Tales From My Brooklyn: The Search For Sausage

I was stumped for sausage. I made a batch of cheese and parsley links last night for stuffing that turned out to be horribly bad. Instead of a fragrant spicy aroma, the room was plastered with the stench of scorching Velveeta. Nothing says you have no idea what you’re doing in the kitchen like a pot full of gurgling burning cheese. The meat didn’t cook, it drowned in cheese. It was a coronary night mare.
I killed Thanksgiving.

I had no choice but to start over. It was however, 11pm on Thanksgiving Eve…After a night of uneasy dreams of being strangled by links of cheese sausage while hanging over a vat of burning Velveeta I fell out of bed. Splashed water on my face and left, making sure I was wearing pants.

I fell out of bed and headed out the door. I returned to put on pants and resumed my mission. The streets were deserted. The stores were closed. Well, the food stores were closed, the hardware store was open.

*Because no one may need food on the biggest cooking day of the year, but they may in fact, need a ladder. *

I tried the various avenues and side streets. I tried my butcher (closed) and my supermarket (“You mean like, frozen sausage for pizza?”) and the Korean grocer which resulted in a back and forth mispronunciation-fest that ended in both of us looking puzzled at each other and saying, “Susshhhssshhaaghhhesss…?!”

Despondent, I drove the dirty streets of this dirty city thinking of all the children, old folks and puppies I’d be disappointing if I came up dry. Then I realized I didn’t have any children, old folks or puppies and it hit me like a bolt out of the blue; what do you think of when you think of puppies? Yes, ravioli! I knew where I needed to be. Ravioli Fair on 86th would have the best sausage and all the Italian goodies that used to populate my grandmother’s table.
It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle, they were open!

There were a couple of guys behind the counter surrounded by the best Italian delights a guy like me could hope for. They offered me a cup o joe and a few rings of fried calamari. I thanked them for being open and saving the day and one of them said in his thick accent from home, “Hey, I’ve been open Thanksgiving morning for 32 years, I ain’t gonna change that. And besides, what am I gonna do home anyways?”
The two customers next to me were eating some fresh homemade stuffing out of pint containers and cooing over the Neapolitan flair of it. The conversation was light and jovial. The atmosphere was festive and perfect. There was no rush or fuss. There was no emergency because they had simply the most beautiful sausages I ever saw. I bought three rings. One of the counter guys brought out a fresh pie of pizza rustica which I haven’t had since Nona’s passing, some20 years ago. I bought a hunk and took a bite as I sipped my coffee. This is what home is supposed to taste like.

This was my Brooklyn. A place where you could go into a store and talk to the counter guys like they’ve known you for years. Where they offer you a cup of coffee and a sample with a proud smile. I could hang out at places like this all the time. I sometimes wish I made it big only so I could pass my days with these characters that would populate the pages of my books should I ever get to writing them all down. So much of my Brooklyn is disappearing and being replaced by a mythical vision created by hipsters and transplants who “saw it in a movie” and decided to recast it in that image. It’s not real but where I’m from still exists if you know where to find it. Thankfully, as I sit with my family and eat myself into a coma as I hope you’re doing, I feel lucky to still call it my home.