Yes, We're Together

My husband and I don't often go shopping together, for various reasons. But when we do, about half the time, a checkout person will not realize we're together. "Oh, I didn't realize you were together," they'll say as I scoot my toothpaste up the conveyor belt with his razors. This, despite the fact that we've been talking about personal things and standing roughly half an inch away from each other. And probably holding hands or something smooshy like that.

I generally put it down to the level of distraction in the store. A checker must have a million things to keep straight, those registers are full of tricks, and sometimes the poor thing is wearing an earpiece blaring God knows what sales messages into their brain. Still, it's bothersome.

It's not even the blatant racism of it that bugs me the most. It's the negation of us as a couple, a reminder that here in the Midwestern U.S., the marital combination of our skin tones will always be seen as an anomaly. Not that a handful of people being blind to our coupledom matters that much in our day-to-day lives. But it still shocks me a little bit every time, and the really sad part is it shocks me a bit less each time.

International Food Field Trip

As we headed out of the building, one of my fellow travelers said, “I can’t believe we’re really going!” I couldn’t, either – we’d been plotting a lunchtime field trip to Jay International Foods for at least a month. Besides me, there were three young coworkers, all guys, all creative and funny and adverturesome in their eating and cooking.

When you enter the store, you get a small idea of what it smells like to travel the world. Myriad unidentifiable scents form a semi-sour wall built on fresh-fish base notes; I’m always relieved when it fades, as stinkiness is not my favorite part of traveling.

There are at least a hundred kinds of jam: rosehip, plum, apricot. I picked up a jar of ginger preserve. They sstock more kinds of fish sauce than seem logical, tubs of spices for less than half the cost of a single small grocery-store bottle, enormous bags of rice and tins of oil that will last for years. In the frozen section, you can find squid, whole jack mackerel in two sizes, very cute flat fish of some sort, and the infamously stinky durian.

Part of the fun of going to any international food store is gawking at the packaging. We found a bottle of “Chee-zee” spread with a cheesy-looking kid on it, an ingredient list that included “lovely,” and many products that were clearly named but still unfathomable, such as “Beef Iron Wine.”

The dry goods are arranged by country, and because I lived in Japan for a few years, I tend to get nostalgic in that section. This time it was the mayonnaise that made me think of the adventures I had figuring out what to buy in Tokyo’s grocery stores. It was Kewpie brand, with its nonsequitur image of the ‘40s-era doll, in a bottle made of thin plastic that ensures you’ll get every drop out. I’m good on mayo, though, so I picked up a box of Vermont curry mix – this is Japanese-style curry, a block of trans fat and spices that you add to your meat and veg to make a viscous, sweet gravy. One of the guys picked up nori and wasabi, and ingredients for spring rolls.

Another guy needed tamarind paste, but the closest thing we could find was tamarind chutney. I asked a nearby Indian man whether it could be substituted for the paste. At first, he thought I just wanted him to get out of the way so I could get to the shelf beyond him, but when he realized I was asking him a question, he smiled broadly and attempted to answer it. Then he asked me to wait a moment, and called his wife over. She had been in the other aisle, and by the time she got to us, she seemed a little annoyed, said something vague, and gave me a head wag that I had trouble interpreting. My husband has told me many times that Indians hate to say no, and this particular wag seemed too vague for a “yes.”

Later on, still bothered by the Indian woman’s watery answer and the thought of a friend making Pad Thai with the wrong form of tamarind, I asked a store employee about the tamarind paste. “Aisle 17. Chinese and Thai.” Sure enough, there it was, blocks of it stacked up right across from the Indian section, where I had righteously expected it to be.

One of the guys, who had a Vietnamese friend growing up, bought a packet of sweets that were green, chewy, tasted like popcorn, and were filled with a sweet white bean paste. He handed us each one in the car on the way back, which prompted all kinds of commentary and discussion, capped off by a “Thanks, I think.”

We must have stayed for more than half an hour, but it felt too fast. Next time, I want to start earlier and have a meal while we’re out.

Lunchtime Walkabout

On Friday I made good on my promise to myself to stop paying ridiculous prices for mediocre produce, and went to Soulard Farmers Market on my lunch hour. It’s in one of the oldest sections of the city, a French-steeped enclave of three-story, Mansard-roofed, all-brick wonderment. For $10, I bought 10 pounds of potatoes, three pounds of Fuji apples, two pounds of sweet potatoes, two zucchini, seven bananas, a dozen brown eggs from chickens that don’t live in cages, and a beef stick.

Back in the car, enjoying my salty, meaty snack, I realized I’d only been away from the office for half an hour, and wasn’t ready to go back. There’s been some stress there lately, and I need my midday break more than ever. Also, Terry Gross was interviewing Leonard Cohen on the radio, and there was no way I wanted to miss that.

And that’s how I decided to go lunchtime walkabout. Be a tourist in my own town.

I pointed my car north on Broadway and started driving. Office buildings and freeway entrances quickly gave way to 18th-century warehouses with antiquated loading docks facing the street and company names painted on their brick flanks in massive block letters. There were a few “gentlemen’s clubs,” a motorcycle chop shop called “Biker’s Paradise,” a tattoo parlor, and many more warehouses. Then the brick buildings gave way to more modern structures, and I got bored and decided to turn west.

I spotted a beige-colored church and made my way toward it, doglegging to find a way over the highway between me and it. Holy Trinity, a German Catholic establishment dating to 1898, and still in great shape. I thought about going in, but felt more inclined to keep driving.

I spotted another church, and as I got nearer, I could see windows broken, including some in the huge rose window that is now only partially stained glass. The shutters of the belfry in disrepair, even some of the stone newel posts out front worn down to nubs from their original cone-shaped prettiness. But even with all that, church buses, a healthy building next door, signs of a community.

Another church, another meandering drive toward it. Plywood sheets over most of the places where stained glass used to be. The lettering on the sign out front indicating a soup kitchen, maybe. No buses, no real signs of life, German etched in stone and the year 1896.

And that’s when I started to cry. Not bawling, mind you, just weepy sadness, thinking about the people who built these places, the hope they must have had, the slow slide into decrepitude that must have led to the plywood, the death of countless communities all over this area of the city.

I was married in a church not far from these – St. Stanislaus Kostka, completed in 1880, built by Polish immigrants, and saved during the 1970s by a community of stubborn Polacks who poured their hearts into renovating the church and building a community center – with little help from the Archdiocese. They all live miles and miles away, and they come into the city every Sunday, and many other days, to celebrate Mass, hold Easter egg hunts and meetings, and plan for the future.

Why? How? So many churches in the area are dead – what made this one, and the first one I saw, different? Was it the collective temperament of the community? One charismatic leader? General histories are available online, but timelines and blurbs can’t possibly capture the alchemy that must have been necessary.

I knew I was near St. Stanislaus, but I wasn’t sure which direction to turn, and at any rate, my time was up. It was enough to know it was there, and feel grateful that it lived. I found myself going south on Jefferson, still a bit sad, but refreshed.