Alimentum The Literature of Food
ALIMENTUM ONLINE

CONVERSATION #16
by Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch


podcast



A. It's hard for me to complete phrases today.

 

J: You drank green tea without a lot to eat.

 

A: That typically creates soreness from my chest to my hips. Nothing's happened yet.

 

J: Maybe you want some of those pineapple chunks I bought ...

 

A: [Muffled] very nice ...

 

J: up for you.

 

A: and generous. You game me three dollars' worth of pineapple cubes.

 

J: I got them free. I took them along with my box and my banana to a register, and said I'd paid for the pineapple in the café upstairs..

 

A: The pineapple only?

 

J: Yeah, but they don't sell fruit here.

 

A: And that went O.K.?

 

J: It went just fine.

 

A: No hesitation on the clerk's part?

 

J: If ...if... if the cashier had looked like he or she had managerial responsibilities I was prepared to say, after swallowing several chunks in line: Oh, no thank you -- I'd like to return these.

 

A: Sometime we should discuss our favorite cashiers. I, there are a few I'm always happy to approach. They're real professionals. People who don't just rubber-band an egg carton, but who wrap it with paper. People who double-bag groceries knowing New Yorkers will be walking ...

 

J: Right.

 

A: not throwing things into some SUV. I don't know if you have favorites.

 

J: I do, and many exude pride working here. One told me last week that this is a billion-dollar company.

 

A: I ... I remember the other day (at Chelsea W.F.) asking somebody behind a prepared-foods counter to cut a lasagna portion into two-thirds its size. I didn't want the whole thing. And I apologized for placing such a petty request. But the man informed me that this was the customer service business, and it made no sense for him to think my request was small. I then of course felt bad for suggesting ...

 

J: But you got the lasagna slice you'd wanted?

 

A: Yes.

 

J: Which you took back to Kristin's?

 

A: I ... I,yes. Yes.