When we moved to Chicago, I had to trust the television meteorologist when he said that the sun was shining, because the outsides of our apartment windows were covered with a coating of grime and smut. It was kind of like the rings on a tree, and I was convinced that a dendrochronologist could probably determine the age of my building by reading the layers of schmutz on my windows.
When I mentioned to the “super” (which I found hadn’t the remotest relationship to Superman) that our windows were extremely dirty, he scratched his stomach and said, ”So?” As in, “So what do you want me to do about it?” I thought that perhaps a little bribe wouldn’t hurt, so I baked a pie and took it to him. He seemed very pleased with the pie, but I will never know if it would have done the trick, because the next day, I read in the newspaper that one of the other tenants went berserk and shot him---right outside the building.
That was when I realized that windows covered with dreck might actually be a blessing while living in Chicago, because what you don’t see, you don’t witness. No matter what it said in the newspaper, my husband, W.S. told everyone that my pie had killed our “super,” because, he claimed, that my cooking was far more lethal than any bullet. With no pending autopsy, I couldn’t prove my innocence, so I had to find a way to redeem my reputation.
My chance came with a notice in the Chicago Tribune. The editors were running a contest asking readers to submit recipes. The winning cook would be photographed, would receive $5.00, and the prize-winning recipe would be published. “I can do this!” I shouted, and with reassuring cheers of “Shut-up!” echoing down the apartment hall, I hurried to the phone to call the family’s master chef, my mother-in-law, Fannie. After explaining the situation to her, I asked, ”May I use your recipe for Chinese Pepper Steak to vindicate myself in the eyes of your miserable son?”
“You most certainly may,” she replied. My dear mother-in-law always took my side because she liked me better than him. She was the reason I could never consider a divorce. I could never do that to her. “I will have to take credit for the recipe,” I told her. “That’s okay, honey,” she said. “You always make it better than I do anyway.” I submitted my recipe and a few days later received a call from someone at the Chicago Tribune informing me that I had won the contest, and would I please come to their offices to have my picture taken tomorrow. I needed a haircut, my nails were a mess, and I had no idea what one wears for a photograph in the Chicago Tribune. By the time W.S. came home from work, I had gotten a new hair-do, purchased a dress and given myself a manicure. When I told him that my appointment for the picture was at 4:30 the next day, He said, “I guess this calls for a celebration. We might as well stay downtown for dinner.”
The next day, I caught a bus, and since I was a bit early, I decided to walk a couple of blocks before arriving at the Tribune building. I stopped at a red light and a man smiled at me and said, “Would you like to show me around Chicago?” As the light changed, I said, “No, I would not.” Desperately hoping that if I looked like a hooker, I looked like an expensive one, I entered the imposing offices of the Chicago Tribune.
I found the photo studio and entered. “I’m the Chinese Pepper Steak person,” I said. The photographer yawned, told me to sit on a stool in front of a white curtain, snapped my picture and said, “That’s it. You can leave now.” Just to make sure that my photo wouldn’t show up on the obituary page, I said, “You do know that this is the picture for the recipe contest?” “Yeah, yeah, I know,” he said. “Chinese Pepper Steak.” “You got it,” I said, starting to leave. Then I asked him, “You don’t think my dress makes me look like a hooker do you?” He looked at me and said, “Lady, it’s a head shot.” That was good enough for me.
An hour later, at the restaurant W.S. mumbled something complimentary about my dress and hair, so I felt much better. However, he said, “You know, I’m glad you won the contest and that your picture is going to be in the paper, but it wasn’t very cost effective. If you add up the dress, the hair-do and the dinner and then subtract the $5.00 prize, we end up $120 in the hole.” “But,” he added, “I won’t tell that story about you killing the super anymore. How’s that?”
After two more killings involving my pies, it was a promise he couldn’t keep.
Esther Blumenfeld (Someday, I will tell you the rest of the story.)
CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006