SC - OT - recipe from Murrell

[Cindy Renfrow]

"Alderton, Philippa" wrote:
> 
> I know this used to be common in most towns, but it isn't now- do any of you
> happen to have the acquaintance of a travelling knife and scissors grinder?
> I'm lucky enough to know such a gentleman, and for a couple of dollars, he
> puts a wonderful edge on my blades.

We had one who used to drive a truck real slowly down the street,
ringing a sort of gong made from old machine parts. The clapper part was
attached to the gong by a frayed white nylon cord, as I recall. He was
alive and well (and putting wonderful edges on blades) until we moved
out of the neighborhood, but we haven't seen him or anyone like him since.

On the other hand, we also used to have a guy who went around with a
pushcart (and later a truck), singing (and rolling his r's a bit like
Pavarotti), "STRRRAWWWWWWW-bed-dies........BLOOOOOOOOOOOO-bed-dies.......CHE-e-e-e-dies..."

Sigh. Note that this was in New York City during my childhood, not too
long ago, as I'm not one of the old geez...old codg...um, venerable and
respected elders on this list. It seems as if a variant of one of the
NRA's popular slogans applies here: when street commerce is made a
criminal act, only criminals will practice street commerce. For
practical purposes, it is, and they do. Although, actually, there's a
good deal less of that, too.

On the bright side, the Wafer Lady is alive and well, and doing a
booming business, in her two stall locations in Chinatown. She has a
semi-portable stainless-steel wagon thingy on the corner of Canal and
Mulberry for weekday use, and her old wooden stall on Mott and Mosco for
weekends (nearer to the dim sum houses and the churches!). Her irons
have the kind of elegance only a quality tool can get after more than a
century of nearly daily use (they look like they may have been brought
from China in the 19th century), she always has a smile, and she now
charges the scandalously high price of $1 for a bag of either "egg
rolls" (rolled wafers made with an eggy batter) or egg cakes (little
sweet cakes made with, and shaped like, eggs), said bag being about the
size of your head. This lady probably put her grandsons through Harvard
selling wafers, of course. 

I'm always happily amazed at these little socio-economic atavisms you
sometimes find in urban life, usually where you least expect them. Wish
there were more of them.

Adamantius
Østgardr, East      
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================