and what she ate

I probably should add "what she ate" to the name of this blog, although by the there wouldn't be any room for an actual blog post. But there will be food in this blog. Especially tea and chocolate. But never chocolate tea.

I was thinking yesterday about trains and delis. It's true--my thoughts skip around rather oddly.

I was born and raised in upstate New York, in the Poughkeepsie area. My stepfather was from The Bronx, an only child, and his widowed father used to visit us in LaGrangeville. Grandpa took a train from The City to Poughkeepsie, I think the New York, New Haven and Hartford. When we picked him up at the station, he always came bearing gifts.

Food, glorious food! (Sing it out, sisters and brothers!) He would stop at a deli on the way to the station and buy lots of cold cuts and baked goods. My favorites were the kaiser rolls. At least, I think they were kaiser rolls. They were crusty on the outside and soft inside and made great sandwiches, with Mom's homemade dill pickles as a side dish. Yum.

Does anybody still make rolls like those? I buy them from supermarket bakeries and from standalone bakeries when I spot them, but they are just not the same. And the cheese danish... oh, wow!

He would talk about automats like Horn and Hardarts, which was just sooooo foreign to us, kids raised in the rural end of the suburbs. We went to visit him in The Bronx once, including a visit to a Horn and Hardarts. We were pretty impressed.

When I lived in Germany in the 1960s, I was surprised to find automat-type vending machines on the streets, selling things like fresh fruit. Turns out that either Horn or Hardart was from Germany. The H&H slots took nickles. If they were still around today, we'd probably have $5 coins.

And that's "what she ate" for today.