I Want Candy

Eve Marx

Word Count 888

My mother didn’t like to cook; mostly, she made reservations. She started her day with instant black coffee and a slice of Melba Toast; for lunch, she had half a Dannon yogurt; for dinner, she and my father dined at supper clubs. On the nights those places were closed, we all went out for Chinese. My mother brought home doggy bags of leftovers, and I nibbled cold French fries and bits of Steak Diane. Mostly I subsisted on licorice whips, chocolate-covered malt balls, fudge, and pralines. Our town, a popular beach resort, had no end of specialty candy.  We lived close to the boardwalk and daily I munched on Planter’s double-dipped chocolate covered peanuts, Fralinger's salt water taffy, Steel’s fudge.

My penchant for candy came with a price. I had lots of cavities. My childhood dentist, Dr. Goldstein, tut-tutted at every visit, scolding me for the state of my mouth as if, at my tender age, I should be held responsible. I brushed my teeth, scrupulously, as I was addicted to a brand of toothpaste appropriately called Stripe; when you squeezed the tube, it shot out a striated red and white paste that looked and tasted like mint candies. My mother laughed her head off at Halloween every year when I Trick or Treated at Dr. Goldstein’s house, and he handed out caramel-covered apples and Turkish taffy.  

“Bastard is just trying to drum up business,” she said, sourly. 

After my father died, my mother gave up entirely on cooking. She began dating and soon ate all her dinners in nice restaurants. She stopped bringing home doggy bags, leaving me to fend for myself. I began hanging out after school at the homes of my friends, hoping their mothers would invite me to stay for dinner. This often happened. I didn’t much like what was served at my friend Cathy's house, where they eschewed salt and butter for margarine. Even then, I was a butter snob. The Mally children weren’t invited to dine with their parents; who enjoyed a civilized meal in the dining room while the kids ate in the kitchen. We were usually served buttered noodles or cereal. If I happened to be at the Mally’s on the weekend, Mrs. Mally gave us cream cheese and jelly sandwiches for lunch which I disliked, although if I was hungry enough, I ate them. My favorite place to mooch a meal was the Barbanti house, which is where I first tasted richly sauced Italian meatballs, escarole sauteed in olive oil with garlic and eggplant parmigiana. 

Despite all this mooching, I was undersized. In second grade, a teacher grew concerned about my weight, and my mother was contacted. “She doesn’t like my food,” my mother responded. Dr. Barbanti, who, in addition to his private practice, was the school psychiatrist, put in his two cents to say that was true. I clearly preferred his wife’s cooking, which resulted in me having dinner there more nights.  

I moved to Greenwich Village in my early 20’s. My apartment on Cornelia Street was a tiny studio equipped with a battered two-burner gas stove and a small oven.  You had to light the pilot light every time with a match. I used the hell out of that stove, creating sumptuous meals for myself sourced from the neighborhood. I bought meat at Faicco’s Pork Store, and cheese from Murray's cheese shop. Two fish stores were located on Bleecker Street between Jones and Sixth; I spent two whole weeks concocting dinners from cockles, which were super cheap. At one point, I met Jeff, who was in the produce business. He gifted me with Italian peppers, five different kinds of lettuces, avocados, and persimmons.

After a ten-year stint writing porn, I shifted into writing about food, which is much the same thing: all those juicy adjectives and descriptions designed to facilitate excitement and yearning. For the next five years, I ate out constantly. I wrote about eating kangaroo and veal tartare. (Both were just a little bit sickening.) For an entire year, I ate so much chopped kale salad I never want to see it again. Eventually, my food reviewing gig ran out of steam, and I began having more meals at home. I still enjoy cooking, although not necessarily every day. Given my druthers, I’m satisfied with a cup of freshly brewed coffee and some licorice. Some things never change. 

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Eve is a journalist and author currently scraping out a tiny living crafting police reports for newspapers in New York and Oregon. She is the author of What’s Your Sexual IQ?, The Goddess Orgasm, 101 Things You Didn’t Know About Sex and other titles bearing some relation to her stint editing Penthouse Forum and other ribald publications. She makes her home in a rural seaside community near Portland, OR with her husband, R.J. Marx, a jazz saxophonist, and Lucy, their dog child.