Virgil

What A Piece Of Work Is A Donut

Several years ago my friends Brian and Vaune got married on top of the Empire State Building. Before the ceremony, Vaune's little nephew Joe and I were talking and I asked him what he planned to be when he grew up.

A cop, he said.

Excellent, I said back. But what kind? Good cop or bad cop? He thought for a second.

A fat cop.

Smartass, I thought, as I gazed out from high above the blood-soaked streets and concrete canyons of the Naked City. But he had a point.

Cops get a lot of flak for eating donuts, but if you're going to put your life on the line every day, shouldn't there be a donut waiting for you at regular intervals, like so many deep-fried torus-shaped oases dotting the burning Sahara of the day shift?

I think in a reasonable world the answer must be yes. And the greatest donuts in the reasonable world just happen to be in Greenpoint, where I live in a squalid two room basement apartment with my six brothers, their wives, and most of their children.

We feed the children on donuts from Peter Pan donut shop on Manhattan Ave, and they grow large, and grow hungrier, and as they grow, they get cavities, which must be paid for, which means less money for donuts, and so they grow angry.

One day they will destroy us all. But not with their teeth; they will have none.

Polish Food, yes.

Greenpoint, my neighborhood in Brooklyn, is solidly working class Polish. Hipsters have made a depressing fashion gauntlet of nearby Williamsburg for years now, but in Greenpoint, the majority of the stores, restaurants and bars do their business and their socializing in Polish. There's a good deal of xenophobia-they're not fond of blacks, jews, gays, arabs, hipsters, asians or anyone, really, who doesn't look, dress, think, drink, or act like them. So who DO they like? They like Poles,  oh yes they do, and they like 'em a lot. It's not overt; you won't be jumped, just stared at and muttered after. It's tolerable, if not pleasant.

But there are benefits to this isolationist attitude.  For me the list of benefits starts (and ends) with Polish food. Good, filling, and cheap. Stuffed cabbage, pierogis, potato pancakes, spinach, red cabbage--christ, I'm getting hungry and I haven't even finished leaching the trace nutrients from the delicious cinnamon french cruller I had this morning at Peter Pan Donut  Shop (a post devoted to this magnificent place is forthcoming).

My first few years here, when times were tough, I ate at S&B restaurant on Bedford Ave almost nightly. Their split pea soup with keilbasa is unsurpassed, and for the unemployed, (like I was then and shall be again soon) the price, at 2.50 a bowl with toast, means that starvation is postponed another day and that a cheap beer and a game of pool at the Turkey's Nest are on the schedule to round out anther perfect New York City night. Huzzah!