Franny

Back in the mid 80’s my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She had been an avid smoker for 40 years, and her standing joke was that if she found herself waiting for a bus on a cold corner she’d just light a cigarette and the bus would immediately show up. It was her little trick. We knew right away that this was a terminal cancer. The first doctor she saw, a lovely avuncular man in late middle age, came into the waiting room and said ‘Can I be frank with you?’ He said he didn’t recommend chemotherapy because it was ‘adding an evil to an existing evil.’ I wish we’d have taken his advice, but Mom then decided to go to Sloan Kettering, which is a teaching hospital and has a reputation for excessive treatment. Her oncologist there kept saying ‘Where there’s life there’s hope.’ In retrospect I think that’s b.s. and if you put it another way it could be said ‘We’ll just keep pumping you full of toxic chemicals until you weigh 60 lbs and are blind and deaf, and maybe you’ll get lucky and your heart will finally stop beating so you can get out of here.’ I know, it’s harsh, but they wouldn’t do it to a cat, so why is it okay to do it to a person?

I was living in L.A. then, and my life was unraveling and my marriage crumbling, mostly due to drinking, but of course, I had no idea that was a problem. I swear, alcoholism is the craziest thing. It’s the only disease that convinces you you don’t have it. In AA they call it ‘Cunning, baffling, and powerful’. So there was Mom, sick in New York, and there was me, sick in L.A. It seemed obvious that I needed to move there to help out. There’s a phrase for that too in AA. It’s called a ‘geographic cure’. Why I thought I could help with anything was pure insanity. So I scooped up the cats and some clothes, and left my drunk husband to go live a new life in New York.

Now, when I say New York I don’t mean Manhattan. That might not have been so bad, but mom lived on City Island, a part of the Bronx about a mile square. If you visited from another borough you’d think it picturesque, with marinas and sailing boats and little restaurants and antique shops dotting the main street, City Island Avenue. Scratch the surface though, and the place was tough and mean and one step away from hillbilly heaven. Mom was renting a nice house though, with a finished attic where I took up residence.

The second day I was there I realized I was gonna need a job, if not for the money, then at least for the sanity. I would have to be able to leave that attic and all the troubles in that nice little house. I got a job as a prep chef in one of the little restaurants on the main street. It was a place that did a lot of pasta salads and take-out deli food. Remember pasta salad? Does anybody even dream of making that now? In 1986 though it was a ‘thing’ and they did a brisk business not only with the locals, but they shipped the stuff out to places like Bloomingdales and Bergdorf’s in the ‘city’ for sale in their cafes. I must’ve doubled their business in the year I worked there. I always had great ideas for new salads...my famous peanut noodles, tortellini with walnut pesto was a big seller, angel hair with roasted veggies. I haven’t made any of that stuff for years, but then it was all a big hit. I have to say, I loved that job. I worked my ass off and I was so glad to have a normal place to go and sweat. The cafe also did a brisk brunch trade, and they had a sharp-tongued nasty gal working the griddle who was a legend on City Island... Franny... Italian...tough as nails and smart as hell. She’d worked at a bunch of different restaurants all over the Island and everyone loved her (or maybe feared her). She became a kind of guardian angel for me there. She was the only one who

knew that mom was sick, that I’d left my husband, that I was maybe drinking too much. At one point the owners wanted to put me on salary rather than paying me hourly. She said ‘Don’t do it. They’ll cheat you! They’ll have you working 15 hours a day!’ I took her advice. I always took her advice. I had an idea for a lunch dish I was gonna name ‘torta rustica’. A trick that chefs have is to add the word ‘rustic’ to anything to explain away a messy appearance or a mistake of any kind. Are there lumps in your mashed potatoes? Call them ‘rustic smashed potatoes’. Keep it in mind the next time you drop a pie crust on the counter and nick the edge...’rustic' apple pie’. So this torta was a layered affair with cheeses and salami and roast peppers, or really anything left over from the deli on any given day. Layer the stuff between puff pastry and bake in a long loaf pan. Cool and slice about 3 inches thick. I made it a couple of times and people went crazy. Franny warned me though about the owners...they were cheap beyond belief. She said ‘Those bitches will never go for it. The ingredients are too expensive.’ She was right. She was always right.

Sunday saw a big brunch trade. The place was always mobbed, and Franny was on the line. On a tiny griddle, she had to make pancakes, omelets, home fries, everything you’d expect...for about a hundred people. One Sunday they were short a waitress, so they sent me out there. Now, I have to tell you, I can’t wait tables. I just can’t. I can make food for an army, but don’t ask me to serve it. I begged and I pleaded but they sent me out there anyway. Oh, and by the way, there was the Sunday morning hangover right in place as always. So I’m out there in the trenches, attempting to keep everything straight, shouting orders back to Franny who’s going out of her mind on that little griddle. There was a couple there who I knew from the neighborhood, Betsy and Bob. They lived in the ‘Boatyard Condominiums’, the only classy place on the island. It was a gated community for people who had sailboats, so they could dock and live right there in relative luxury. Betsy ordered a western omelet, Bob just coffee and toast (maybe he too had a hangover). Franny worked at an incredibly brisk pace, giving me the order just as soon as it came off the griddle. I delivered it to their table and Betsy poked at her dish and said ‘Tell Franny this is too runny.’ I brought it back and I could see the irritation on Franny’s face as she cooked the thing for another minute. I brought it back and Betsy took a bite and said ‘Tell Franny this is the best western omelette I’ve every had.’ I went back there and delivered the message. Franny said ‘Well, FUCK HER!’ It made everything better. I could face the rest of the crowd. I could face the hangover. I could face my sick mom.

My mother lived for a year and a half, which was longer than they had predicted. I left my job before that to stay close to her in hospice care. When I left I gave Franny a pastel drawing I’d done of some purple eggplants...’Melanzana’ was written on the bottom in pastel. A few years later Franny opened a restaurant of her own called ‘Fran’s Place’. It was hugely popular….lots of Italian dishes...lots of ‘red sauce’. The framed drawing was right over the bar. She sent me a picture after I’d moved back to LA, sobered up, and got my act together. When people dish out false praise these days I can always tell. I think of Franny and say to myself ‘Fuck her’ with a thick Italian accent.