NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Trying to breathe in New York in August is like trying to inhale a brick, but sucking in air in that city is the most at home feeling I have ever had.

My most memorable meal was at a tiny little Italian cafe about a block from Times Square. It was the kind of place where everyone is talking at once, and no one understands each other, but the point is not to understand.  The point is just to be human together and enjoy the most primordial of all human experiences: eating.

After being seated, our waiter arrived at our table with an expression so vacant that I cannot imagine it ever being recreated on a face that existed outside of Dumb and Dumber. 

Not really much to my surprise, our waiter, with the constantly obtuse expression plastered on to his visage, was little help in determining something edible to order. I ended up ordering a dish that sounded 'chicken-y' and therefore safe.

Within ten minutes the Jim Carrey clone plopped a suspicious looking substance in front of me.  I examined my meal and tried not to think about the horrific things that would have to happen to get chicken into the yellow and grainy consistency that sat before me. 

This is my dubious face.

The substance, which turned out to be basil-something- and-something-else Polenta ( which is actually a Italian cornmeal dish, with no chicken involved btw) was the most amazing thing I have ever eaten. I am pretty sure on my own personal "tree of life" will actually be a basil-and-whatever-else Polenta tree.

It was that good. I shoveled the remainder of the meal into my appreciative face and then began my life of regret that I did not beg for the recipe from the chef, who I can only imagine looks something like Chef Boyardee and the "Les Possons" guy in the Little Mermaid, because only a chef that authentic could make something so good.