One More Thing

I think I may have scored a point with the furious woman at the laundry - the one who wears the Hello Kitty purse.

If you're wondering how I did it: I baked her a batch of cookies. May have temporarily disarmed her, even though they were kind of vile and from this suspect recipe from The New York Cookbook - which is to say, was just the recipe of some woman from Queens, which doesn't mean it's good or anything. Kind of the problem with The New York Cookbook. Have always resented how the bio note calls Molly O'Neill the "Damon Runyon of the New York food world" when obviously that's Ed Levine or someone.

My mom used to say that Charlie and I would be just like the O'Neill siblings: a successful food writer and an all-star baseball player! Didn't really pan out. But at least Charlie smokes a lot of cigarettes. And the woman at the laundromat may not despise me as much as she did three days ago. Which, after all, is really the same thing when all is said and done.

Fed Up

Slim's pickiness really cramps my style, kitchen-wise. He won't touch beef, bananas, most fruits, or almonds. He has told me, helpfully, that he'll happily eat bison meat, plantains, and kiwis. So that's all right then.

Donut Queen

Like everybody else in the world, I adore Peter Pan Donuts on Manhattan Avenue, with its circa-48 classic double-u counter configuration, adorably retro teal uniforms, colorful regulars and excellent sour cream glazed.

I persist in going there with some regularity - today and yesterday, if you must know - even in the face of tremendous hostility. Because, you see, several of the young Polish waitresses are in love with Slim.

They always blushed and giggled when he came in, but the real infatuation began when, after a near-disastrous fight this past summer (the one where one of us thought we were in an open relationship and the other didn't; see if you can guess who thought what) he arranged for me to get free donuts for life from the Peter Pan.

Well, after that, they all thought he was the bees' knees, and I had to listen to the owner tell me that she "hoped I appreciated him" because he "really loves me."

The waitresses, none of whom is more than nineteen, all clearly wonder what he's doing with a bespectacled old bag like me. They all jockey to serve him and his coffee cup never goes empty. I, on the other hand, am ignored - unless someone is sneering at me.

Initially, I was extra-delightful. I routinely tipped 300% and attempted compliments on their visors. When I was stonewalled, I became bitter and my behavior became somewhat unbecoming in one going on 27 - putting on full makeup for a 7 am coffee run, occasionally forcing Slim to make out with me in front of the bakery's display window.

There is one girl in particular who is obviously obsessed with him. She is small and silent and intense, and never talks to anyone. But when Matt comes in she turns beet red, then pale, and a joyful smile spreads across her face. Usually the other girls giggle and push her forward to wait on him.

It's fairly clear that she'll kill me one of these days. I wonder if she will poison a donut and make sure I get it. I keep thinking of the green cake Captain Hook prepares in order to poison the Lost Boys because there's "no one to tell them not to eat/so rich and damp a cake!"

BREAKING NEWS!

Hitler was NOT a vegetarian!

At any rate, so argues "Vegetarian Historian Rynn Berry" in Hitler: Neither Vegetarian Nor Animal-Lover.

Apparently, Hitler chowed down roast squab, liver dumplings and other carnivorous fare constantly. His vegetarianism is "one of the great myths of history."

(Berry is also the author of Famous Vegetarians and Food for the Gods: Vegetarianism and the World's Religions.)