Archive for the 'butter' Category

Tony’s story — Part #2

February 19, 2007

“I took everything I could get my hands on …”

TONY (written while he was in jail)
“See, when I was growing up [ages 5-7], we had what people call a soup line. Kids and parents were lined up for blocks and when I say blocks, I mean 10-12 blocks, literally. We had to have stamps for bread: 1/2 a stamp for a loaf and one stamp for so-called butter, which was really lard).

“Me and the crew would steal food from the navy to feed my family and crew. There was five kids in my crew: Pete (the milk man), Dave (the meat man), Jimmy (the pick pocket), Larry (the clothing man) and me, Tony. I didn’t have a specialty; I took everything I could get my hands on. If I could sell it, I took it.”

Posted in bad choices, bread, burglary, butter, childhood, clothing, dockside, Don Jail, food, food stamps, lard, letter from jail, meat, milk, picking pockets, poor, poverty, right to eat, soup kitchen, soup line, stealing | 1 Comment »

Arts and crafts

January 18, 2007

KD

PHILIP
“What did you do last night?”

TONY
“I cooked up some Kraft Dinner. Four of ’em.”

PHILIP
“Exactly where did you do that?”

TONY
“I went over to my Dave’s, my friend Dave’s.”

“Anyway, my recipe for Kraft Dinner is you start by chopping up a fresh onion. You boil the noodles the same as always, drain it out, and put in the onion and cook it ’til the onion gets clear. Then you put in the cheese. I like extra cheese so later you grate in some mozzarella, about a quarter of a brick. Then you put in the margarine and cook it up a bit more. Then you put in cream to get it to the right thickness. Most people use milk but cream’s the one to use. Then you put in the mozzarella and stir it up.”

PHILIP
“You ate your way through four boxes of Kraft Dinner last night?”

TONY
“Yup. You think four’s a lot? I should tell you about going to the buffet once when I was working for George Segal. You’d like that one.”

Posted in about last night, advice, arts and crafts, buffet, butter, cheese, choices, cook, cooking, cream, dinner, extra cheese, food, George Segal, KD, Kraft Dinner, macaroni and cheese, margarine, meal, milk, onion, recipe | 9 Comments »

I should have been my sister

December 8, 2006

Tony remembering the days of ironing

TONY
“My mom would always say that my sister should have been me [Tony] and I should have been her [Tony’s sister]. I could do the chores better than she did.

“I’ll give you a funny example. Back in the days, instead of my wife doing the ironing, it would be me. See, she [Tony’s wife] learned that I could iron pants better, so they would have a good crease. You just got to have a dish towel and some brown paper. You fold the brown paper tight where the crease is and then you wet down the dish towel a bit. Then you put the towel over the paper and iron it and the pants come out perfect. Once my mom said you could almost cut butter with one of my creases.”

Posted in brown paper, butter, chores, clothes iron, dish towels, dusting, funny, house chores, iron, ironic, ironing, irony, mom, mother, sharp creases, sister, steam iron, sweeping, washing dishes | 5 Comments »

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