New Year with pumpernickels!

by Aditha DISSANAYAKE in New York

I have been daydreaming now for three days, in between writing this article and a dozen other distractions. No...not of joining Barack Obama as he sunbathes in Hawaii, nor of visiting Disneyland or of burning ice on a wood-fire in Alaska. My dreams these days are much more humbler than the ones that brought me to New York five months ago.

Now that the Fall semester has come to an end, with massive text books resold to the university bookshop, the foremost dream in my life has become primeval - the kind which dates back to the stone age - the wish to return to my profession once more to keep the homefires burning!

So, here I am, in spite of the cold weather, and in spite of my health not being what it should be, seated in a bakery in Flushing trying to write this article on my laptop and email it to the Sunday Observer hoping against hope I will be able to meet the deadline.

I consider myself lucky to have work to do when all around me, everyone is getting the “pink slip”. Christmas has come and gone with no special celebrations here in New York. Even though there was snow everywhere and passers by kept wishing you “Merry Christmas” the day was no different from any other. Given the fact that most supermarkets were putting up bankruptcy signs and sending their staff out onto the streets it was no surprise that the end of the year celebrations were greatly subdued.

Hard times

When I walked into the only shop which was open on Christmas day, a pharmacy, and returned the manager’s greetings by saying “Happy New Year” he replied “Yes, let’s hope 2009 will be better than 2008. Things have changed so much. In previous years when we gave a discount people said “OK I’ll take it”.

These days all they say is “Let me think about it”. Hard times indeed for New Yorkers. Even Santa they say couldn’t come this year because he had no money to pay the reindeer.

Yet, there are places which the Recession seems to have missed. This bakery, where I am seated is one. It is unique as it caters to Jewish customers and serves “kosher” delicacies; mainly muffins, cakes, doughnuts and a special bread called challah.

The owner, a homely lady called Rebecca, who could be older than my grandma but who is more active than those who are half her age, does not mind me sitting at a table in the far corner of her bakery typing my stories and checking email.

Christmas

She and I had become friends over a cake topped with icing, when, trying to avoid a particularly nasty snow storm on my way to the library, I had stepped into the bakery on a freezing Monday morning and glanced at the shelves with various sweets on display waiting for the storm outside to subside.

All of a sudden a lady wearing a white apron had come rushing into the front of the shop and asked “Does anyone here know how to spell Christmas?” Since I was the only person around I wrote the letters on a slip of paper for her hiding my surprise that a lady who had probably been living in the USA all her life and who would have known numerous Christmases would yet not know how to write the word. “Thank you honey. You saved the day for me” she said and explained “I have to write it with icing on a cake I made for one of my customers.

The weather outside is terrible isn’t it. Why don’t you take a seat over there and relax.” Since none of the customers seemed to use any of the tables and realizing my presence would not obstruct her business activities I was more than happy to sit at the corner table finding a warm cosy atmosphere to do my work, especially after I discovered the free wireless service provided by the library worked here too.

Thus for three days now I have become a permanent fixture at the bakery between eight to twelve every morning,checking email, sending replies, writing articles but making slow progress thanks to Rebecca’s constant interruptions. Whenever there is a lull with no customers waiting to be served she instructs me on the arts of running a bakery.

She dismisses my first name and for some mysterious reason calls me Dis. It’s tough to get used to the new name but I dare not ask her to call me Aditha. The only consolation is after every other word she calls me “honey”. “Now honey, the most important lesson you must learn is that you must always talk with the customers” she advises me. “If they are buying a loaf of bread tell them the muffins are just great and make them buy a bag of muffins too”. “Fresh” is a taboo word.

“Never say anything is fresh”. she continues. “This might make the customers think on other days what we sell is not fresh”.

I get friendly with the other members of the staff too, even though they look mystified when I tell them I am from Sri Lanka. Dafna from Greece and Ram the only guy around, a forty-something from the Dominican Republic with the same features as Dustin Hoffman’s, admit they were never good in geography when they were at school and this is why they don’t know anything about Sri Lanka.

Dafna has three kids but is not married. “I am like sick of men” she says casting glances at Ram who pretends not to hear. In the same way Rebecca keeps saying honey after every word, Dafna says “like”. Listening to her is tedious at times. “It was like, freezing like, when I like got into the bus, like”.

Tips

“If you want to survive here, you must work” Rebecca tells me the mantra that has kept her going even when the other shops in the neighbourhood are putting up their shutters. And work she does, arriving at 5.30 every morning to receive the buns and the breads delivered by Andy in his lorry from a bakery in New Jersey.

Not wanting to lose the business of a single customer she keeps the doors open from 5.30 a.m. even as she arranges the goods on the shelves.

By six thirty the coffee is brewing and most of the boxes Andy had delivered have been unpacked. When Dafna gets late to come for work Rebecca asks me if I could take the cookies from the cardboard boxes for her, weigh them and pack them in plastic containers. Even though she knows I am busy trying to write this article she has no qualms about dragging me away from the computer. “I know you writers.” She dismisses my work with a flick of her hand. “Writing is effortless for you.

You can write as though you are living on the moon simply by looking at it from down here”. I am amazed by this observation. How many writers has she known? Have other writers like me sat at her bakery driven out of their cold apartments searching for warmth and companionship?

I have no time to ask her. “Dis, honey, give this lady a pumpernickel”, she shouts from behind the cash register. I have never heard the word till now. Pumpernickel? Is it the name of a doughnut? A muffin? A special kind of bread? “Honey, that loaf of bread near you, that’s called pumpernickel”. I give a sigh of relief as I hand a bag of light brown bread which I later learn is made with rye flour and originated in Germany. The lady in the black scarf, takes the pumpernickels from me with a grateful smile saying “My husband likes this so much he simply can’t do without it”.

Then she whispers in a conspiratorial voice, obviously mistaking me for an Indian. “Do you know I was born in Bombay? I came here in 1964.

I wish I could be in Bombay right now. I can’t stand this weather. Imagine three more months of snow? They say spring comes in March. But mark my words, it never does”.

After hearing this gloomy prophesy I yearn to return to my computer but another lady turns towards me. “Ooooooh this is so good. How do you make them? How many minutes do you keep them in the oven?” I shrug my shoulders and turn the corners of my mouth downwards. I am about to say “Beats me,” when Rebecca rushes to my side. “We really don’t know.

They are made in a bakery in New Jersey and delivered to us. I will find the recipe for you if I can”. The lady leaves with a smile on her lips and a dozen muffins in her bag. Rule number three when running a bakery - never refuse anything the customers ask from you Rebecca tells me and adds that, with these tips I could become a billionaire if I returned to Sri Lanka and opened a bakery. Perhaps I should add this to my list of New Year resolutions.

Several other simple tasks later, brushing egg yolk on slices of bread to make sandwiches, replacing the packets of sugar given free with the cups of coffee, making sure not to leave more than six at a time on the counter because according to Rebecca some customers slip them into their pockets and take them home, I am back at the computer and find I am almost “done” as the Americans say, with the article.

All that is left to do now is to log onto my email account and send this story to the Sunday Observer. Then, step outside onto the snow covered streets to walk back to my cold apartment.

“Good luck” Rebecca shouts as I close the door behind me and step on the dazzling white snow.

New Year in New York. No kiribath, deafening fire crackers, hugs or kisses from friends and family. Yet, the New Year, 2009 surely has no reasons to be all that bad. Especially when I can celebrate it with a bag of pumpernickels.

Anybody want to share them with me? Holler. I’ll keep them warm in the oven till you come.

************

These days all they say is “Let me think about it”. Hard times indeed for New Yorkers. Even Santa they say couldn’t come this year because he had no money to pay the reindeer.

Yet, there are places which the Recession seems to have missed. This bakery, where I am seated is one. It is unique as it caters to Jewish customers and serves “kosher” delicacies; mainly muffins, cakes, doughnuts and a special bread called challah.