Cheap Eats

It just so happens

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It just so happens

CHEAP EATS Dear Earl Butter,

Like a cat always lands on its feet, your chicken farmer lands on a chicken farm. Weirdo the Cat would be proud of me, according to the Mountain.

Hard to believe, but life sometimes does that to you. Just when you need them, voilà: chickens. I had no idea! I just had to get somewhere friendly, and by sheer chance on the same day the anvil fell on my head I got a mass e-mail from Fabienne Gagagaga, telling my whole family, among other things, to keep in touch.

I last saw Fabienne 10 years ago, at my dad’s wedding. She was working at that time in marketing. A couple days after my anviling, when I still hadn’t regained my shape and it looked like I wasn’t going to, I decided it would be best for me to have my nervous breakdowns in another language — one I didn’t know at all, give or take voilà. And so I did, I kept in touch.

Fabienne’s reply was almost immediate, full of warmth, and just dripping with butter, but didn’t mention chickens. I arrived in the dark, by train, and very much in need of food, sleep, and kindness.

There was a lamb stew waiting for me. The lamb was from her farm. That night while I slept for the first time all year, two baby lambs were born. I watched the sunrise over some sailboat masts, then went with her to help Fabienne buy about 100 new chicks.

Over the next few days I helped fork, shovel, and broom out two chicken coops, I helped feed the chickens, closed the chicken doors at night, helped haul and stack sacks of feed, handled livers, and cleaned, cut, and cooked up 80 chicken hearts into a cherry beer stew with carrots and onions.

There aren’t a lot of lady farmers in France, and riding around on tractors and pickup trucks with this ‘un made me about as proud as I’ve ever been. Here was somebody doing for real what I make a living, in a way, pretending to do.

The Chicken Farmer, farming chickens. Not just four or five but hundreds. Imagine! It was as if John Wayne or Clint Eastwood ever actually found themselves roping steer, or something.

We even went to the dump once. Everyone loved us there!

I ate fresh scallops, many many oysters, and butter butter butter — the best butter ever, with some pretty good bread under it sometimes.

In Farmer Fabienne’s sisterly keeping, I not only found food, sleep, and kindness, but meaningful work. And Earl, in case you ever need to know this, there is no better balm for a broken heart than scraping chicken shit and cooking chicken hearts. The cherry beer was an accident, but a good one.

Dear Nice Lady,

That is great. The best thing about Java Supreme is that if you know when to go, you can get to talk to Joel almost every day of the week. He’s not always there, and those days are always hard. But most days he is. Me too. For the last 18 years, I have spent my mornings, almost all of them, at Java Supreme. It is also one of the few holdouts to the old Mission values that are no longer on Mission Street. Old Mission values are this: you can afford to eat.

I get a double espresso every morning, and it is $1.75. And when I make coffee at home, guess where I bought it?

Today I went back for lunch, too. I had the Italian roasted eggplant sandwich with pesto, roasted red peppers, mozzarella, and tomatoes, $3.95, with salad, $5.50, because the salads are great. I love this particular sandwich.

Someone suggested I get it with turkey instead of eggplant, and for years I did that. Ed makes it for you without blinking an eye. It is Ed’s place. He tries to keep things simple. I heard him say that on the phone, once.

Recently, in a cream cheese banishment program (not something I can recommend) me and Joel have been enjoying the Java No. 2, which is a bagel with avocado, tomato, sprouts and red onion. But neither of us gets the red onion. We didn’t plan it. It just so happens.

JAVA SUPREME

Daily: 6:30 a.m.–7:00 p.m.

703 Guerrero, SF

(415) 206-1832

No alcohol

Cash only

White out

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White out

CHEAP EATS Dear Earl Butter,

Not you, but people say, “You will be stronger.” I wonder how, when I am in a million pieces. Of course I know I will come together, but what if the forearm is on top of the elbow and the upper arm below? What if my fingers are in the wrong order? How can this make me stronger?

I thought I would ask you, because don’t you have some experience with cubism?

Right now I’m on a train crossing the border between Germany and France, sitting backward. I’d puke, but I’m too tired, and completely empty. I haven’t slept in days. I haven’t eaten. Last night I looked at a bowl of onion soup, which was a start.

If I still weigh anything by the time I get to La Rochelle, then survival is almost guaranteed, since the French are certain to feed me.

It was beautiful. When word got out that a sister was down in Europe, this net of unexpected kindness opened up under me. Christ, I love my extended family. I mean, don’t get me wrong: I hate life, but you gotta love the people in it, don’t you? Some of them. Thanks to my brother Jean-Gene the Frenchman and Andi Lu Who, my French sister, my road-to-recovery stretches from roughly Bordeaux to Rome. I knew I had cugini over here, and old best friends of brothers, their exes and exes’ sisters, in-laws of in-laws and such … What I didn’t know is that they would circle up with their arms stretched out and interlocked to catch a farmerly kook they’d met only once, or twice. And years ago.

I need this. I need friendly, familiar faces and hours and hours of ping-pong. Can you believe that I have been through what I’ve been through without the consolation of so much as one bowl of duck soup?

Ah, but the grass is greener in France. The countryside is beautiful. Germany was beautiful too, from the train, but it was a black-and-white kind of beauty. All branches and snow. I wish I could white out what happened to me there.

Well, I take comfort in the fact that I lasted a couple weeks longer in Germany than my mom did in St. Paul, where she moved recently to more easily stalk her own great love, Garrison Keillor.

But she got off easy. I’m pretty sure Garrison Keillor never kissed my mom’s ring finger after making love to her, for example. I don’t think he called her his wife about a million times, or soul mate, or the love of his life. In fact, I’m not sure he knew she existed.

Wait, that’s right — he signed a book for her.

If only I’d gotten an autograph and left it at that. It’s dizzying, like death or sitting backward on the train. If I can stay vertical, Earl, I will eventually fly from Italy to Ohio to the Caribbean, to help wash windows and paint a hurricane-damaged house my other brother built there. Then I should be warm enough to come crawling back and curl up in your closet. Start cleaning.

Dear Dani,

That is great. There is nothing I look forward to more than a lunch date with Joel. At Valencia Pizza and Pasta, here are some of the things I have eaten with him: lemon chicken sandwich ($6.25), chicken-bacon-red pesto sandwich ($6.95). I’ve seen Joel eat breakfast there with corned beef hash and also a roasted chicken plate that was so big it almost stopped him cold. Today he got the pollani picata, which, I think means chicken breast with lemon and capers. What a beautifully full plate!

I got the meatloaf sandwich. A meatloaf sandwich of ridiculous pomposity ($6.25). Honestly, for a moment, I thought they had put the slices in sideways just to thwart me. There was no way to include the lettuce, tomatoes and pickles. You just have to treat them as sides. It was so juicy. I tricked Joel into looking out the window before I attempted a bite. I did not want him to see my jaw unhinge. Listen, this really is my new favorite restaurant. We walked out, as we always do, full, and happy, and friends. — E.B.

VALENCIA PIZZA AND PASTA

Mon.–Fri. 11 a.m.–3 p.m., 5–9:30 p.m.;

Sat. 9 a.m.–3 p.m., 5–9:30 p.m.; Sun. 9 a.m.–3 p.m.

801 Valencia, SF

(415) 642-1882

Beer & Wine

AE/MC/V

L.E. Leone’s latest book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Swimming

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Swimming

CHEAP EATS The ice that I am on is thin. It’s so thin it might not even be ice. I could be Jesus, skating on pure belief, or a dream. Certainly, things are surreal here.

On my gloves and knees, I press my lips to the thin line between world and world and kiss fish. I can only imagine what they, and the Germans, are thinking. Even the ducks have stopped speaking to me. I suppose I could take that as a compliment. They no longer see me as news?

Yesterday went I out the snow into, because it seemed beautiful, and the Thing To Do while one’s love of one’s life is with their ex, talking it over. Right? You walk in the snow, in the failing light, and feel real sorry for yourself. Who wouldn’t? And you cry and curse in as many languages as possible, under your breath. Or just a little bit over it.

In a dark, cold, hard, way, and especially in the snow, this town is almost beautiful.

*

It’s been decided, as if I didn’t already know. I never had a chance. Ah, thus the headaches of summer, and the anxiety of fall, whereas now I feel smashed flat but finally sane. I’m so proud of my body! It’s like it knew what my big dumb brain and nutty, naïve heart could not: That I would never have a chance.

I am an unfolded newspaper. I am a sticker off of a piece of fruit, the pool of blood, a rug, the grooves that our love-making made in the bedroom hardwood. I can form thoughts and poetry, sure, but can’t pull my pancaked self up, without help, from this griddle or pond.

On the plus side, my brother mailed me a spatula! He did. It’s true.

*

Help me here: the person who breaks up with the person just one month after bringing the person to the cold dark hard place where she doesn’t know a soul, or speak the language … that person, the breaker-upper, goes, right? Has to go.

Nein!

“What, are you kicking me out?” the psychologist said, in shock and disbelief.

Um … “Can’t you go stay with your ex?” I said. She didn’t want to. “Well then,” I said. “Can I?”

To her credit, and mine, she laughed. But she said that I couldn’t.

*

One of Romea’s lesbian friends, who has been with men too, says that being in a relationship with a man is like swimming in a swimming pool, whereas being with a woman is like swimming in the sea.

I usually prefer to save my reductionism for sauces and such, but this has been slow-simmering for some time, so let’s call it sauce.

I’m thinking: kids, water wings, beach balls, and, if you’re lucky, a slide vs. sharks, sleeper waves, undertow, endlessness … I can see arguments for both sides.

Being with a trans woman, though, ain’t like swimming anywhere; it’s like walking on water. You. Just. Have. To. Believe. And Romea, ultimately, sadly, tragically, for me, didn’t.

But wait, but isn’t it supposed to be hard to be sad while playing a ukulele? Or is that just an expression I just made up that isn’t even true? It reminds me of the last place we ate there, a very mirrory Vietnamese joint in downtown Oakland with a collection of miniature stringed instruments all along one wall. The food was not at all memorable, but the mirrors … I remember thinking I would probably never again be able to see my love from so many different angles while sitting so still and eating noodles.

Why didn’t I see this one? The goer-backer-to-the-exer side, oy.

I did manage to get my money back for the German course I won’t need to finish, and am off to the train station. I will write you next week from France, where I have sisters. And that is exactly what I need right now. A spatula, and sisters.

PHUONG NAM

Mon.–Sat.: 11 a.m.–9 p.m.

1615 Clay, Oakl.

(510) 663-9811

Beer & Wine

AE/MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

A walk with L.A.

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A walk with L.A.

CHEAP EATS For a while there I was running the airport shuttle and it was like the old days when I drove a van. One day I picked up my North Carolina sister L.A. and her husband, and the next, for example, I was dropping off Crawdad’s whole family. This was at an ungodly hour, like 6 a.m.

Knowing that L.A., an early bird to begin with, would be lagging some serious jet, I called her cell phone. They were sleeping at my nephew’s flat, their son’s flat, South of Market. It was 6:15, Saturday.

“Come on by,” L.A. said, not the faintest trace of sleep in her voice. So I did. I came by and picked her up, and we left the boys a-snoring and drove around and about and up and down and across, just generally drawing a big X over 2009 in San Francisco, and wondering about breakfast.

The thing about this particular sister is that she doesn’t seem to necessarily need to be always exactly eating. In other ways, though, we are a lot alike. For example, we have the same mom and dad. For another, our hair and noses are somewhat sorta similar.

L.A. is my favorite kind of vegetarian: the kind who eats bacon. But you have to talk her into it. All in all, she would rather go for a walk. I personally need some coffee at least, if not a full-on breakfast, before I can move about in any kind of consistently vertical fashion. My sister not only doesn’t need coffee, she doesn’t drink it. In short, I didn’t know what to do with her.

So I pointed us toward Glen Park, where we would walk, but drove real slow, hoping hard that a restaurant would open before we got there. Or a coffee house.

I wasn’t thinking about donuts …

And then there they were. There it was, on 24th Street between Hampshire and York, and miraculously the clock struck 7 a.m.. I had forgotten all about Dynamo. Alice Shaw the Person told me about it months or maybe years ago. And here it was, the home of bacon maple apple donuts, flipping on the lights, so to speak, exactly as we were driving almost aimlessly by.

I pulled over abruptly into one of 7,000 available parking spots, and then backed up into another one.

“Bacon donuts,” I explained.

“What?” said my vegetarianish caffeine-free sister. Did I mention she doesn’t eat sugar?

“Coffee,” I said. “Do you want to wait in the car?”

She didn’t. We went up to the sidewalk window and I ordered a coffee and a donut. A bacon donut, of course. Know how much it costs?

Three dollars. That’s just for the donut. With coffee, it was something like $5, which is more than most full-on meals cost where my sister lives.

She ordered a cup of hot water.

There’s one row of tables inside the place, and the tables have flowers on them. It’s a donut shop. There are flowers on the tables. My sister, who is older than me by three years, sat with her back to the wall, watching the bakers work the dough across the counter. They were young and cheerful and listening to good music.

I could almost actually see every single thing in my big sister’s brain shifting, resettling, jiggling into whole new places. It seemed like a good time to ask: “Do you want a bite?”

She didn’t say no, or yes. She sat there, her mouth a little bit open. Sugar gives her yeast infections. She had already told me this.

I sunk my teeth into my $3 bacon-grease-sautéed apple donut, glazed with maple and stuck with crumbled bacon. It’s not a big breakfast. It was already half-gone, but I love my sister, so I held the remaining half-donut to her, and she took it. And she took a bite.

And you could see that she was in immediate heaven, her eyebrows joining her hairline, and her hand reaching for her purse.

“Let’s get another one,” she said.

And we did. And Glen Park was beautiful. *

DYNAMO DONUTS

Tue. –Sat., 7 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sun., 9 a.m.–4 p.m.

2760 24th St., SF

(415) 920-1978

No alcohol

Cash only

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Comfort and joy

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Comfort and joy

CHEAP EATS The guy who runs the ukulele shop suggests I pray before going to Ikea. It works every time for him. He got those big shelves that way, the ones with all the chord-books on them. And the nice wood table. He says he prayed for those things. Then he went to Ikea. And not only did he find them, he found them in the discount aisle!

Merry Christmas.

The god I don’t believe in, turns out, is a loving god. A caring god. A thrifty god, a sexy and strong god, who impresses virgins and moves not only mountains but furniture. Slightly dinged furniture, to boot! With a retail record like that, surely there can be no other god.

Check him out.

I don’t know that I’ll ever muster up the courage to go to Ikea, let alone the piety to pray beforehand, but I sure do like the guy at the ukulele shop. He accidentally insulted my uke, but also bought me an espresso on purpose. I go talk to him as often as possible.

Then there are Romea’s parents, who played ping pong with us, showed us Super 8 footage of my lover as a cute little tomboy, plied us with osso buco for lunch and sausages for dinner, changed my mind about mustard, and sent us on our merry way with a tin of homemade Christmas cookies flaky and delicate enough to make a believer out of Richard Dawkins Himself.

I tell you, if His mom had made those little heart-shaped ones with pointy green pistachio bits stuck into the white icing like tiny Christmas trees poking through the snow, well, He would not today be nearly as famous as He is. They pack a punchy, tangy sort of sweetness that makes me see stars, snowflakes, and angels, these ones, but — alas — there are only two left.

Hold on. Make that one.

Oh, did I mention the head massage? With all due respect to all my ex-ma-and-pa-in-laws, whom I still love like my own parents, I have never felt more immediately welcomed, warmed, and accepted — as was — than I felt with Romea’s folks. And think about it: my previous in-laws only ever had to deal with my weirdness. These ones faced my weirdness and my queerness, and responded with kisses, massages, and sausages, declaring me immediately simpatich.

Happy Hanukkah. And I mean that. I’m not generally Jewish — just at Christmastime. But this year, you know, I kind of mean my Merry Christmases too. And not only because Romea is the biggest Scrooge I’ve ever stomped with.

It’s those cookies. Those insane, divine, little crunches of pure comfort and joy, comfort and joy. And of course the ukulele shop. And Romea’s new coat and shoes, and my new used bike, which with its tight light generator and loose bell makes me sound like a cross between an ambulance and the ice cream truck. Which pretty much sums up what I am, probably.

But did I tell you about my new favorite Thai restaurant? It’s Ruen Pair, on San Pablo in Albany — a friendly little restaurant with friendly little waitressperson people and really really mean-ass cooks. I mean that in the most positive way.

Among lovers of the hot and the spicy, Ruen Pair is no secret. Sweet Baby Jesus is it spicy! Even if you get it medium, it’s almost too hot to handle. It’s just on the edge, which is where I like to eat, if not live.

I ate there once, and had it once to go, so I can vouch for a lot of dishes: the duck salad, green curry, pad prik king … And not only do they have my favorite of favorites, duck noodle soup, which is awesome, they have tom yum noodle soup, which is awesome, and a brilliant idea, because tom yum is so good but never really enough of what it is, as an appetizer.

Whereas with noodles, pork, ground pork, and pork balls …

You get the picture, yes? Everything I had here was great, and spicier than you think it’s going to be. You can leave your hot sauce at home. Where it belongs. For the holidays. Happy.

RUEN PAIR

Daily, 11 a.m.–10 p.m.

1045 San Pablo Ave., Albany

(510) 528-2375

Beer & wine

AE/D/MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Passage

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Passage

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Weirdo the Cat, in an act of life-defying cantankerousness, has died. She got wind of my own impending crossing and timed her tumor accordingly, missing by only one day. No, not missing. While it would have been more operatic of her to die in my arms while I was tearfully kissing her goodbye, she let me get to the airport, on the plane, over the continent, over the ocean, up to the terminal, past customs, into the arms of my lover, onto the train, into the taxi, up two flights of stairs with three heavy suitcases, in and out of the bathtub, under the covers and over the rainbow. Then, while the kids were just settling to sleep in the next room, California … then did Weirdo the Cat breathe her last little stinky breath.

That way it would be clear to anyone with a brain bigger than a walnut that I had killed her. Poetically speaking. Ah, but Weirdo the Cat was ever the furry little poet. Only a little bit bitterer. She blamed me (me!) for not drawing her immortal, like other famous felines, with whom she was obsessed — especially Sylvester. I argued that I was a journalist, not a cartoonist, and she produced an eight-pound sledgehammer from behind her back and chased me around the room with it.

It’s true that she mellowed some in her elderly years, just like Grandma Rubino. In the end, she even actually seemed to kind of almost like children, and while they were away would curl up on the floor in their room and purr. I speak here of Weirdo the Cat, not Grandma Rubino.

Anyway, although any lap but mine or Crawdad’s was always strictly out of the question, by the time she had head-butted her last table leg she had socially matured to the point of sometimes actually sniffing strangers before biting them. I speak here of Grandma Rubino, not Weirdo the Cat.

Those three of my readers who have had the pleasure of knowing both these colorful cranks in their more corporal days will understand the confusion. One cursed in Italian, the other in hairballs and half-digested cat food. Other than that they were pretty much the same animal, may they rest in peace.

And in fact may we all get a little bit of sleep tonight. Jet lag — why didn’t I think of it earlier? I write three-act plays and astounding symphonies in my sleep, and then when I’m awake I walk around bumping into things, drooling, and forgetting my hat and purse everywhere. People tell me in Bavarian German that I’ll get over it after a week or so, and I don’t have the heart, or the vocabulary, to explain that, no, this is the way I’ve been since 1992.

There are other advantages to being where I am. For example, I find myself very literally surrounded by sausage, churches, and Christmas. I’ll let you guess which of those represents my idea of heaven.

Hint: some people like mustard on it. I prefer sauerkraut, to my Romea’s dismay, as I also tend to wear her coats and leave my napkins in her coat pockets.

The Stone Age Catholic churches, while pretty to look at, are pure hell on Sunday mornings when they call their faithful to breakfast with gigantic Iron Age dinner bells. It’s enough of a racket to weird out the dead, and to levitate the merely sleeping — in my case before I had quite finished my opus in F-Minor. Romea had to scrape me off the ceiling with a vacuum cleaner attachment.

Christmas itself, I predict, will be more likely to reclaim me here than Catholicism. For starters, it lets you sleep. Then too they celebrate it outdoors, in crowded open-air Christmas markets, featuring not only rampant commercialism but sausage stands! With bockwursts and bratwursts and meter-long sausages.

Whereas church offers warmth. But hey, I can get that at home. Do you know how long a meter is?

While you’re looking it up, lemme tell you where even you can find great bock- and bratwursts and even kielbasa and Italian hot sausages for real cheap: Longs Drugs. Yep, I became addicted when I lived in Rockridge. Trust me …

TOP DOG INSIDE LONG’S DRUGS

(and four other East Bay locations)

Mon.-Sat., 10 a.m.–9 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m.–8 p.m.

5100 Broadway, Oakl.

(510) 601-1187

No alcohol

Cash only

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

The unbearable lightness of being

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The unbearable lightness of being

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS It’s weird for me, of all people, to be having an existential crisis. Yet …

You know, there have been times in the past few weeks when I almost completely didn’t know if I existed or not. It ain’t fun. Not no picnic, no … nonexistence. I’m here to tell you.

And it’s weird because in the past I have taken particular pride in my capacity for existing. That’s why my calypso name was always Lord Exister or Sister Exister or just Exister. And my songs celebrated mostly existential themes, such as butter.

Now I can only write about tofu and spelt flour, and when that happens it’s time to hang up your steel drum. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m taking mine to Germany because it’s quite possible the Germans won’t understand a word of it, no matter which language I choose to use to express my out-of-key self in.

I’m just saying. Or, as the late great Townes Van Zandt put it, "Maybe she just has to sing for the sake of the song."

One of my favorite people to talk to is Mod the Pod, or Mod Pod, as we call her for short. We were driving in her pickup truck on the most beautiful country road in Sonoma County, on one of the most beautiful December evenings in California history. The sun was setting. The moon was rising. And I was sweating the big stuff. You know: death.

Mod Pod is by trade a therapist. "Mmm-hmm," she said. "Mmm-hmm."

I should also mention that we were eating donuts, so it was not completely off-the-wall of me to change the subject from my depressing preoccupation with the abyss to donuts. It might have been a little abrupt, though, come to think of it. Like this:

"I don’t think it’s my self self that I am overly attached to so much as my point of view, or myself as a point-of-view character. That’s what I can’t quite fathom letting go of. My point of view."

"Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm."

"You know what I mean?"

"Mmm-hmm." She was driving, looking straight ahead out the windshield. The road was hilly and winding, and Mod Pod is a pretty good driver.

"Pod," I said, "have you ever had a donut that wasn’t good?"

She glanced at me and then looked straight ahead again. The empty bag was on the seat between us. "Let me think about that," she said. "That’s a really good question."

And she thought about it, and — having nothing but time — so did I.

We decided, in the end, that neither of us, and not even the Attack (who joined our conversation in Oakland and would later pay for dinner) had ever had an exactly bad donut. The closest we could come to "bad" was stale. I think it was the Pod — although it could have been anyone — had once bitten into a too-many-days-old donut. Not good. I think it was jelly, with powdered sugar.

The important thing is that life goes on, with or without you or your point of view. And then there it is, like a bright light and classical music: the hugest plate of food ever, with melted cheese in two different colors oozing into brown beans and white rice, chile rellenos and a fried fish taco, table full of delicious salsas, only some of which came out of Mod Pod’s purse … beer, sangria … and … you have zero appetite.

What the fuck?

Maybe it was the donuts. I tasted everything, and everything was great, but I couldn’t quite exactly dig into it, much less put it away. Well, and Mexican food was my idea. Juan’s was theirs. Excellent family-style atmosphere; in fact, they were putting up the Christmas tree while we were eating. I get the sense that this is a go-to East Bay place, although … nobody was there. And I’d never been.

Oooh, I hate saying sentences like that, even when it’s by accident.

JUAN’S PLACE

Mon.–Fri., 11 a.m.–10 p.m.;

Sat.–Sun., 2–10 p.m.

941 Carleton, Berk.

(510) 845-6904

Beer & wine

AE,D,MC,V

Recklessly defensive

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Recklessly defensive

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I like to live like I like to love: with my back to the wall, my skirt hiked up, and my hair a mess. Come to think of it, I like to play ping-pong and soccer that way too, but rarely wear skirts to games.

In case they never see me again, my soccerish pals Alice Shaw the Person and Elbie wanted to buy me brunch after our 3-3 tie last Sunday. It was the first game of the new season, but I’m going to miss the second and third, as well as the fourth through tenth, and quite possibly all of next season, come to think of it, and the next after that. And … hey, you never know.

When I went to Berlin last summer, there were isolated pockets of concern that I wouldn’t come back. This time it’s an all-out rumor. Everyone in the world, myself included, seems to think my return ticket might maybe be just for show. My friends who have actually met my Romeo, Romea, are convinced of it.

We make a damn good couple.

And I haven’t been helping matters by quitting my nanny gigs, subletting my shack, and giving away half my things. I’m even selling my car, Alice Shaw the Car, to Alice Shaw the Person’s little sister, which seems to make a certain sense, but certainly not financial sense. Funny, everything I have ever done that was by-the-books sound, advisable, or fiscally responsible has blown up in my face.

On the other hand, my soccer team won two championships in a row, and yes I am still thank you in love. But it’s a tricky proposition, living insanely without going insane. It’s like playing like I play: recklessly defensive. Sometimes you overcommit and slip and then your back-to-the-wall is skidding across the grass while the other team scores.

I wish I could take my soccer team to Germany with me, because they tend to pick me up, so to speak. But they’re all Brazilian and would struggle with the language. And the weather. And the style of play.

Anyway, I’m unaccustomed to winning, and a little disappointed because all we get for it is a T-shirt and a team photo. Otherwise, it’s almost the same as losing: you shake the other team’s hands and say the exact same thing they say, "Good game, good game," and then you go get beers or pancakes or something, or both. I don’t know, maybe there are other differences.

The real problem is that our league plays on Sundays, in the morning, so where are you going to get fed and watered afterward without having to wait in line?

Sports bars! It took me many years to figure this out, and then … I didn’t figure it out. Someone else did. I think it was Elbie’s guy who suggested the Fiddler’s Green after last game, and after this one I was hurrying down Haight Street to get in line at the Pork Store when I noticed Martin Mack’s, other side of the street, a block or so away. And it was empty, even though there was football and soccer and more football on TV. It was a sea of empty tables in there, and, yes, they serve brunch.

So I called Alice Shaw the Person’s cell phone and said, "Forget it. Forget the Pork Store."

And that was how I came to discover boiled bacon and cabbage. It was on the specials board, along with Guinness and beef stew, and I forget what else. Me and Elbie ordered those two things, and Alice got the Irish breakfast, and it was all a lot of too-much food for all of us, even though we’d just run around like we did.

Ten bucks apiece.

My dish came with unannounced but not unwelcome potatoes, mashed. The bacon scared me at first, not because it was Irish bacon, or boiled, but because it was smothered in this parsley-specked creamy white sauce that screamed mayonnaise. The waitressperson told me two or three times, no mayo, before I would taste it. And then I tasted it and it was awesome. If there was mayonnaise in it, I now love mayonnaise.

Stranger things have happened.

MARTIN MACK’S

Mon.–Sun., 10 a.m.–2 a.m.

1568 Haight, SF

(415) 864-0124

Full bar

AE/D/MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Granted

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Granted

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Some things in life just smell way better than they taste, Kentucky Fried Chicken being an obvious example. There are two kids named Boink and Popeye the Sailor Baby who will one day wonder why their nanny used to take them to Jackson Park all the time. Alameda has a lot of nice playgrounds featuring state-of-the-art sliding boards and other nice touches, such as other children. What Jackson Park has, besides abandoned shopping carts, riff-raff, and a bus stop, is Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I’ve never been inside, but I’m glad it’s there. And the kids … well, even without all the bright-colored plastic, they find plenty to do. They scrape the bark off of piss-soaked trees with little sticks and look for unusual bugs — while their grownup stands nearby, nose to the Colonel, and dreams.

If there’s one thing I will take from my two years as a nanny — besides neck and shoulder issues, some permanent hearing loss, and an addiction to migraine medicines, I mean — well, wisdomwise, I have learned a lot. But the one lesson that really stands out is this: that, though you show a kid a waterfall, wildlife, redwood trees, and sunset, they will be infinitely more fascinated by leaf blowers.

Mind you, this is not to even mention their fascination of fascinations: the garbage truck. You can take my word for it, because nannies know more kids than most parents do. It’s as true as math: the sweeter the adorable little angel, the more obsessed with garbage trucks they will be. And no amount of exposure to Yosemite will help.

Who knows? Maybe it’s innately wise to take natural wonders for granted. When you are one yourself.

Of course, the reverse is also true: some things in life taste way better than they smell. (Fish sauce. I rest my case.)

The point I want to make about bacon fries is that they smell way better than they taste, and they taste (are you ready for this?) … absolutely insanely wonderfully delicious. Go figure! Who would have guessed that french fries, already one of the best things in life, could be improved on by the best thing in life? And here’s where I wish I had actually invented my dream punctuation, the sarcastic mark, instead of just talking about it for 25 years.

Of course … bacon fries!!!

Where to get them is Broken Record, the great bar with the even greater backroom kitchen, way out in the Excelsior District. I’m pretty sure that people have been telling me about Broken Record for a long time. "Broken Record," they said. "Broken Record … Broken Record … Broken Record," they said and said and said. If only I could think of a way to describe what this sounded like.

Nor am I proud to admit that I didn’t listen. Then: the bar, or the restaurant part of the bar changed hands, or chefs, word was, and alas I had missed the boat. The assumption being that the new people would ruin a good thing, and I, being more than a believer — being an all-out act of entropy, found this reasonable to assume.

But change is change. A good thing can go bad, or vice versa, or a good thing can change into an entirely different good thing. Hold on a second, my estrogen patch is coming loose. Or — I was saying — you can just leave the judgment out of it and say that things change.

All I know is I was playing late-night soccer one night out at Crocker, and afterward some folks were getting a beer, and invited me along, and I said no thank you and they said, "bacon fries."

And just like that a new favorite restaurant was born. All I want to do now is play late-night soccer at Crocker. And I haven’t even tried their burgers yet! Supposedly they trim off all the beef fat and grind it themselves, replacing the beef fat with bacon fat.

Why would anyone ever eat a burger anywhere else, not to mention fries? I can think of reasons. Well, geography, for one. But why would anyone live anywhere but here?

I comfort myself with thoughts of sausages. And the knowledge that technically, I did invent the sarcastic mark. I know exactly what it looks like, and have drawn it many times on cocktail napkins, as well as regular napkins.

Broken Record

Mon.–Sat., 6 p.m.–11 p.m.;

Sun., 6 p.m.–10 p.m.

1166 Geneva, SF

(415) 424-6743

Full bar

Cash only

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

The problem of happiness

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The problem of happiness

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Sometimes it just takes one word, and this week’s one is shoehorn. There. I’m done. And you barely even got your pants down, or your skirt up. Skype is an amazing thing, as is technology in general. As are words.

Yesterday morning, outside a coffeehouse in Guerneville …

Today, inside a coffeehouse in Oakland …

One night I put my laptop on the pillow next to me and slept while she went about her business.

It’s weird (or maybe not) that many of the men who mistreated, malpracticed, or underwhelmed me last year are trying to reconnect right now. Proving once again that straight guys just love a lesbian. Had I thought of this, I would have faked it.

Can I tell you how much pleasure I get from not doing anything at all? Well, I do read their e-mails. After months and months of silence, they suddenly can’t stop thinking about me, they’re sorry they blew it, blah blah blah. And I don’t write back, not even to say, Thank you for blowing it. I met someone a lot better than you.

And a lot better for me. Last month in Joshua Tree she taught me how to be more ladylike. Instead of saying, "I gotta go pee," I can now say, in German, Ich muss mich frischmachen, or roughly, "I have to freshen up" … which is really fun to say before going behind a cactus and squatting over some dirt, then wiping your hands on your jeans.

In New Jersey last week I returned the favor. I taught her how to put gas in a car. She’s never owned a car in her life, but loves to be the driver, and loves to do all the more classically manlier things, like getting the gas. So I showed her how. While the pump was pumping we stood straddling the hose (not really) and kissed real slow and long (really). I forgot where I was.

When the kiss was over, I looked away and accidentally into the wide eyes of a man filling his pickup truck next pump over. His mouth was a little bit open — more from pain, I think, than disbelief. I smiled. He didn’t. His hands were in his pockets.

It’s fun outside of the Bay Area, but good to be back too. This morning I had breakfast at Sconehenge with my friend Hickymajig, and we had a contest to see who was nervouser. She won. But I did not go down without a tremor. And a twitch. And a lightheaded feeling in my legs. And a fluttery stomach, cold sweat, shaky hands, and other more serious symptoms, like I only ate half of my huevos rancheros ($7.50).

The second half is on the floor in my car, fantasizing about lunch. For a restaurant called Sconehenge, Sconehenge has very few things called scones on the menu. But they do have them, and they’re supposed to be great.

But we both ate Mexican breakfasts. Very good. Very very very good. And cheap! And big! My huevos had a huge pile of salsa on top, and a ton of melted cheese. Warm flour tortillas that I slathered with butter, rolled up, and poked into my egg yolks. The rice and beans were delicious. Nevertheless, if Hickymajig reads this it will be from a hospital bed, so I would like her to know that the entire Bay Area, including me, is thinking about her and wishing her well, on buses, in bathrooms, and wherever else Cheap Eats is read. Behind a cactus …

My thing is partly a problem of happiness, which is a good problem to have. My armchair therapists tell me I deserve to be happy, get over it. And I’m trying, I swear. I breathe, I read, I write, I laugh. But my body continues to act as if it’s about to get run over by a minivan.

Maybe I drink too much coffee. And that’s another good thing about Sconehenge. Their coffee sucks. You can only drink one cup, if you’re lucky.

I told you this column was over after the first sentence. So if you made it this far, don’t blame me. It’s nighttime already where my heart is. And here I haven’t even gone to work yet! Kids need me. Their moms, more so. Oy.

Or, take my word for it: schuhlöffel.

SCONEHENGE BAKERY & CAFE

Mon.–Sat., 7:30 a.m.–3 p.m.;

Sun., 8 a.m.–2:30 p.m.

2787 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 845-5168

No alcohol

MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

You and yers

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You and yers

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Dear Earl Butter,

North Carolina was different. Since we would be there only one day, and that day was a Sunday, and all the barbecue places near my sister’s house are closed on Sunday, she had the presence of mind on Saturday to pick us up a pile of barbecue.

Mind you, she’s a vegetarian now, like the rest of my sisters and most of my brothers. But the more vegetarian the rest of my family becomes, the more meat I feel I have to eat. It’s complicated math, or maybe simple math and complicated metaphysics, but I know that you, of all people, will understand. My sister does.

My brother-in-law picked us up at 4 a.m. at the train station in Greensboro, where they live now in a rented single-wide, out between the last street light and the dump. Their couch folded into a bed, and the bed was very comfortable, but I was too hungry to sleep, so I visited the fridge. And there it was, lit from within, two quarts of pulled pork and a pint of barbecue slaw. There would be donuts and bagels and coffee when we woke up, but another way of looking at it is that I had barbecue for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that day.

And Earl, what I’m driving at, or meandering toward, is that none of this so-called authentic North Carolina barbecue was even half as good as what you brought over to Deevee’s house last time. Which is remarkable, considering that whoever made this must have lived here a lot longer than you did, I guess. And for sure more recently.

You lived here, what? A year? Twenty years ago? I guess you’ve just got a natural touch for North Carolina barbecue. Or another possibility is that sometimes you just flat-out outgrow a thing. Maybe I don’t like North Carolina barbecue as much as I thought I did. It happens. Example: I used to think my own hometown in Ohio had the best barbecue ever, but the last time I ate some I burped plastic the whole next day.

And I should mention that I did eventually get me some Georgia barbecue last week too, in Marietta, and it was way better than what we had here, although Romea might disagree, which goes to show you. When I come back, let’s go to Dibb’s Barbecue on Fillmore Street. I missed it last time I was on that street, remember?

But first we’ve got one more week of planes, trains, and automobiles, only not in that order. Like, right now we are on a train. Romea’s sleeping next to me, on my pillow, in my poncho. She’s probably dreaming my dream, too — which is (right now) of bacon fries. Did I tell you about bacon fries? Don’t wait for me to come back for that one. If you’ve got $5, go get you some, and if not borrow $5 off my brother.

I heard he stole my car from you. Don’t let him do that.

Yours,

me

P.S. I love her.

L.E.,

That is great. I went to the Lawrence Bakery Café, and got what I have gotten there for the last four, five, or six years. Which is a cheeseburger and french fries. I would like to say that in all that time, their prices have never changed. But that is not true. At some point, a cheeseburger and fries went up from $3.75 to $4. Is that an outrage? No, it is not an outrage, it is perfectly fine. I love the Lawrence Bakery Café and several places around the Mission for the very same reason: they serve very good food at very good prices, giving a guy like me, well, a chance.

I can cook food. Most everybody knows it. But it was out of necessity that I learned to cook. Believe me, if I had the dough, I would be eating out every night, maybe at fancy-pants places, but also at great regular places, too.

My kitchen has been very good to me over the years. But I would leave it in a second and never speak to it again if I could. Please do not let my kitchen know that I wrote this.

Yers,

Earl

LAWRENCE BAKERY CAFE

2290 Mission, SF

(415) 864-3119

No alcohol

Cash only

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

What if …

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0
What if …

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Surreally, I find myself a student at Kennesaw State University north of Atlanta. It’s weird. Not the least because I am not really of course a student. I’m a guest of the university. Technically I’m a guest of a guest of the university.

Romea is the rock star. I’m a tag-alonger, which suits me. Turns out I am good at tagging along. Sometimes I even say things. For example, I have managed to interject the word "barbecue" into several cuisiney conversations, and while they acknowledge it exists, days pass before anyone offers to take us to it. Liberal academic smarty-pantses in the South (or at least here) associate barbecue with Republicans, I find, and therefore don’t want any, at worse, or at best consider it a guilty pleasure. To which I say … well, to which I am speechless, actually.

Being a hanger-onner, I hang on, biding my time in respectful silence and tiding myself over (to the amusement of our hostess) with fried chicken wings from the grocery store deli. Next week in North Carolina, I know, I will have my way. My way = pulled pork and sweet tea.

Speaking of sweet, Romea and me are so increasingly insanely in-lovingly besmoldered of each other, I don’t think we can at this point bear to be apart. There are physical symptoms. And it’s so great to be so in love with a writer, but so strange to not be able to read her novels. Not to mention her short stories. One of which I have heard her read now twice, and I’ve read it on paper, and am just now beginning to get an inkling of what happens.

I know I’m going to be fluent in German one day, but …

I mean, I feel certain about Romea. About us. I have never been more sure of anything, but …

Well, her love poems to me she has the decency to write in English, at least, and with all the possible objectivity in the world I can say that they are wonderful, but …

You know, it could take decades. I could be old, and about to die happy, in love and in German, as I imagine, before I can really really read one of her novels, and …

I mean, not that it could possibly matter … not that in fact it isn’t half the fun of it, not knowing, but what if … what if I ultimately only then find out that I find her prose slightly somewhat stilted? Or something. I’m just asking.

This afternoon Romea rocks the Goethe Institute in Atlanta. This morning, against the worst odds ever, we sit side by side on our comfy bed in the cozy attic apartment of KSU’s International House, her practicing today’s reading aloud, in German, me trying to write in English, and about 20 guys in work boots walking with Southern accents on our heads, sliding ladders, scraping shingles, hammering roof nails, staple-gunning … Outside our window, on the lawn, there’s a generator, a table saw, and a 100 percent chance of rain. Thunderstorms, actually. I can’t wait. It’s going to seem so quiet, so calm, ka-boom.

I’ve danced to a lot of things in my day, but can’t quite pick the beat out of this one. Still, I have something to say. It’s just going to be hard to understand me over all this racket. One day in Berkeley, I said ONE DAY IN BERKELEY when Vik Wholesale was closed, I mused with the Maze at India Chaat & Sweets over curry goat. Curry goat! Well, goat curry, technically, is what they call it there. And it’s $12.99. Almost all their stuff is more than $10, which would explain why no one else was eating there.

Oh, but it was so quiet. I could hear the Maze’s musings, and he could hear mine, and neither of us had to raise our voice, as I recall. In fact we kind of whispered.

And the curry goat curry was great. But really, why anyone would want to eat there except in an emergency (i.e. Vik’s is closed) … is far, far beyond me.

INDIA CHAAT & SWEETS

Mon., Wed.–Fri., 11:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m, 4:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m.

Sat., 11:30 a.m.–10 p.m.; Sun., 11:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m.

824 University, Berk.

(510) 704-1200

Beer & wine

MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Pears and pairings

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Pears and pairings

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS There’s that stretch of Fillmore Street between the Western Addition and Japantown. I’m rarely there, but when I am, it amazes and amazes me how otherworldly it increasingly becomes. Chains, boutiques, chains … It’s so sort-of centrally San Francisco, yet you forget where you are and can easily become disoriented.

Or worse: disillusioned.

I have started out looking for a bite, and wound up desperately turned around, trying in vain to get back on a freeway that isn’t there, never was, and never will be.

Why does it look like this, and what does it look like? A cross between the worst of New Mexico and the best of Iowa. I don’t know. I’m redisoriented, just thinking about it.

It’s not that I can’t decide. I can: I want everything both ways.

And there I was, on my pointless way from point A to point B, and I needed a little something to chew on in my car.

Did I tell you I was studying German? Yep. It started last spring after the first time I said bye-bye to my bilingually bisexually both-gendered and many-named new lover Romea at the airport. I wanted to be able to say, basically, I love you, but a million different ways, and in German. So I haven’t stopped studying since, although my goals have changed a little.

Or I should say broadened.

But I practice in my car, a lot, and the other day I accidentally said to Crawdad in English, in a kitchen in Berkeley, without thinking, "Can I this pear eat?"

Which, when I realized what I’d done, thrilled the bejesus out of me. The sentence was grammatically perfect, in German, and the pear, unblinkingly granted by Crawdad, was delicious and crisp.

I used to only like pears that made my gums bleed. Now I like all kinds. Not yet ready ones, the over-ready yellow ones that bruise when you look at them, Asian pears … Pears are good. And this one was perfect, just like the grammar that got me it.

And got me out of my Fillmore Street predicament. Which, saying so …

Well, there’s a barbecue place there I think, but I didn’t see it. And then at the last minute, just as I was about to lose my sense of reality forever and ever and become a duck — about a block from Geary and, therefore, Japantown — I started to see one or two realistic looking Korean joints, and this: the Fillmore Mexican Grill & American Deli.

A burrito would be just the thing. I love eating burritos in my car, because then you find the beans and rice and things in the cracks between seats, or under them, many months later, and remember. And, too, there was an open parking space right in front, which meant I could leave the car unlocked and wouldn’t have to worry about anyone stealing my dirty soccer socks and unspit sunflower seeds.

Cavalierly did I step up to the counter, where I was immediately unhorsed by the appearance of an Asian woman who took my order and, in so doing, made my day. A lot of people would be put off by Asian-run Mexican grills, or vice versa. In fact at one time in my life I might have been guilty of similar small-mindednesses. Now I cherish such plot-twists, and for years have secretly wondered how the sentence "What kind of beans?" would sound with an Asian accent.

So I ordered my burrito.

"What kind of beans?" she said.

I swooned, and pretended not to understand so she would say it again, but instead she only listed my choices: pinto, refried, etc.

I said, "Refried."

They only had one kind of salsa, which was green and good. And the chips were freshly homemade, or at least seemed so, which is all that really matters. And some other things.

Oh, it was a pretty good burrito. It was alright. Nothing otherwise special, except I should point out that one of their meat choices (the one I got) is chicken and steak, and another is steak and prawn, and still another is salmon and prawn.

These are a little more expensive, yes, but, you know, so is life when you are Gemini.

FILLMORE MEXICAN GRILL

Sun.–Thu., 10 a.m.–9 p.m.;

Fri.–Sat., 10 a.m.–-midnight

1552 Fillmore, SF

(415) 921-9900

Beer

MC/V/AE/D

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

The art of biking

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The art of biking

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Earl Butter and me decided there was one thing we wanted to see at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. So I stole my downstairs neighbor’s bike, borrowed a lock from another neighbor … who had to figure out the combination on the Internet … which took time … me thinking …

Can bike thieves get online?

Banking on probably not, I put the heavy lock in my purse, raced to BART without a helmet, almost falling every time I stopped because the seat was so high, carried it up the steps and onto BART, which became crowded, and 45 minutes later had to carry it up even more steps than before.

And when I came up from underground I was almost blown over by the wind. My handlebars were bent at a weird angle to the front wheel, but I managed to make it to Earl Butter’s house without veering into any busses or anything. Then we rode to Golden Gate Park.

The sun was setting. The temperature was arctic. Elsewhere in the Bay Area, houses were falling down. (Well, one did, I heard later on the radio.) On north-to-south streets we would have been blowed sideways into parked cars were it not for the ingeniousness of spokes. As long as we were aiming west, the wind was merely pushing us backward. Which seemed safe enough, except for the blinding sun. I couldn’t see Earl Butter in front of me, and wondered how in the world car drivers would see me.

Still, that’s the way you gotta go to get from the Mission to the park: west. At every other corner or so, Earl Butter would wait for me to catch up. I was so surprised: I’m supposed to be a soccer player. I can play three games in one Sunday, but I can’t ride a bike up a hill.

Six hours later we arrived at the festival.

There was nowhere to lock our bikes. I wished I had a camera, it was so beautiful, bikes totemed onto, around, and up every single signpost and pole, clinging at impossible angles, colorful and Seussian.

"I suggest you lock them to trees," the guy at the gate suggested, but even all the trees were taken, bikes hanging from every reachable limb, strange fruit. It was so pretty. I tried to think of this as an art exhibit, and my reason for coming, since I knew the Flatlanders, the last act of the evening, were already halfway through their set.

We had to do a little bushwhacking, but we eventually found some uncharted trees to lock onto. It was getting dark by then, and I realized I would need two things I didn’t have to get my bike back later: a flashlight and reading glasses. There was some solace in the thought that a bike thief would need at least one of those things, plus Internet access. Or, I guess, a saw.

We found our stage in time to catch four songs, none of which were particular favorites of mine, and then, thanks to full moons and the glow of my iPod, we found and even unlocked our bikes. By this time I couldn’t feel my toes, my fingers, or my nose. And it finally occurred to me that my borrowedish bike had not one single reflector anywhere on it, let alone a light, and that I was wearing all black and was about to die.

Now if there’s one thing you know about me after all these years on the toilet, it’s that I absolutely positively hate to die on an empty stomach. And that’s where Chiang Mai comes in. So once again, my fear of dying hungry saved my life.

Because this cute little Thai place on Geary Street was warm in more ways than one: 1) it was warm; 2) it was sweet and cozy, all a-clutter with plants and cute things and shit, which restored my will to live; and 3) tom yum.

"Medium?" the waitressperson guessed.

I shook my head, said, "Hot as you got."

Side a noodles, cause I knew I’d need the carbohoohaw just to get back out to the sidewalk, let alone home. And now I have a new favorite restaurant.

CHIANG MAI

Mon.–Fri. 11:30 a.m.–3 p.m. & 5 p.m.–10 p.m.;

Sat.–Sun. 5 p.m.–10 p.m.

5020 Geary, SF

(415) 387-1299

Beer & wine

AE/D/MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Half and half

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Half and half

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS At a pretty good restaurant in a small town, other side of the mountains, we were greeted and seated by a small boy, age 9, 10, 11 tops. We looked at each other, looked at the kid, looked at each other, shrugged, and followed him to our table.

"Can I get you anything to drink?" he said.

We had just emerged from Death Valley, where the heat was intense and the scenery surreal, and milk was the last thing on our minds.

"Um, what kind of lemonades do you have?" I said, scanning the menu very quickly. It was an inside joke between me and me — one of my specialties.

Romeo ordered a beer. He lives in Germany, and his favorite brew is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Well, we were doing it. Setting up camp together, if not house. After a few days of cooking on fires, sleeping in tents, squatting in the bushes, and not washing at all, Romeo said he felt like he had got to meet Dan Leone. He said he liked him OK, but maybe we should get a motel room for one night.

I agreed. It was weird to be cut in half like that and, though I have never been one to run from weirdness, I do prefer speaking of myself in the first person. A bath seemed like a very good idea.

A bath, a pluck, a night of mattressousness, change of clothes in the morning, and I would be myself again. But first, while I was still Dan Leone, I had to order a buffalo burger with bacon, cheese, barbecue sauce, and chili on it, because … I mean, come on, were we or were we not a couple of smelly cowboygirls just in from a roundup?

Of course we were. The more interesting question is what was the fuck re: the fourth- or fifth-grade waitchild. Sixth-grade tops. Do we have child labor laws here? My German wanted to know. I think so, I thought, but maybe they don’t apply to family-run restaurants in tiny middle-of-nowhere towns. Clearly that was what this was, a family. There was a strong resemblance between the kid, a slightly older kid also waiting tables, a slightly-older-than-that kid, and the cat in charge, their father, who seemed too young to have three kids, including at least one teenager, so maybe he was the oldest brother, I don’t know.

Anyway, it was a school night.

And I still can’t decide if the whole thing was cute or creepy, so I’ll just tell you that the burger was great. Even though it may well be mean, unfair, and irresponsible of me to tell you so, according to a whole pile of e-style mail waiting for me upon my return to civilization.

Apparently a popular restaurant that I slagged a couple weeks ago is run by a positive force in the community, and so therefore I shouldn’t say anything bad about their carne asada. Which sucked. But most of the people who called for my resignation, apologies, do-overs, and so forth, admitted that they were vegetarians, and so presumably have never had the carne asada (which sucks) at their favorite restaurant.

Really, I doubt I’ll like the vegetarian food there either, because the rice and beans didn’t impress me and the salsa was even worse than the meat, but I am nothing if not a good sport. I will re-review the Sunrise, and I will order something vegetarian this time, provided one of the vegetarians calling for my head/job/apology agrees to a) pay for it, and b) sit across from me and eat carne asada.

You’ll get your do-over, and I’ll get to watch a vegetarian eat meat. Which is one of my favorite pastimes.

Just so you know though: I’ll say exactly what I think about anything I eat, I don’t care if Jesus Hisself runs the joint. I calls ’em like I tastes ’em, and if I don’t like His bread and wine, or carne asada …

Oh, but I did like that buffalo burger, very much. What a shame, that a child labor law scofflaw and/or mean dad can be a better cook than a sweetie-pie.

Cruel world!

MOUNT WHITNEY RESTAURANT

Daily: 6 a.m.–9 p.m.

227 S. Main, Lone Pine

(760) 876-5751

Beer & wine

MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Flourescence

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0

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS It looked like a good place to sit and so we sat there, basking in the relative fluorescentlessness. Compared to Joshua Tree National Park, there are a lot of restaurants to choose from on San Bruno Avenue in San Francisco. Dive after dive after dive, it’s a Cheap Eats mecca. Whereas Joshua Tree has lizards. Stones. A bee that won’t leave me alone.

My sweetie and me are under a rock, or rather, under a complex formation of rocks, sharing an apple and writing on our laptops. We are sitting side by side on a blanket, leaning against one wall of our cave. I just had me my favorite siesta ever. Hold on a second … Her too. You wouldn’t believe how in love I am. Hold on a second … Her too.

You wouldn’t believe how hot it is just a few feet away from us, and how pleasant the weather is in our cave. Tomorrow with the air conditioning on we will drive through Mojave to Death Valley Junction, home of the Amargosa Opera House.

A woman named Marta rented then bought it 40-some years ago, but no one would come, so she painted an audience on the walls of the place, and now she’s 90 and still performs there even though sometimes she has to sing sitting down.

Anyway, it seems like a monument to what I love about life: kooky people making limeade out of lemons. That’s one thing. So we’re going to go see it, maybe catch a show, if we’re lucky. If we’re really lucky, a standing-up one. And if not, we’ll drive on. There are hot springs that side of the mountains.

I haven’t camped in Joshua Tree for a few years. Ever since I first moved to my witchy shack in the woods, I have not felt the need to camp, go figure. But the desert is something else. And this one is my favorite place on the planet. The surreal rock formations, the moony landscape, the irrepressible joy of headlight-lit ocotillos, and the cartoonishly contortionistic joshua trees reaching every which way at once.

What we don’t have here is beef with tender greens, or pork and preserved cabbage noodle soup, or chicken with bitter melon. In fact, there are many ways in which Joshua Tree National Park is not a Chinese restaurant.

It’s so quiet you can hear the air, sometimes.

At night there are a lot of airplanes. Blinking beelines to Palm Springs, or Los Angeles, or back, their silent exclamations are almost welcome in a sky dotted with periods and comets.

I don’t think I ever brought a laptop before to Joshua Tree. But I’m with a writer now, and she’s got a reading tour on the East Coast next month, a slow-going story to finish, and a new one to start. Whereas I have a restaurant to tell you about.

It’s a little less fluorescent than most San Bruno Avenue joints, yes, but it’s still cheap. San Bruno Café. Or 2546 Café. Or 2546 San Bruno Café. They have $5.25 rice plates from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., even on weekends. Gotta like that.

What you don’t gotta like (and won’t) is that every meal starts — no matter what you order — with a bowl of bean water soup. That was our name for it. I mean, you can’t argue with free, but … come on! A bowl of murky brown water with nothing in it? Maybe a half of a bean, or two, lurking somewhere beneath the cloudy, greaseless surface.

If you look around the restaurant, you’ll notice that people are leaving unfinished bowls of bean water all over — on ledges, on chairs, on other people’s dirty tables, on clean ones … Eventually the management will notice too.

Bean water aside (very very literally), nothing else was especially great either. Although: everything was good and cheap. You’d be hard-pressed to find any 10s on San Bruno’s menu. There are even some things under five, like instant noodles and porridges.

But it’s so weird to be writing about Chinese food in Joshua Tree. I’m going to stop doing so, abruptly, kiss my hard-working sweetie, and walk until I find an Internet café.

2546 SAN BRUNO CAFE

Daily: 7:30 a.m.–9 p.m.

2546 San Bruno, SF

(415) 468-8008

No alcohol

MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Sunrise

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0

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I take back everything I said about Kaiser. Not because the receptionist at the Oakland lab asked if my semen sample was my husband’s, and not because not one sperm was seen in said sample (although both these little details did make me smile) … but because the day after my incendiary diatribe hit the streets, causing widespread rioting or at least a knowing chuckle on the 21 Hayes bus, I got a phone call from an endocrinologist in Martinez.

A Kaiser endocrinologist, mind you.

Who was not a buffoon, mind you.

Rather, he spent more than an hour on the phone with me, which is longer talk-time than I had with my previous endocrinologist in four years, total. Whereas my previous n-doc said, and I quote, "Hormone therapy is not rocket science" (which is true, I admit, but still a pretty dumb thing to say while you are getting someone’s hormones all screwed up).

The new guy, who had researched my entire Kaiser career before he called, got it all back together, my hormones, my head … He knew every single thing about my medical past. He asked me questions no one else had ever asked, about my work, my mom, my kids, my opinions. He even asked me what my questions were, and when I said what they were, he answered them intelligently, patiently, and in detail, in many cases contradicting what other doctors had told me. An hour plus … on the phone!

While I was at work!

I’d never had a medical experience like this, where somebody both seems to care and has the time to do a thorough job of it. After we talked I got a long e-mail from him, putting it all in writing.

While we were talking, he completely rewrote my hormone regimen, likely adding 13 1/2 years to my life (just a guess). He made sure the new, safer prescription would be ready at the pharmacy of my choice by the next day. (It was!) He figured out the probable cause of my eight-week headache, effectively ending it on the spot. And, as if all that weren’t enough, he went ahead and gave me a hysterectomy.

"Excuse me?" I said.

He said he was putting it in the computer that I’d had a hysterectomy — that way I’d stop getting bugged by computerized notices and nurses about my next Pap smear.

To perform such a delicate operation over the phone seemed above and beyond the call of medicine; it bordered on miraculous. Dazzled by my new favorite doctor’s medical prowess, I neglected to mention that I actually love it when nurses try to schedule me for a Pap smear, or ask about my period, or if I’m pregnant — stuff like that. But I’m glad I didn’t say anything, because in retrospect I would gladly trade those fleeting moments of real-girl-glory for the even gloriouser distinction of having had an over-the-phone hysterectomy.

Who wouldn’t want one of those? I mean, Pap smears and periods come and go, but a hysterectomy is forever, even if you have it in a doctor’s office or operating room.

But speaking of carne asada, there’s the Sunrise Restaurant on 24th Street between Shotwell and Folsom. Judging from its name, and the extensive Latino and Americano breakfast choices on the menu, it’s more of a morning place. I went there at sunset, and wished I’d had breakfast for dinner.

The carne asada plate ($9.95) comes with black beans, rice, and salsa. OK: the steak was tough, and there’s nothing you can do about that but shake your head, maybe make a mental note to get something else next time. But: the beans and the rice really really wanted flavor. They didn’t taste like much of anything.

There are things you can do about that, one of which is called salsa. But the little tiny tin of what-they-call-salsa was surprisingly shockingly inedibly yucky.

Meaning: there won’t be a next time. When even the salsa sucks, you are sitting in an irredeemable restaurant. Or, in other words, ugh.

If it wasn’t for good old table top Tapatío, I would have gone away entirely undernourished. As it was, I went away caloried, but not much else. No nice taste in my mouth. No plan of ever returning. No good stories to tell.

SUNRISE RESTAURANT

Mon., Wed.–Thu.: 7 a.m.–8 p.m.;

Fri.–Sun.: 7 a.m.–9 p.m.

3126 24th St., SF

(415) 206-1219

Beer and wine

MC,V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books).

Pho la love

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0

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Don’t worry, I sat down at the conference table in my office in Oakland with Earl Butter, a big bottle of gin, a small bottle of grapefruit soda, a bowl of ice, and two small glasses, and we talked until almost midnight. It’s taken care of. We’re all going to be okay. Even you.

He’d brought a couple bones over from Looney’s Barbecue, around the corner, but I’d already bloated myself on takeout pho from Kang Nam, around the other corner. While we were talking, a mosquito came in through one of the many open windows in my hot hot upstairs apartment, and established itself in the bedroom. Weirdo the Cat blinked.

Earl Butter is a peach. Technically, this isn’t true, but in some respects it’s the perfect way to describe him. He’s soft and furry and sweet, and there’s a little stem sticking out of the top of his head.

He grows on trees, for another example.

One of my favorite things about pho (pronounced pha) is that it’s pronounced pha (but spelled pho). Those crazy Vietnameses! The good thing about getting pho to go (pronounced pha to ga) is that — if all goes well — you will find they have packaged the "rare beef" separately. So it’s raw beef, sliced really very thin, and it cooks in the broth when you put the two together. That’s the idea. But you can always let the broth sit in your bowl, and go to the bathroom, and make a couple phone calls, and check your e-mail, and lecture your cat, and clear off your desk, maybe put a load of laundry in, and then add the beef to the broth. That way it won’t cook so much as warm up a little, and that’s how I like it. Jalapeños, bean sprouts, fresh basil and cilantro …

We go back a long way, me and all those things, but especially Earl Butter. It’s one of those friendships that, in spite of everything — remote control ownership disputes, abandonment issues, actual abandonment, bad advice given (and taken), pork-related deception, petty jealousy, petty thievery of hats, grand theft of an automobile, grand jealousy, strange smells in the bathroom, botched interventions, band blowups, automotive breakdowns, nervous ones, and, you know, everything, tube socks … you get the sense that nothing can stop you, no one can beat you. You go back a long way and you’re going to go forward an even longer way.

Being which as it may, the fucker brings me two cold bones, one spoon’s worth of black-eyed peas, onion rings (and I don’t like onion rings), and a half of a crab-cake with mayonnaise in it. True, I had already eaten, but did he know this?

No. He did not. Wait, maybe he did. I’m trying to remember our phone conversation while I was waiting for my broth to cool off.

Anyway, this isn’t about Earl Butter, or me, or barbecue, or pho, or even my love, Romeo (pronounced Romea), who will be here in five, four, three days. Watch out, everybody. You are about to be absolutely grossed out. If scenes of romantical bliss make you barf, close your eyes, OK? I’ll tell you when to open them.

Really the person I really meant for this one to be about was the mosquito. But you know what? I’m in love, and feeling intoxicated and insane. I’ll let you imagine the cartoonish battle of wits that went down in the bedroom. All. Night. That. Night. And the bloody mess I left on the bathroom door the next morning, when, Popeye-armed and pissed off, I finally found him, or her.

Call me crazy, but I’m going to leave you with a few words about Kang Nam: it’s a both is and isn’t kind of place. Nice track lighting and big, ugly overhead fluorescents. Nice art on the wall and taped-on paper flyers for specials. Of the two waitresspersonpeople I encountered, one was calm, the other running around like a waitressperson with her head still on.

I didn’t see what the hurry was.

I did like my soup. A lot.

KANG NAM PHO HOUSE

Daily: 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

4419 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 984-0900

Beer & wine

MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

In the pipeline

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0

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Bedazzled, bewildered, and bejuiced, I dream that I start an already started car, and instead of the grind of everyday catastrophe I get another level of startedness. An overdrive. An engine firing on more cylinders than it even has. This bodes well. For the first time in over three weeks, I wake up without a headache.

Still, I keep my appointment with my doctor. How could I not? I’ve been waiting to see her for 23 painful days. God bless Kaiser Permanente, it’s the best I can do!

And I love my doctor. Ever since she recommended duct tape for my warts (which worked), she has held a special spot in my heart. Speaking of which, there’s something else I want to talk to her about: my heart. Not in the ticker sense, but the other one. I’m in love, madly, and it is weirdly reciprocal and, even weirdlier … well, my girlfriend is a girl, this time.

Sorry for the deception. It was necessary, on account of complications.

True, her name is Romeo, and she’s boyishly beautiful and sooo oh oh oh, but the fact is the plumbing is female, and when we are together, which is becoming increasingly possible, sex is complex and constant, and the question of pregnancy does come into play.

Now:

Until now, I have only had sex with men since becoming a woman, so it didn’t matter. When I first started on hormones, my endocrinologist told me I would be irreversibly sterile within six months. It’s been four years. On the other hand, I come from a family of 11 with a history of post-vasectomy procreation, virgin births, etc.

So in addition to heads and hearts, we chatted — my primary care doctor and me — about genitals and such, and in the end she ordered me some labwork: the usual blood stuff, plus a semen analysis.

This is going to be fun, I thought.

Then, for good measure, she threw in an MRI. My eyes got wide.

"Well, every time you mention your headache you point to the same exact spot," she explained.

"An MRI would not only rule out a tumor, but also a leaking blood vessel, which could lead to an aneurism."

For the next three days I was in what would best be described as "a state." The headache was back, full force, and I needed constant acupuncture and/or massage therapy just to stop crying, let alone breathe. You know how it is … when you meet the love of your life, then die.

So as soon as the results of the MRI came back clean and I got over my initial euphoria, I started thinking about semen. I’d watched my doctor put the order into her computer, but when I went to the Kaiser lab with my little empty cup and a plan, the order wasn’t in the system. And the mean-ass bitch of a receptionist, whose name I would publish here if I could remember it, wouldn’t even call my doctor and ask. She wrote down a number for me to call.

Which turned out to be the advice nurse. Who eventually was able to leave a message with my doctor. So for the next couple hours I had to keep getting in line to see the meanie again, until finally the order was in, but it wasn’t for semen. It was something else.

So I had to call another advice nurse, and explain the situation again, and in case you didn’t know, it’s hard to be a woman with a semen sample, or trying to get one. Every person I talked to started out addressing me as ma’am, and ended up calling me sir. And the receptionist seemed to be enjoying making me talk to as many people as possible. I hate Kaiser. I hate my country.

I love my Romeo. After I gave up and was driving down to Berkeley, to work, she/he called again, from Germany. The other thing about being a woman with a semen sample is that it ain’t easy to come by. Pun intended. Testosterone, in my experience, does it any time, any place. Estrogen … unh-unh. Plan was to find a cozy bathroom stall, or broom closet, and have phone sex with Romeo, who had been looking forward to this all day. And calling me every 15 minutes.

"Not now," KP’d made me say again and again, to my love, to my life, who I crave like air. "I have a headache."

Later that day, while the kids were napping, Kaiser finally got it all sorted out. I got a call from the urology department, wanting to schedule me for a vasectomy.

I said, "um" …

Corn on the curb

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I pick up my brother at the airport. It might not always be the Oakland airport, but I will always pick up my brother at the airport. Besides love, there’s corn in it for me. Ohio corn. I didn’t know about this angle when I tried to lift his suitcase, while he was busy with a big ragged box with duct tape all over it, situating this in the back of my little car — just so, because that’s the way he is.

Me, I’ve been struggling with the Meaning of Life a little lately, and you never know where you will find a sense of purpose. Why not at the curb outside of baggage claim? I didn’t know, I just thought I would make myself useful.

I got the suitcase about an eighth of an inch off of the ground, then decided to just wait quietly for my hug, and let it back down.

"I’ll get that," he said. After he got it, after the hug, we were driving away and he said, "Do you know what’s in that suitcase?"

"Something really very heavy," I said.

And that was when he said, "Corn."

"Ah," I said, as if corn, all things considered, made perfect sense.

"Ohio corn," he said. "Picked this morning. Four dozen ears of Ohio corn."

"OK then," I said.

He had me go through his old neighborhood, which is West Oakland, because he wanted to leave some on his ex’s steps, and his buddy Ron’s steps, and for all I knew some other people’s steps.

But it was 10:30 at night and I wondered about raccoons and other terrorists. I wondered this out loud.

"You’re right," he said. "I’ll deliver it in the morning." And we got back on the freeway.

We went to my house and started eating the corn in my kitchen, standing up. We didn’t bother to boil it or anything, and it was pretty good, but I still didn’t know about bringing four dozen ears of fresh corn on an airplane to California. It seemed a little illegal, if not — I don’t know — pointless.

"The fact is," I said to my brother, halfway through my first ear, "we do have corn here." To illustrate my point, I opened the refrigerator and showed him an ear. I’d just bought it at the grocery store. It seemed pretty fresh too. This is California.

"Ohio corn," he said. There was a piece of it on his chin, and his eyes looked glazed, maybe because of the time difference.

I’m supposed to be a food writer, and I wasn’t sure I could tell the difference. It was good, yes. I ate another piece, steamed, at my cousin Choo-Choo’s house the next day. It was great.

But sometimes I get a great ear of corn at the farmers market, too. I guess the meaning of life is that corn means different things to different people, and while a lot of people have little brothers, few if any of them arrive at the Oakland airport with a suitcase full of corn. So there’s that.

Grateful, charmed, and educated, I offered him my life. My cabin, the kids, this column. He said he’d take my records, and my car. "It’s all or nothing," I said. And for the next couple days I went around buying ears of corn at all the local markets.

I’d pay 99 cents (in some cases) for one ear of locally grown organic corn, and eat it raw, or in some cases cooked, and of course in other cases barbecued. And you know what? It never tasted as good as my brother’s suitcase-smuggled Ohio corn.

Which is gone. My brother’s still here, for a couple more weeks. I called him and said, "OK, you can have my records."

He deserves them, but mostly I just love to think of one of my sisters picking him up at the airport in Ohio, trying to lift his suitcase, or his big taped-up box, and not getting it more than an eighth of an inch off the ground.

"Do you know what’s in there?" he’ll say. And she’ll never guess. I wrote this while eating a Vietnamese sandwich at:

TAY TAH CAFE

Mon.–Fri.: 8 a.m.–6:30 p.m.;

Sat. 9 a.m.–6:30 p.m.; Sun. 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

1182 Solano, Albany

(510) 527-8104

No alcohol

MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Man in the mirror

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0

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I love the fog. I love a street lamp. I love my log pile. I had just driven down from the shack so I needed to pee, plus lunch.

"Lamb burrito with chile lime sauce," I said, because I had to know.

"You like spicy?" he said.

"Yes."

"Then you should get the tropical lamb."

"Tropical lamb burrito," I said. "Do you have a bathroom?"

He motioned over his shoulder, through the kitchen, and I went there. But it was unclear. There was a guy sitting in a chair, an unmarked door behind him. I wondered if he was waiting.

"Bathroom?" he said.

When I nodded, he motioned over his shoulder, and as I walked past he said, and I quote, "Flush the toilet."

I closed the bathroom door behind me and took a deep breath, which I don’t normally like to do in unfamiliar bathrooms. But this particular breath seemed called for. I thought I might be maybe going to have a nervous breakdown.

Instead, I peed. I felt good about this decision.

There was no lock on the door. No toilet paper. No paper towels. I washed my hands, wiped them on my skirt, and carefully considered what to do next. Besides go sit down and eat my burrito, I mean. The thing is, I was pretty sure this guy outside the bathroom worked for me. He’d started out as a character in one of my old stories, sitting on a bucket at a gas station in Nevada, I believe, with a rotten spot in his forehead and maybe a worm in it. Uncle Somebody.

I’d made up the worm, of course, but I’m not making this other stuff up. Maybe he wanted a promotion. Tired of being a wormy character in an obscure old literary magazine, he waited for me in restaurants. Or maybe just this one. Who knows how long he’d been sitting there, saying to people, "Flush the toilet."

This rarely happens in movies, let alone restaurant reviews — that a fictional character (within the fiction of the movie, of course) charms, heel-clicks, or brute forces their way into "real life," or, for our purposes, Cheap Eats.

I tried to remember if I’d based my character on someone real, maybe someone I’d seen on the street in, oh, Albany, California, say. San Pablo Ave. I tried to remember what he’d said, in the story. It seemed important — the kind of detail that could make or break me. To give you an idea of my frame of mind, at the time.

I looked in the mirror and did not look good.

And now I was going to have to walk past him again. The way I saw it, not saying anything wasn’t an option. The question was what to say. I decided I would inform him they were out of toilet paper and paper towels. That way I would find out if he worked for the restaurant, and, if so, know that I was off the hook.

But when I went out there, finally, and walked past him and stopped and looked at him, sitting there with his legs spread and his elbows on his knees, leaning forward, I froze. He looked at me looking at him, and I said, in a flash of inspiration, "I flushed the toilet."

Sometimes you have to meet these people on their terms. It’s the last thing they expect, to be embraced by a parrot or a mirror. In fact it’s hard for even me to imagine, when I put it like that.

"What?" he said.

"I flushed the toilet," I said, and I turned and left him there, staring at the floor between his feet, either lost in thought, or defeated.

Either way, I enjoyed my weirdo burrito to the best of my ability, and its. Lamb in a spicy honey curry sauce, with black beans and rice in a tortilla. Chips on the side.

You don’t believe me, do you.

THE HOT SHOP

Mon.–Sat.: 11 a.m.–8 p.m.

909 San Pablo Ave, Albany

(510) 528-9011

No alcohol

Cash only

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Hard-headed

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0

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS The wheel came off the shopping cart and the whole thing went over. Cans clanged and rolled. Plastic milk jugs bounced, and the toddler in the kid seat crashed down with them, helpless, tangling with cereal boxes and plastic bags of produce.

Her mom, who was also holding a baby, had the look of a mom who was watching her two-year-old fall on her head. In between the bonk and the scream, there was that split second where question mark and exclamation mark meet. And stare at each other. While tumbleweeds roll silently by like a lone little wheel down Aisle 7. The sun moves a little. There’s so much space in that flat, hard moment that you could land an airplane on it.

Then: the long, loud, first breathless wail, like being born all over again. In automatic sympathy, everyone else holds their breath too, thinking: Breathe, kid! Breathe! But I know how hard kids’ heads are, compared to their mothers’ hearts. I’m more worried about the mom. In the time it took her to drop to the grocery store floor, still cradling her baby in one arm, and gathering up her now bawling toddler in the other, a crowd had formed.

Two store managers, displaying athleticism rarely seen outside track meets, were first on the scene. Before all the cans had even stopped rolling, they were offering the hurt and/or scared shitless child Popsicles and juice boxes. But the kid was inconsolable. "I’m not feeling well," she said, between wails.

For the next 15 minutes, nothing changed. The kid cried. The baby, heroically, stayed calm. While the mother, squeezing and rocking and there-there-ing, checked her older child’s head for bumps, or worse.

While the two store managers divided their labor, one serenading the mom with an endless stream of apology, the other scrambling for still brighter colors of Popsicles. While a couple of the bystanders, in a desperate attempt to be byuseful, bytapped the scattered groceries into a pile with their feet. While the woman in the business suit said, "You need to take her to see a doctor, right now."

To her credit, at least she said this just once. Whereas the woman who wasn’t in a business suit, speaking on behalf of all the rest of Berkeley, Calif., where this happened, would not stop repeating one word, "Arnica."

So, then, the song goes like this:

"Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry. There, there, sweetie. Show mommy where it hurts."

Crying crying. "I’m not feeling well." Crying.

"How about purple?" Crying.

"Arnica."

"Ma’am, do you want me to hold the little one for you? We’re so sorry. Does she need ice, ma’am?"

"How about green? Do you like green?"

"Arnica." Crying.

"Sweetie, sweetie, it’s OK sweetie." Crying. "Mommy’s here, sweetie. It’s all right."

"Arnica."

"Ma’am." Crying. "If there’s anything at all." Crying. "We can do, Ma’am."

"Arnica."

And on and on and onica, until finally the mother, briefly wondering why she lives where she lives, pried her attention away from her crying child to look this woman in the eye and say, "Will you please go away?"

Which is where I, in the spirit of Lou Reed singing, "I’m just the waterboy<0x2009>/the real game’s not over here," admit that I wasn’t there. I’d hear all about it … how they escaped to the parking lot, to their car, only to find the store managers, through the miracle of pole vaults and sheer speed, had collected, bagged, and long-jumped their groceries to the parking lot, to their car, ahead of them. And free! I’d help put those groceries away. But I wasn’t there. I was in San Francisco, in a swirl of pain and fear all my own, eating duck soup by myself at my new favorite restaurant.

THE OLD SIAM

Daily: 11 a.m.–11 p.m.

201 Ellis, SF

(415) 885-5144

No alcohol

MC,V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Worth it

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0

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS He signs his e-mails Romeo. I sign mine Juliet. It’s cute, but you try not to think about how that one ends.

You know … well, you probably don’t know, so I’ll tell ya: if you’re a trans woman dating men, you can spend years and years and years trying to find one who doesn’t either cream his pants or throw up as soon as you take your clothes off. And then, by some miracle of shifting continents and a spectacularly rare alignment of stars, planets, and good hair days, you do! You find, in fact, the one. Now, like everybody else in love, you have to kinda wait. And see. What happens.

There are questions. There is distance. There are Capulets and Montagues, jobs, exes, currents. There are riptides and undertows, sharks, lions and tigers and bears … and there are days when you feel like you are on Cloud 10. I like those days. They’re way better than the other ones, where you feel like you are hacking your way through a jungle of impossibility with a plastic butter knife and without mosquito repellent.

Yo, Shakey, is this what love is supposed to feel like? A million mosquito bites? Probably not, but I’ll take it. I’ll take it because it’s perfect. It’s perfect! It really is — give or take 5,822 miles and a logistical conundrum that would make Alfred North Whitehead reach for his binkie — perfect.

My head hurts. Again. (And again and again.) The last time I remember feeling really physically good, let’s see, I was sitting in my new favorite restaurant with my soccery girlfriends, eating grilled meatball and green apple spring rolls dipped in this insanely delicious orange pork sauce.

And if you think that sounds slightly odd, the next item on the menu is a grilled shrimp Popsicle on sugar cane.

No, it’s not some kind of funky fusion foofoo place, it’s Pot de Pho, Geary and Parker streets, and I love it. Yeah, it’s a little pricier than most Vietnamese restaurants, but worth it because it’s worth it, and fun. They don’t overly worry about authenticity. I like that. It’s like, let’s do Vietnamese food with all the best ingredients possible, well-researched recipes, and a sense of fun.

Our waiterguyperson, like the menu, was full of enthusiasm. He told us he was starting a new happy hour thing, making cocktails and punch and stuff using just wine and sake by way of alcohol.

The pho was good, I didn’t order it, of course, because I’d eaten noodle soup for lunch and dinner the day before, and still had a big pot of it at home in my fridge. But I did taste.

It’s $10 for a large bowl, $8.75 for a medium, and $5 child size. And, although they do offer a chicken pho, a vegan pho, and even (for a couple bucks more) an ahi tuna pho, they don’t offer tendon and tripe as options for their beef pho.

That’s the kind of thing I might have made fun of them for a few years ago — even though I would have been snickering over a bowl with just rare steak, every time.

Oy.

Bean sprouts are in the soup, not on the side. Wide rice noodles instead of vermicelli. They have a Vietnamese sandwich, but in a green onion crepe instead of a crusty French roll … The authenticity snobs will complain. But you know what? The older I get, the more I couldn’t care less about words like authentic and traditional, and grammar in general.

If it wasn’t for inauthenticity and maltradition somewhere down the line, we’d all be having bananas and bugs for lunch. Thank you, I’ll try the green apple spring rolls and green onion crepes.

Speaking of crepes, I’m pretty sure the French gave pho to the Vietnamese, not to mention French bread.

That’s why Pot de Pho is my new favorite restaurant, for giving us grilled shrimp Popsicles. And because the teacups are a pretty shade of green, and the chairs there are cushy and comfortable. I need that right now. Pretty shades of green and a soft, comfy chair.

POT DE PHO

Tues.-Thurs., Sun.: 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

Fri.-Sat.: 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; closed Mon.

3300 Geary, SF

(415) 668-0826

Wine, beer

MC,V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

A story goes with it

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS There’s something reassuring about this, that, blink, 15 years later there’s still a line outside Kate’s Kitchen on Sunday morning. And they still haven’t figured out how to make home fries taste like anything. And their homemade sausage patties are still only slightly more flavorful than hockey pucks — but not nearly as succulent. And I will still wait in line for half an hour to eat there.

The good news is I won’t have to do so again until 2024, at my current rate of amnesia.

There’s more good news. I’d scored a goal in a soccer game that same Sunday morning, so while the Maze and me were waiting, he in his bicycle sweat and me in my soccer stink, I got to describe this great goal in great detail, the ins and outs, overs and unders, the intricacies, the outricacies … there was all the time in the world.

Having seen me play soccer before, the lucky fuck, my Maze’s amazement was palpable. His forehead wrinkling into a labyrinth of wonder, he asked, "You didn’t get lonely?"

Now, to appreciate the excellence of this question, one would have to be an avid Cheap Eats reader, which I’m not. So he had to explain it to me, but I don’t have the time to explain it to you because, contrary to all appearances to the contrary, this is not a review of Kate’s Kitchen, and we haven’t even sat down yet. Suffice to say, it was a good question, and the answer was, no, I didn’t get lonely.

"Were you nervous you would miss?"

"I wasn’t nervous," I said. "I was sure I would miss." Have I explained this already, to you nonathletes? There’s the zone, see, and then there’s the no-zone, and the cool thing is that in either of them anything at all is possible.

"Your table’s ready" … for example.

It was so loud inside Kate’s that a little kid was holding his ears. It was so loud that, once seated, I kind of wished we were still standing outside on the sidewalk. And that was before our food was served.

Another thing about this day was that it was the San Francisco Marathon. So the Maze and me were not the only sweaty smelly people in town. We’d watched some of them staggering along Haight Street, way after the fact, looking like death and saying, "Thank you. Thank you." Because everyone was congratuutf8g them. Marathoners inspire me, too. Big time. I wanted to pat them on the back, but was afraid they might fall over.

The Maze tried to explain bike racing to me. The last stage of the Tour de France was that day, too, and he’d been watching and following it. These ‘uns ride 100-plus miles a day for weeks and there are mountains and sprints and teams and packs and stages, and all I kept thinking about, the whole time he was talking, was their butts.

But that night we watched a little bit of it on his computer, and I thought I understood. Bike racing, like any other sport, has stories in it. And that’s what makes it, and life, interesting. I think it was a Damon Runyon character who used to say this, about horses: "There’s a story goes with it."

I say that sometimes about a restaurant. Maybe it’s what used to be there before this place. Maybe it’s something important that happened to you, like divorce. Or a particularly transcendent chili.

Looney’s in Berkeley just opened a second Looney’s in Oakland, on MLK Blvd., making it the closest barbecue to my house. I go by it many times a week. I’ve eaten their pulled pork sandwich, and french fries, and I’ve studied their menu, which is extensive for a barbecue joint — and expensive, for a barbecue joint. I’ve sampled a few of their many sauces, but I still don’t know their story. Sign says they were voted Alameda County’s best barbecue. Really??? I might eat there four more times this week, in the company of 12 more question marks. They have a lunch buffet, beef stroganoff, and clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls.

Something tells me they ain’t going to make it until 2024. Help me understand.

LOONEY’S SOUTHERN BBQ

Daily: 11 a.m.–10 p.m.

5319 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Oakl.

(510) 652-1238

Full bar

AE/MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

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