yfritz's Journal

yfritz's Profile | Weight History

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17 August 2022

Shrimp and grits

Seashells collected at Fort Fisher beach
Yellow grits, Atkinson Milling Co., Selma NC

I am missing North Carolina

(50 comments)

16 August 2022

Salmon tataki, avocado and home grown shiso leaves, served on sushi rice

Shiso leaves are citrusy and highly aromatic. I craved them today, which means I may be anemic or inflammation is up. I should be fabulously fit and fine tomorrow (alliteration!)

(61 comments)

12 August 2022

My time in NC is about to run out, and I am struggling to find words that would describe the best food I had here in this coastal town.

Because it’s not even about food to begin with. Over the years I developed a strong affinity for vital sparks on humble streets. Some say sparks, others say belches. It doesn’t matter. I have a hard time resisting a neighborhood takeout joint on a backstreet that emerges unexpectedly like a belch as I drive through a neglected section of the town. I pull over my car. I see an “EBT accepted” sign on the door. On the parking lot are a couple of shady characters on shady bicycles whispering shady deeds. Catcalls are being thrown across the street. I know the food is good here. I know, because I used to fetch meals for a cantankerous, snuff chewing matriarch who needed to have her weekly fried fish from a takeout place exactly like the one I’m seeing now. I once tried to help myself to the fried okras that came with her fish, and the witch slapped my hand. Anyhoo, I was young and happy back then. We helped each other. Your sorrow was my sorrow, and vice versa. That was the community, that was Americana.

I walk in. Everything reminds me of my crabby lady’s favorite takeout place. I note the flies zigzagging on the counter, their legs tracing the items on the menu typed in Microsoft plain text. A floor fan occupies one of two chairs, humming a languid tune to the very meager grocery section with sprouting potatoes and dusty canned goods. But the place is clean, it is a seafood market yet hardly smells of fish. I am enveloped by the great care and pride the workers put in to keep the place respectable.

Standing next to the crab bucket was a tall fishman with a cigarette hanging off his lips. Newport. He slowly stubbed out the cigarette. I told him he didn’t have to, I didn’t mind. He smiled as if he knew all about my aches and promised me the best flounder in the town. Okay, I say to him, don’t forget fried okras. He goes back to the kitchen to fry my fish. The magic of implicit communing is that it frees us from the constraints of time, place or even reality, faces of friends blend and shift, and I am transported to my backyard, smoking a Newport with my dead friend, to tell him everything I want to tell him, that one sunny day the matriarch uncharacteristically invited me to her annual family reunion and when I arrived at the lakefront she smiled sweetly and said “my baby I’m so happy you came,” and I knew she was only putting it on, but her grandsons were gullible and they treated me like a guest of honor, loading my plate with fried fish, okras, tater salad, the exact same way the fishman with a cigarette is loading my styrofoam takeout box right now, food overflowing then some, so I decide to spend a few more bucks to buy a 2 lb bag of grist milled grits, to use it as a weight to subdue the lid that is refusing to shut, to imitate the mannerism of the crabby matriarch, who used her heavy bible to keep the lid of a styrofoam box down, all while suppressing the overflowing memories of her husband, who one day went out for takeout fish and never came home.

(82 comments)

29 July 2022

Crap bike journal, strictly for my own record

I met Bill, a 92 year old Southern gentleman who treated me quite scathingly on the phone, but when I walked in his house he was all smiles. “Is that your car with a bike rack?” I said yes. He most innocently forgot how he spoke to me on the phone the night before.

“I don’t mean to brag, I hope you don’t mind if I brag.” I quickly learned that “I don’t mean to brag” would be the refrain of his poetry. “I really don’t want to brag, but let me tell you, I’m 92, and I still bicycle.” A 92 year old man with a bicycle. My ill feelings toward him dissolved.
He loves talking about his favorite bike trail. Each time I visit he tells me the same story. When nonagenarians tell me a story, I sense that it’s a farewell song. They don’t waste time discussing things that do not matter. So I let him tell me about his bike trail. He forgets words and he pauses often, it takes him forever to complete a sentence, but I don’t supply words because even the pause is a part of his song.
He was none too pleased at learning that I had been going to a different bike trail. “That is not a very safe place for you to go alone. There are some bad people in this world.” His frown was genuine.
Bill drew me a map of his trail today. “You must try my trail and look at the lake I like.” As he labeled the streets he drew, he closed his eyes and paused. I saw that his heart was longing for the trail. Although he claims he still bikes, I don’t believe he biked this summer, as he attends to his bedridden wife 24/7 now and he seldom leaves her bedside. They outlived their children.

“You must be very, very careful when you cross the intersection, those motorists would run you over,” he warned me and wrote “caution light” on the map because he couldn’t remember the term “crosswalk button.” Step by step he explained to me how to use the “caution light” before crossing the intersection as if I were a 7 year old girl. I promised him I would be very, very careful. He was satisfied, got up, and went to his wife’s bedside to tell her that he drew a bike trail map. “I don’t mean to brag, but it sure is a good map.” His wife smiled.

I finished working around 6 this evening and immediately went to Bill’s trail. Without using GPS. I had his map.
The evening heat was oppressive and I was relieved when I saw that the trail was not challenging. I should have known that Bill can no longer take chances and he must choose the path wisely.
I cycled slowly. Saw the lake Bill mentioned. I was overwhelmed. The summer has started dying and the wildflowers lost their freshness. I am sad, because I don’t know how to detach myself from other people’s situation. I am sad because I know the terror Bill and his wife face daily. I know their house is filled with silence and quiet anticipation of the inevitable. All I can say is I am sorry, I am sorry for my powerlessness, I am sorry I have no power to alleviate your sorrow and terror and isolation. I am sorry.

(139 comments)

25 July 2022

Please join @bearnoggin and me to celebrate a special birthday. We established a tradition in which we partake of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and rejoice in the name of Mr Bear and his marvelous mullet and all the sweet memories. Can someone bring us coffee?🍩☕️🎉🎊🎂

(38 comments)

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