Lunch in the Loop: Trial by Ordeal
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you take lots of antacidsYesterday it was my turn to do my civic duty and appear on the 17th floor of the Daley Center to report for jury duty. Somehow, despite having a driver's licence and being a registered voter, I had hitherto fallen through the cracks, as it were, of this part of the judicial system, and so this was my very first appearance for service at the circuit court of the County of Cook. Having had a late hockey game the previous night (followed by a few libations in honour of Nike-- the goddess, not the company), I was a little short on sleep but vaguely looking forward to a new and possibly interesting experience with the law and a relatively rare chance to eat lunch out in the Loop to boot.
My experience as a juror was the same, it seems, as that of most others: the utter and complete tedium that is naturally induced by any kind of 'waiting room' and cannot be relieved even by the most engaging reading material. Many are called, few are chosen, most struggle to find a comfortable position on a hard chair for some five or six hours...
At the close of the first waiting session came the lunch break and, armed with a sheet of paper which Amata had kindly furnished me with a few recommendations from Chowhounds for nearby troughs, I set out, first to examine the stalls of the Daley Plaza Farmers' market, then to stretch out muscles and finally to feed.
I ended up going to
Haifa on Wells by Randolph (165 N. Wells). The recommendation for this place was specifically for the fresh, real-fleshmeat (i.e., not processed) turkey. Having had some time back a roasted turkey sandwich at a similarly conceived and named luncheonette* on Michigan just south of the old library, this option seemed a good one and as I approached the place, seeing a banner hanging from the scaffolding outside the restaurant, I decided quickly that I would take the turkey special: a roast turkey sandwich with a soda and bag of chips for $5.
But once I entered, I started to experience conflicting urges... The confused babble of angelic daemons and daemonic angels rose up in my head and with that I became filled with prandial angst... Finally, some of the individual voices in my head started to become clear... One said "Forsake all fleshmeat; turn thine eyes instead to the fruits of the Garden of Eden; wash the blood from thy hands and order the Baba Ghanouj and Falafel..." Another voice in my head then spoke up, saying "Be not a fool; act upon the sage advice of others; turn to the turkey for sound nourishment..." And then a third did say "Antonius, be not Quixotic and instead take this opportunity to sample the new, the exotic; indulge thy whim..."
Just at that moment, I realised the ordering line had moved along far more quickly than I had anticipated and I now stood before the steam table, behind which glowered a large and burly man, wearing surgical gloves and menacingly waving about a pair of kitchen tongs... "Next order... NEXT ORDER!", he bellowed, and for a moment I froze, my eyes darting about, from the terrifying aspect of the man with the tongs to a steaming tray of nice looking roasted turkey to the menu board above the counter... Tong-man bellowed again: "That's YOU, What's your ORDER!"
At that instant, out of the roaring jumble of mumbling voices in my head, one arose, seemingly seizing control of my articulatory apparatus and I blurted out: "The Chicken shwarma plate!" and as those words passed by my teeth and lips I knew that it had been the daemon Pazuzu whose words I had spoken... I knew then, as I watched Tong-man fill up the compartments of a large styrofoam box with rice and salad and hummus and... chicken shwarma... yes, I knew, I would dine with the devil...
The salad was tired, some leaves brown on the edges, the hummus strangely strong in flavour... too salty and garlicky, I think... the one falafel piece, plucked out of a bin in the steam table, was okay but no longer fresh... half a piece of pita... The shwarma meat had been spooned over the ample portion of rice and so, independent assessment of the rice is not really possible... The shwarma/rice combo was greasy and the meat was hyper-seasoned, spicy with very strong garlic and all-spice edges... also kind of salty... I, mangiatore forte, ate about half of Tong-man's offerings, perhaps a little more...
*****
As I took up again my post in the jurors' waiting room, I knew I would pay for my sins... The greasy, spicy shwarma would revisit me many times over the next several hours, resisting the chemical counter-measures which I applied liberally to the situation... one antacid, two antacid, three antacid more...
*****
There is a lucky person out there who could have gotten me on their jury, filled with the bitter bile and black humour caused by my culinary concupiscence, my surrender to the daemon in my head, and the gnawing regret for having passed up the turkey, which looked like it was good, sound nourishment...
Oh Pazuzu, thou art terrible.
Antonius
*The word luncheonette has fallen out of fashion, a victim of the vast changes in culinary habits and especially the pseudo-up-scaling of tastes in this country over the past twenty or so years. But it is a good word and I will do what I can to bring it back into use.
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Last edited by
Antonius on July 16th, 2004, 12:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Alle Nerven exzitiert von dem gewürzten Wein -- Anwandlung von Todesahndungen -- Doppeltgänger --
- aus dem Tagebuch E.T.A. Hoffmanns, 6. Januar 1804.
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Na sir is na seachain an cath.