It's funny where you experience enlightenment. God doesn't have preferences.
Last night Brian and I were walking Saki together. Ben was sleeping over at a relative's house, leaving us in a rare and temporary state of childlessness.
Brian wanted to get ice cream and suggested ducking into Key Food instead of spending more money at a bodega or yuppie ice cream shop.
I ducked into the Key Food on Avenue A and looked around at the shabby decor and its half baked attempt at marketing new food products with uneven pyramids and a confused cornucopia of fading fruits and vegetables.
The wonderful array of Key Food customers glided by me - a distilled group reduced by the likes of Whole Foods on Houston Street and Associated on 14th Street.
Everyone had their own thing going on - all walks of life - it was the end of a working day and people looked at bit tired and run down. This hodge podge loserville - people so far out of the box that they don't even know where the box is....it just filled me with such bliss and peace. These are my people -- the neighborhood I grew up in that informs me to the core. A place to be whoever you want....because anything goes. A brief peak at what use to be the norm here.
This feeling of love and appreciation just flooded me. A feeling I'd taken for granted for many years.
The teenager at the cash register rang my ice cream up and with a very somber face looked up at me and said, "Two for one."
She needed to repeat it three times for me to understand that you get one quart of Breyers ice cream free with each one purchased. I was so psyched that she started laughing. I just didn't see it coming!
My husband is a thrifty WASP -- and you should have seen the look of righteousness on his face when I delivered the goods.
8 comments:
Where is Key Food? I've probably walked by it scores of times without noticing.
Is Saki named after author H.H. Munro, whose pen name was Saki?
i'm just loving the fact that you bought breyers ice cream.
they make the best vanilla ice cream ever - bar none.
My husband is crazy about Breyers and getting it on sale makes the ice cream taste even better!
michael, i believe it's on 5th or 6th, just below the park.
e.v.i - you have taken the exact reason i adore the east village more than i can stand, and described it so eloquently! i don't think i've ever been able to put it into words quite as perfectly as you have here. thank you.
i wish others could understand. i.e. my mother who grew up in NY but lived in the suburbs too long and lost her edge. i love her i do. but she sees grunge and dirt, and i see what you've described here. a hodgepodge of brilliant soles, many lost, many found -- nonetheless, they're all there in the e.v. making it my safe haven.
2 for 1 ice cream? I wanna move there!
Isn't it great when you find a "find" in your neighborhood?
The music is also quite awesome in this Key. Whole Foods, even Commodities can't shake a leg to Key's playlist. I was there a few nights ago and heard Wings - Silly Love Songs in the sauce aisle. Not to mention the pretty East Village ladies who are often shopping here... I must say though, I like Hagen-Dazs, Vanilla (in the half-the-fat variety) which Key doesn't have! See you in the dog park Saki!
This key food is decent in terms of availability and quantity.prices can be a bitmuch on some items since it got overhauled,still not a bad place.staff and mgmt are a subj. All by themselves.one mgr in particular jimmy proscia is by far the least enthusiastic of there staff.rude,obstinant and very short tempered are what describe him.the general mgr mr.hastings(or mickey as I heard him called) very helpful,understanding and compensating.lines get a little long at times,but I still love the convience of this location.
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