pepper Visions: Original Folk Tales & Stories You Can Eat" (FolkHeart Press 2012) because it is a favorite short story of mine.

Which one of us has NOT wished for a gondola to take us away?

This story, one of 16 in the book, also includes interesting food lore. The other stories I will share with you will also have recipes so that you can create your own magic with food.

Bon Apetit!

  

The rain comes down without care. Daniel sits at a desk reading stock market reports. The large bay trees that line the sidewalk in front of the three-story San Francisco office bend as often as necessary beneath the heavy fall of water.

Daniel doesn’t notice the rain or the bay trees that threaten to brush his office window. He also hasn’t noticed the lunch hour has arrived and that Carla, in the office next to his, has already ordered pizza. In fact, she has just walked down three flights of stairs to tell the first-floor receptionist she is expecting a pizza delivery. Pulling down the tight dark-blue skirt that rides up her thick thighs as she walks, Carla asks the receptionist to have the pizza delivered to her office. “It’s pepperoni and sausage.” She tosses out one of her playful winks.

Bounding up the stairs with a medium pizza in his arms, the delivery boy anticipates the tip. Wet afternoons usually bring hefty rewards; most clients feel bad about his having to be out in the rain on their account. On the third floor, he squints through dark curly hair that sticks closely to the damp edges of his square face. Keeping a tight grip on the pizza box, he whistles a ditty that stays only a few feet ahead of him as he searches for Carla’s door.

From inside his offce, Daniel hears the happy tune and looks up from his papers. Now who would be so jolly during the middle of the work day? Of course, he mutters in near silence as the delivery boy knocks on Carla’s door, calling out “Pizza.”

Hands clasped behind his head, elbows outstretched in near perfect geometric angles, Daniel catches a whiff of the savory odors of hot pizza as steaming circles of pepperoni and balls of sausage atop layers of melted cheese waft outside his door.

“Carla’s having pizza,” Daniel mutters. He’s often wondered about her. She seems not to care about her cholesterol. Or her long blond hair barely held back by a hair clip. He recalls how she momentarily closes her eyes, upper and lower eyelashes meeting for just a second whenever he passes her in the hallway. In the year she’s been there, they’ve actually not said more than a few words to one another.

“I’m married,” he speaks to the wall. “She’s not my type.” Glancing at the portrait of his wife Kaila on his desk, he takes note of her lean and spry smile. Never a hair out of place and never pizza for dinner. “Think of Tipsy” his wife told him the last time Daniel suggested they order a family-size combination pizza for dinner. Kaila pushed against the suggestion because, she announced, it would have hurt Tipsy’s feelings.

The 3-year-old tabby cat had become grossly overweight and Kaila believed they had to work on it as a family. She had said that there would be no treats for anyone until Tipsy lost weight. Daniel had only agreed to take Tipsy in after days of Kaila’s pleading and arguing that they practice being parents with a cat before they had a baby. He himself had never liked the little fur ball.

“Damn cat!” he says almost every morning when he wakes to find Tipsy sleeping on his side of the bed. Why won’t his wife see how the cat has wedged itself between them?

He breathes in the tomato fragrance of Carla’s pizza and lets its zesty tang fill him. Without thinking, he stands up and walks towards his office door. Straightening his tie, he opens the door and looks down the hallway. If she’s out there he’ll say hello or maybe even invite her and her pizza into his office.

With a sigh he sees that no one is there. He quickly glances back at the bag lunch of left over barbecued tofu and pear puree his wife put into his hands that morning and drops his shoulders in resignation. “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...” he suddenly  hums to cheer himself up then stops. It isn’t working.

“Maybe next time,” he shakes his head and returns to his chair but won’t sit down. He looks out the window and watches the rain. Large droplets of water have formed rivulets on the glass that he imagines are water canals. In the canals he sees gondolas.  They are everywhere. Transporting lovers, they pass by children who wave from the shores where mothers are crocheting lace trims onto blankets and pillow covers.

Daniel closes his eyes and now feels his back pressed flat against the inside of a wooden boat. As the boat drifts into the shadows of buildings that loom over the waterway, he inhales the pepperoni and pizza scent in the air. Filling his lungs, he is only vaguely aware of a woman’s hand touching his knee. Breath quickening, he feels her fingers move up his leg, playfully stroking his thigh. In the momentary darkness that cascades over them, the gondolier knows to look away. Daniel senses his discretion and settles into her touch; firm fingers confidently make their slender way further up his groin.

“Ah, yes?” He is just about to turn the woman towards him so that he can look into her eyes before kissing her when the sound of someone knocking on his office door pulls him away from the rainwater journey.

“I’m sorry,” Carla didn’t mean to startle him.

“It’s nothing. I was just thinking about a project.” He points a thumb back over his shoulder towards the desk cluttered with several editions of the Wall Street Journal.

“Oh,” she mumbles, shifting the pizza box from one hand to the other. “This is too much pizza for one person. I thought that maybe, if you hadn’t eaten yet, you might want the last few slices.”

In an effort to not stare at her, he has missed the slight nod of her head as she spotted his unopened lunch bag. “Well, I guess it’s time for me to get back to work, too,” she stepped back out into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

Holding his breath he quickly sits down and listens for the sound of her footsteps traveling the hallway’s brown carpeted length. In the silence that follows, he looks over his shoulder and sees only the limbs of a bay tree waving away his gondola vision. With a long, slow exhale he reaches out for his lunch but instead grabs the phone.

 “Yes, I’d like to order a small pizza, please.” Unplanned, the words roll out. Daniel closes his eyes just as the gondolier heads the boat down a new waterway.

 History of Pizza

Pizza is a popular American food. It is believed that Italians invented the pizza but its origins can be traced back to ancient times. Baked flat unleavened bread heaped with toppings was cooked in mud ovens by Babylonians, Egyptians, Israelites, and other Middle Eastern cultures. Similar to pita, which is still common in Greece and the Middle East today, it is o€ en topped with olive oil and spices, like rosemary and garlic.

The Margherita pizza that made its way to America most likely came from Italy. In the late 1800’s Italian baker, Raffaele Esposito, was believed to have created a dish for visiting royalty.  According to the story, the Italian monarch King Umberto and his consort, Queen Margherita, were touring the area. In order to impress them and to show his patriotism the baker chose to top flat bread with food that would best represent the colors of Italy: red tomato, white mozzarella cheese, and green basil. The king and queen were so impressed that word quickly reached the masses.