My neighborhood has sprouted a new eating phenomenon….salad.
Across from every Starbucks seems to be a Just Salads, a Sweet Green or a Fresh & Co featuring quite a few choices, and can’t say I’m too sorry since I patronize all three, favoring the latter.
For around 10 bucks you get a bowl of the green of your choice Elsie would be very content with. They have names like, California Cobb that’s got mushrooms, cucumbers and blue cheese. Then there’s the Old West, well, that’s what I call it, with kidney beans, corn and avocado, all drizzled with a slew of various organic dressings.
This is how I’ve come to be a kale girl, the Grace Kelly of greens. After all the lettuce terror going on, it seems the safest, but also healthiest, which is how I got into a forced discussion on E. Coli with a woman I so wanted to belt.
Fresh & Co is pleasant, but still a fast food eatery…chairs not quite comfy, tables a bit too close together, to discourage their patrons from spending the afternoon, unlike Starbucks who besieges you like co-dependent parents.
I normally get my salad to go but not today. A soon to be revealed mistake.
I squeeze in next to two women. One is a pretty Latino lady happily eating an avocado and cheddar panini, another thing they make, casually dressed and not on her phone, so we love her immediately.
The other woman, very Upper East Side, her engagement ring the size of a macaroon, is texting between bites of her panini that has lipstick across it.
I’m the only salad eater of the 3.
Macaroon turns two me and says, “Haven’t you seen the news? You shouldn’t be eating lettuce.”
I say nicely, “It’s kale, not lettuce…of the cabbage family,” sounding like Julia Child. She shakes her head, her hair hardly moving and says, “It’s green isn’t it? You have to be really stupid to be eating it.”
In 12 Step they encourage…not to pick up the rope, meaning, don’t engage with assholes, but sometimes that rope is just too tempting not to twirl.
“So let me ask you, money’s green, maybe you shouldn’t be spending it because it might give you a terrible disease, if it hasn’t already, ya know, like rudeness.”
The other woman starts to giggle.
“I don’t think what she said to me was so funny,” said Macaroon, her forehead so Botoxed it couldn’t properly rise nor wrinkle to the occasion.
The lady starts laughing harder.
So then I start laughing to the point where the two of us are practically in tears.
Needless to say, there was suddenly much more room at our table when you know who gathered her Gucci satchel with the matching iPhone case and flounced out.
The other lady said to me, “I’m comin here more often, for the entertainment.”
We then had coffee and cookies together, her treat, so one could say, I sang for my salad. 🙂
SB
What a great comeback, Susannah. What an extremely crass and rude person; just the kind I might get stuck with on a long bus, train, or plane ride, ha ha. I’m glad you had an appreciative and welcome lunch mate. It’s so refreshing to laugh until you cry.
The problem is not with all lettuce. Just lettuce grown in a certain area. Pookie and I eat lots of salad, almost every day. We usually use spinach for half the greens.
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Ok. I’ll add spinach to my Old Western. New Yorkers, especially where I live, are notoriously rude. It’s truly gone viral. Sigh
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PS. Happy Mother’s Day. 🙂
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Mic Drop right there Susannah! *BAM*
I love how you two shut her right down with laughter. Who needs weapons when you’re packing a quick wit, and an audience.
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She was so mad, and of course, the lapsed Catholic that I am, felt guilty afterwards, not to mention worried now kale would be the next Charlie Manson of greens.
All this Top, just to have lunch…geesh
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This is the best! You are the queen of quick comebacks. Wish I could do that but I tend to stutter and stammer, thinking of the perfect response 6 hours later! I would have bought you dessert too!
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That lipsticked panini was a great inspiration, and don’t underestimate yourself, my money’s on you if she ever shows up at a Starbucks in Pennsylvania.
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Lipstick on food grosses me out so you never know!
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Exactly. 🙂
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not such a mistake. I would go out of my way to be able to get away with that!
Scott
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Perfect response – ridicule the rude jerk! Loved the macaroon title.
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I’m here reading Mary Wesley. Gave you read her? She’s amazing.
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No, I haven’t heard of her. I’ll look her up.
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She was 71 when she published her first novel. She’s English. I’m on my 4th book. I rarely read fiction so it’s a delightful surprise.
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You made me wonder, where I got macaroon from. My local market had a half price sale on all Passover items, so guess who bought a slew of macaroons? 🙂
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It takes a lot of chutzpah to go into a salad restaurant and insult people for eating salad. I’m glad you had an ally/kindred spirit in the exchange. 🙂
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It was rather funny and sheer New York. It’s that elite attitude permeating the wealthier class. You see it everywhere in every restaurant, fast or fancy, Whole Foods, coffee shops. Starbucks could be considered the hub. You live in polite country David, and it comforts me to know it still exists somewhere.
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Your wit is quick and sharp! Excellent!!
Yesterday John had to be towed to the dealer after our car broke down. The Tennessee man asked where he was from. John answered, “Brooklyn”. Tennessee couldn’t believe it. He said John didn’t sound like it, and he didn’t act like he knew everything. They had wonderful conversation after that.
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Has a John Steinbeck feel to it. 🙂
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We enjoyed Steinbeck.
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Me too. His voice is so distinctive. I’m always awed by writing so strong you can identity it at once.
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