Editor's Note: This is the fourth part of an essay by Shepherd food writer Todd Lazarski. Read part one here, part two here, part three here and part five here.
I never realized how much white existed on a kitchen wall calendar until we flipped to last month. May 2020: like an endless sea of milk, spilt, all over ripening spring and coming summer and everything between now and the distant horizons sprawling in every direction.
The Target-bought spiral-bound hope of organization and forward-thinking adulting now somehow resembles a hanging talisman of the old joke about how to make God laugh: “make a plan.” There it sits, sometimes taking on the sense of a mirror, the unsmudged kind, too well-lit, the Windex-ed type necessitating looking away, the seeking of distraction. And there it remains, post-dentist visit luminous, crisp, unfettered, yawning, as we’ve quieted the ceaseless streaking of Sharpie, the scribbling and jotting and plotting, the road signs of an appropriately lived, full life, like all of us were looking up at the professor, scrunching brows, nodding knowingly, doodling something in the margins to play at attention and appropriate labor.
Something to look forward to is the key to happiness—an old adage of sorts—is a wise thing a smiling, knitting grandma would say from a rocking chair, indicating you should get moving, with the plan-cementing and the aspirations of nights out and days together. For now though, it is but a march of indistinguishable blocks of vivid pale, a tiny number in the upper left corner of each that means approximately nothing.
The Night the Country Froze
March 11 was a date, in hindsight, that stands out. A memorial-type night where, within the half hour it took to put a toddler to bed, the country froze and sought in vain for the Ctrl+Alt+Del keys on a foreign keyboard. The NBA season was suspended. Rudy Gobert was positive. Tom Hanks had it. An impossibly incongruous confluence: Forrest Gump and a tall French shot-blocker I target in every fantasy basketball draft existing together as the collective harbinger of societal doom.
It felt like being in a movie, or the first episode of Leftovers, but the part that would pass as an emotional montage, and then move on. March 13—Friday the 13th, but not soundtracked or jump-scaring, quiet, and directed by a Fincher or Polanski or Lars Von Trier—was where an unspoken contract was entered by sentient and capable-of-critical thought Americans, a day where laying low, taking it easy, became a gesture of care, an act of society. June 13 is a wedding we’ll attend this year. An idea, an event to schedule a haircut close to, a thing to cause ponder on the state of my black suit, something to look forward to that will have too many long-unseen friends and reunion fueled by an open bar.
It was a wedding we would attend this year. It’s been moved to the fall. July 20 was once a road trip start date, years ago, the commitment steer-branded on my mind, I remember, because people would ask: “What are you doing this summer?” “When are you leaving?” “When will you be in New Orleans?” Everything else of the fruitful season seemed mere preamble, fun-enough filler before an apex, day-after-day of appetizer or salad, a mere whetting of appetite. A big day was coming, anticipation followed me like cartoon character stink lines. July 4 was a date I saw Tom Petty at Summerfest; June 28 was a date I saw Tom Petty at Summerfest; June 30 was a date I saw Tom Petty at Summerfest. These were constellations, a solid reading of the charts, the blipping beacon the control tower sends up when it is stormy and time to turn off autopilot.
Remember the Dates
Now our plain is mostly like the map you see where dragons are fire-breathing around the edges. I remember the dates, like jersey numbers of favorite players, of all the Fridays in whichever is the upcoming month: aims of nocturnal revelry to make all the Tuesdays and Wednesdays and nothing days pay. This year, so far, May 26 meant something, for a while, and April 24 before that. The end, the other end, of Safer at Home. Instead the political panoply that is supposed to represent us sat at home and decided we don’t need that guidance, or a plan. Public safety is less important than dollars. Our Supreme Court sided with all those guys outside all the Capitol buildings with guns.
So maybe it’s time to get back to this, with the togetherness, the glasses clinking, hugs and unprotected mouth-open laughs at sunny beer gardens, the days you circle on the calendar and hope will have no rain, all the times where there is no greater mark of the specialness of a day than the meal. Like when my mom took me to Max & Erma’s for my 8th grade graduation. I don’t recall where the rest of the family was, but I definitely remember the tortilla soup. I’m not sure where my parents took me after high school graduation, but I remember knee-bobbing antsiness, the polite nods at congratulatory mentions of the future, because I was distracted by the prospect of going to go get very, very drunk.
I remember my college graduation, where mom, somehow, before Google maps or Yelp or my Milwaukee food yammering, procured profound reservations at long-lost white tablecloth gourmet Mexican southside spot El Rey Sol. Of course, I also didn’t care that much, because it was mostly a pitstop on a day well-deserving of getting very, very drunk.
Milwaukee Occasion Restaurants
The rest of my Milwaukee occasion-eating can likewise be charted like a sprawling pinned Google map of identity-carving. La Merenda is where I told my parents my novel would be published. Palomino is where we told my mother-in-law we were having a kid, over Bloodys and Marias, piping curds goo-ing with expectation. It is also where I’ve told my wife everything, through the years, our spot of sanctuary, gut-growing comfort, fingers always slick with grease and cocktail condensation.
I began my food writing ventures with a dinner at Braise. Vanguard was dad-rock-appropriate and rightly meaty for my first Father’s Day as a father. Von Trier was memorable for impossibly hard news scrubbing. A liquid yuletide dinner at Jamo’s is where I told a new friend that Die Hard 2 was my favorite Christmas movie, thus cementing an annual tradition, quick-contracting an adult life together of corner bars and such ridiculous conversational ping-ponging.
I think of the spots and memories as a kind of incomplete Pinterest board, accomplished peak experiences that add up to an old man’s personality, the only truly prized collections of a weathered damaged person as he ambles down creaky basement stairs to be with his thoughts and his whiskey and his sad music.
This is where I ponder them all these days, because, of course, we can’t congregate. Not fully. Not at any more than 25% capacity. Not yet.
We must continue to backlog the graduation and retirement celebrations; the birthdays, the date nights, are heretofore banished to arrears. Zarletti has long been a favorite for such big deal days: something so classic in its brand of old-school, low-lit, cozy, big-ish city downtown class; a spot from the Billy Joel song, the one about the bottle of white and the bottle of red, that turns drastically halfway through, and always reminds, surprises, wow, Billy Joel is really good. The spot to bring parents, when they are in town, and making a night of it, destination-dining for before a Jerry Seinfeld show. Or James Taylor. Or maybe another Paul Cebar night. Something at Riverside or Pabst or Turner or one of the other venues we sometimes forget about Downtown because we only go Downtown a few times a year that aren’t Giannis-related, the kind deeming it appropriate to bring parental credit cards and parental-type wine knowledge and the from-out-of-town desire for every appetizer.
It was a New Year’s Eve, frigid beyond reason, a reservation and a window seat gazing on Milwaukee Street’s exhibit of amateur night: illegal-looking mini-skirts scooting by, vehement disregard for jackets, everyone flying trashily against the indifferent wind, quick to get to wait in line, outside, at a place called Dick’s. It was a night where I realized all I wanted was to eat, eat more, chase and maintain a wine buzz, and go home to cozy pants and couch hibernation. I realized I’d turned nearly full adult. Zarletti is currently offering curbside, another step in this direction during our time of being grounded, suspended. It’s a bit of make-believe, like when I put a pinky up in the air while pretend-sipping from an impossibly small cup at a tea-party, playing at elegance, it can be a reason to take a shower, put on non-elasticized pants, and be in the world.
Of course, it’s not as easy as it once was. In our DIY celebration experience there was an unexpected irritability over what to order across the homefront, unease, uncertainty about such a menu existing on my phone—phone menus generally more of the realm of pizza and tlayudas and short rib melts, the unrefined domain within which I thrive.
But, it’s also this: I simply love asking a waiter what to have. The guidance, the expertise, a cultivated person who knows how to pronounce aglio e olio, one who has probably been to Italy more than once, who can do the whole wine presentation rigmarole with appropriate authoritative nonchalance while maintaining white shirt. I was reminded of the crisp, professional Zarletti service and all that our curbside culture leaves me wanting for. All of the plan and the know-how and the guidance that our political system leaves us all wanting for, too. I sought out the phone server’s recommendation, not knowing what to expect—-this is a person answering the phone, this is a person freaked out about job security, this is not your guidance counselor. And, still, there it was, a cheery, helpful rundown of appropriate Chianti’s, clear-voiced reassurance on precise pick-up time, an unabashed endorsement of the Bolognese, lending conviction and a jarring reminder of days where you could talk to people who knew more than you, when you could be lead, by a leader, united, when somebody in a place of esteem and prominence knew to steer with a gentle hand on back. As if you could talk to a favorite grandma again, count on the chief of your country to pretend to care or know how to think or speak in coherent grown-up sentences.
Even the server seemed to take part, ushering our fare outside before my brakes could even squeal, everything in a crisp stapled bag. Donning a medical mask and gloves, he seemed to have my best interest at heart: “I was starting to worry about you,” he said, coyly indicating my tardiness. You and me both, bub, I thought, but didn’t say, because it’s the kind of banter that doesn’t quite translate that well through a mask. Also, I simply felt slow. My interaction-ability, my small talk, seemed to have grown rust, an attempt at rapport seemed foreign, even dangerous. The languor was likewise synonymous with the entirety of downtown around me, dreamily desolate, like an hour of a city where only criminals are out, it all sucking me down, sponging inertia and energy for big weekend night specialness. In the backseat my daughter didn’t care, she was insistent only on seeing the monstrous inflatable lobster or crab or whatever it is atop the Milwaukee Public Market. I obliged, willingly, thinking, honestly, it was actually probably the hottest thing going in town at the moment.
By the time we cracked the bottle, lightly re-warmed polpette di carne, veal and beef meatballs in bright pomodoro sauce, started guzzling old unpronounceable grapes, began twirling linguine flecked with pecorino and chile flakes, lacquered with olive oil and garlic, began greedily sponging Bolognese stew with torn bread pieces because the all-day-seeming simmer of beef and pork had too much heart for rigatoni-conveyance, everything was right, and, somehow nothing seemed quite right. It was not just the takeout containers, needing to be dumped into real bowls. Or the fact we couldn’t find a candle. Or the dimmer switch in our dining room that buzzes subtly when romantic-levels are sought. Or the presence of a baby monitor between us, where a candle should have been. Or that I had to sweep up my own crumbs, and I don’t even have one of those special server crumb-shovels. Or my Nespresso machine, usually seeming quite nice, adequate for after-dinner digestif-ing, was now somehow not noisy enough, not old enough, not machine enough, more of an espresso app, really, compared to any real Italian joint. Or that I still had white paint crusted on my hands, because I’m at that point in quarantine of wandering around the house, simply wondering what else I might give a coat to. Maybe it was that, mostly, being home after all, I didn’t feel particularly rude looking at my phone mid-meal, and thus ruined the moment like the obvious bad date guy in every Nora Ephron piece. The food could not have been better—and yet it underscored that I’ve never missed a restaurant so much.
This is For Grown Ups?
Of course, I can just as much be a liability in a restaurant. My Clark’s always look too scuffed, I don’t know how or when to tuck in a shirt, when we go through the wine tasting, testing bit—so formal, a pretentious thing all our 18-year-old selves would loathe us for—I feel that I’m suddenly sitting in my father’s borrowed and oversized suit, that I’m about to be called out as a fraud, politely asked to leave the place, be told, “this is for the grown-ups.” But if anybody likes the whole charade more—the welcome of the owner, as Frankie Valli seemingly always hits overhead, who kind of puts out his arms like he’s been waiting, the accepting nod from the host when she finds my name, validates my existence in the tablecloth world, the cocktails at the bar stoking expectation, being handed a menu like a fresh Choose Your Own Adventure but after a two-Negroni buzz, the recitation of clandestine specials from the server like a def jam poetry flow where I feel like snapping fingers, the big night conversation so much more potent, charged, so much less small, the feel of spotting your waiter across the room, seeing his hands full, knowing this is it, your time is now—they have a serious problem.
Places like Zarletti don’t exist solely for special occasions. Under now unimaginable normal circumstances, we could go on a random Wednesday. Or for lunch. But, looking back, what did we ever do to deserve that? Did we get good grades? Memorize enough things in school to progress, avoid the margins of society? Did we have all our vaccines as a tyke and eventually quit smoking and go to the doctor once a year-ish and the dentist twice-a-year, more or less? And so now, yes, we should be good, barring car accident or one of those freak early cancer diagnoses that only really happen to other people anyways? Or are we all, the ones here, now, looking forward to going back to a lifetime of memorable meals so numerous we barely notice them, just incomprehensibly lucky?
As of this writing June doesn’t look much better than May, and July—who knows? I notice a chiropractor appointment has sprouted like a weed in an innocuous white cube a few rows from now, making me wonder how the quarantine time warp has trapezed us into our late middle ages. But otherwise there is certainly space to contemplate, reckon, know and grow expectant of how the Sharpie will be ready—so unused, so hard-up—as to come out in those satisfying soaks where you have to write fast to keep from bleeding out, and then keep going, on to the next weekend. For now, out of nostalgia, out of caution, also out of reasonable hopefulness, I’m setting sights again on New Year’s. There will be reservations, and Milwaukee Street a-twinkle with clamorous revelry and mini-skirts like glorified handkerchiefs going by, the biggest fears of everyone just catching a cold, all of us ready to burn 2020 to the ground, dance on the ashes, drunkenly, irresponsibly, appreciatively clinking glasses, and here will come the waiter, expectant of all my wishes, eager to help, ready to hold my hand.
Editor's Note: This is the fourth part of an essay by Shepherd food writer Todd Lazarski. Read part one here, part two here, part three here and part five here.
