Tag Archives: love

Popcorn, Mon Amour

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popcorn cart

"Better make that a double; I'm going to see Die Hard: With a Vengeance."

I was sitting in a darkened theatre on Saturday, munching handfuls of popcorn, when suddenly the entire tradition of movie popcorn struck me as absurd. In Brooklyn, so much as whispering through a movie would probably get me punched in the face, but I am allowed to eat the loudest, smelliest snack possible a mere two feet from another patron’s head, and no one is allowed to say anything. I think this revelation was spurred mostly by the fact that we were watching the dismal and quiet French film Amour (spoiler alert: unhappy beginning, unhappy middle, unhappy ending, followed by me extacting a sworn statement from Jason that he would never smother me with a pillow, diapers or no), but even so, I couldn’t help but consider the weirdly powerful love affair between celluloid and popcorn. After all, potato chips and corn chips and pretzels have the same salty-oily-crunch factor, and though those snacks are more popular in virtually every other venue (including the realm of house cats), cinemas are the domain of popcorn alone.

Apparently, like any number of romantic pairings, the match between popcorn and movies began because both parties were in the right place at the right time. The portable popcorn popper and the nickelodeon were bright young things together in the late 19th century, and it didn’t take long for popcorn vendors to start parking their carts outside the theatres to take advantage of the crowds. Later, the popcorn moved inside to boost theatre profits during the depression. Not even war could tear the two asunder: sugar was rationed during World War II, so candy disappeared from concession stands, but the War Department gave the official go-ahead to theatres to continue to serve popcorn. Continue reading →

Lunch at the End of the Line: Love Is Grand in Inwood

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szechuan tofuWe aspire to honesty on this blog, dear readers, so I might as well reveal that I landed at the northern end of the A line, at 207th Street in Inwood, a touch hungover and in a mood that was verging on surly. Manhattan, with its gritted teeth and fake-it-‘til-you-make-it attitude, is usually a marvelous place for a hangover, so I was taken unawares by the blinding good cheer of Inwood. I wandered the streets in a daze, nursing a cup of coffee and trying to take it all in. Birds sang. Trees blew in the breeze. Even the streets themselves had a jaunty roll to them. Outside a mental health facility, the residents parked their wheelchairs and turned their palms and faces to the sun, slight smiles pulling at the corners of their lips. Was I still in New York?

On 207th, street vendors hawked their goods, but rather than the large established halal and pretzel carts of midtown, it looked like someone’s grandfather had wheeled his aging charcoal grill onto the sidewalk and decided to cook you a hot dog. One couple had piled a stolen shopping cart with plastic containers of fruit salad and was doing a brisk business.

There were plenty of restaurants here to choose from, most of them Mexican and Dominican, but I was drawn to a Chinese restaurant called Amy’s, where a man and woman about my age were poring over a menu hanging in the window. They paused every so often to happily embrace, almost sloshing coffee onto each other in their enthusiasm.

“Do you know this place?” I asked.

“No,” the woman answered, gracing me with a beatific smile. “But doesn’t it look amazing?” Continue reading →