Today we lunched at Gruby’s New York Deli on William Hilton Parkway. Its venue is perhaps best known as located in the Fresh Market shopping mall where in fact we likely first encountered the deli years ago. Our venture there today was the product of a number of things. First, we wanted to perform our final visit to Zips car wash (also on William Hilton Parkway) before our ticket expires tomorrow. Second, we planned to fill the gas tank of the car before our departure from the island on Saturday next. And finally, as our own larder provisions methodically dwindle, we proposed to profit by the occasions in the neighbourhood to exhaust our daily appetites at Gruby’s.
We have lately (that is, within the past two years or so) learned that the most we require for nutrition is two meals/day (normally breakfast and dinner); but, if we have a substantial mid-day luncheon, we’re assured not to have an evening appetite (except perhaps for a healthful fruit dessert). This morning we avoided the customary breakfast tray as well; so once seated at the restaurant our interest in the menu was beyond acute.
This – as I am certain you know – is a moment when the spirit is elevated often in excess of capacity. A lively appetite is a yearning replete with a mendacity of its own peculiar nature. Not only is the dimension of the craving far out of proportion to the cavity within which it is destined; but also is the colour and flavour of the project is soon diminished by equal share. The result is lack of contentment on all sides; viz., appeal and taste, both of which uniquely collide in a manner not anticipated. It is the this reason that, when considering the items on the menu (wherein the clever merchant has expanded the literary rendition to the point of alluring folklore), one must step back and recall, “What was my first choice?” Chances are, if (as we had done) the meal was pre-planned, you had already formulated within your noggin what it was you intended to have at Gruby’s New York Deli. The native gastronomic mind tends in these circumstances to have elected a traditional fare; or, at the very least, one with which one is accustomed by prior consumption. If so, my point is this: stick with it! Do not be persuaded to combine the Dickensian talent of communication with its several items on the now much-expanded menu of alternatives; instead hold fast to your initial suggestion (perhaps the one which modestly arose at table after dinner last evening – and, pointedly, after having eaten dinner last evening.
It was with these diminishing segments in mind that, after perusing the entire menu with more than a little culinary ambition, I thankfully relented to my initial (and comparatively modest) choice; namely, chicken soup to start followed by a chopped liver sandwich. I confess to having embellished the chicken soup with a Matzah ball; and satisfied myself that the sandwich included a side of Cole slaw and a dill pickle. To start things off, I ordered a lemonade which, when it arrived, a small young girl happened to be passing by our table and she noted with extraordinary envy that my ample glass of lemonade was pink. And – what she didn’t know but which I soon discovered by an appropriately polite sip through my plastic straw – it was sweetened with sugar. The addiction had been nurtured! If formed a superb start to what followed.
I shall as always spare you, Dear Reader, the frivolous details of the soup and sandwich except to observe that all was ideal. I could not have been more satisfied, including the lingering appetite for more (all the while knowing nothing of the kind was either appropriate or necessary). We did however stop by a nearby sweet shop upon our retirement from Gruby’s to have a small cup of ice cream as a compliment to the exceedingly delicious luncheon.
You may laugh at the proposed intelligence of this trifling philosophic and pyschical assertion. Yet is succeeds to accomplish the very rare attribute of selectivity and moderation, neither of which if once trespassed outside the range of its reasonable boundaries will be forgotten as a, “I knew I shouldn’t have…” introduction.
Post Scriptum:
For the record – and in the interest of full and complete disclosure – my partner was similarly content with his first choice, an open hot brisket sandwich. Accordingly, based upon empirical evidence supported by complimentary deductive logic, I rest my case!