METROPOLITAN DIARY
At Rapoport’s
Dear Diary:
Rapoport’s, a Jewish kosher dairy restaurant on the Lower East Side, was one of my favorites.
The food was delicious, the décor was functional and the bowl of sour tomatoes, pickles and other vegetables always looked like you were not the first customer to serve yourself. And the U-bet chocolate syrup was yours for making an egg cream.
Soon after my wife and I married, I introduced her to Rapoport’s. We both ordered blintzes. They did not disappoint. Although we were no longer hungry, we felt compelled to try one of the restaurant’s legendary pastries for dessert.
I called the waiter over to order.
He looked down at our plates and then into my eyes.
“No dessert,” he said.
I was devastated.
“No dessert?” I whined.
“You didn’t finish your blintzes,” he said.
We looked down at our plates. He was right. My wife and I proceeded to obediently finish the last bits.
The waiter returned with our rugelach.
— Arno Selco
A Crisp Bronx Afternoon
Dear Diary:
On a crisp Bronx afternoon, I prepared our 3-week-old son for his first neighborhood outing, nestling him in his carriage, swaddled in two blankets and a padded snowsuit with matching scarf and mittens.
We shared the elevator down to the lobby with a neighbor who was meeting our son for the first time. The woman, herself a mother of three, smiled sweetly.
“Your baby is too warm and overheated,” she said. “At least take off one of those blankets.”
Imagining my baby sweating uncontrollably, I thanked the woman, took off a blanket and loosened his scarf.
I had almost made it through the lobby to the front door when we encountered another neighbor. She smiled at my son, and then gave me a disapproving look.
“Oh no, your sweet baby will freeze,” she said. “He needs another blanket, and that scarf has to be snug around his neck!”
Too stunned to reply, I smiled at her as the taxi she was waiting for pulled up.
I looked at my baby sleeping peacefully, pushed open the lobby door and let the brisk, wintry-fresh air envelop us as we took our first stroll together.
— Roberta Friedman
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html
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