We’ve all been there: you’re sitting in standstill traffic at 10:14pm on a Sunday waiting to enter the Holland Tunnel while “New York State of Mind” wafts through the speakers. You can see the Statue of Liberty off to the right, poking her luminous torch through the tops of the trees. Moments earlier, you pass through Elizabeth, New Jersey and think to yourself, did someone fart or am I just passing through Elizabeth, New Jersey. As you enter the Holland Tunnel your dad calls you, and you and your older sister pick up on speaker phone. He asks you if you’re in New York yet and you describe your location in reference to how close you are to the Holland Tunnel. There’s the metric system, the US customary unit system, and the one where you measure anything in the world in relative distance to the Holland Tunnel. Your sister asks you to take out the challah your mom sent you home with but alas, you left it in the trunk.
I’m writing this on a Monday, the day after Mother’s Day 2021. I’d like to start off by apologizing to my mother because in last week’s blog I mentioned that she made chicken meatballs that were very bad. She corrected me that they were actually chicken and lentil burgers. I’d like to add, in all seriousness, that my mom is one of the best cooks on the planet. I learned everything I know about improvisation in the kitchen and 2nd degree arm burns from my mother. Her two favorite foods are arugula and soft serve ice cream which represents the duality of man.
But I’m not here to talk about my mom. I’m here to talk about my first trip to Coney Island. But that trip could never have happened without my mom giving birth to me, the most epic domino effect of all time. I was at Coney Island last week for work. My job is I’m the girl who sits in one of the ferris wheel cars and stirs up conversation amongst passengers, causing drama.
I had never been to Coney Island before. Actually, I’ve been to very few amusement parks in my life. One time when I was little my dad was driving, I don’t remember where we were coming back from but we passed a Busch Gardens and I asked if we could go. He pulled into the parking lot and then looked and said the wait was too long to get in and that we had to keep driving home. This traumatic childhood experience taught me how to deal with loss and grief. It taught me to manage my expectations in life and always set the bar low. It is what led me down a path of corruption and recklessness that ended in me doing improv comedy.
When I arrived at Coney Island, it will be no surprise to you, dear readers, that I had a stomach ache. I didn’t know why but I did and the only thing to eat there was a Nathan’s hotdog so I did as my people did, and made do with what I had. I sat on the boardwalk and took a bite into my first Nathan’s hotdog, and it was a transcendent experience. The snap of the hotdog as I bit down, the perfect mustard to ketchup ratio, the lightly toasted bun and the deeply golden fries; I was in a state of bliss. I facetimed my friend Karina who had always told me how good these hot dogs were and I always laughed in her face. In doing so I was laughing in the face of tradition. Of culture and heritage and history, of New York City herself.
When your stomach hurts, you’re supposed to eat plain foods like rice and toast and applesauce. But I ate a hotdog and the color returned to my face. The light, back into my eyes. I saw my future flash before me; green fields and blue skies (my dream is to be a baseball umpire because I love to yell.) With every bite of this $4 hotdog that I had scoffed at for so long, I felt better and better. I was healing. My grandpa used to say the hotdogs were so good there because they hadn’t changed the oil since they opened. These hotdogs were one of my grandpa’s favorite foods. He died when I was young so I don’t remember a lot of the time I spent with him, but I felt connected to him in this moment through this hotdog. Without my grandpa, I would not be here today. Another epic domino effect.
Some of you may remember that my first real job was working on a hotdog truck. I suppose a part of me is still drawn to the frankfurter. The simple weiner. The point is, I am trying to become less high maintenance in my old age (I turn 24 this Saturday.) I live in New York City, home of countless Michelin starred restaurants and cool restaurant guides and I’ve become caught up in wanting to be part of that scene. I’ve spent so many hours on Instagram looking at the hot new restaurants and reading articles by anonymous food critics who had $180 price fixed meals only to call them “underwhelming.” I want to continue to build my life here in a way that honors the city. This Nathan’s, at Coney Island, has outlived countless gross mayors, a pandemic, hurricanes, Trump supporters, and pizza rat. It is a constant in the life of this city, and it’s not going into the Michelin guide.
Was this just a privileged recent New York transplant ranting about discovering a hotdog that has existed since 1916? Absolutely. I Christopher Columbussed you guys and it took you this long to notice. I’m aware that Coney Island does not necessarily represent the heart and soul of the city, but it has remained here for over 100 years, despite it all, so in that way it sort of does. I want to spend the rest of the summer discovering things too late. Not trendy new things but time honored, old things. I want to go beyond a 10 block radius of my apartment and I want to unfollow the Infatuation on Instagram. I want to find the place my grandma got her knishes from in Midwood, and I want to go back to Nathan’s for another hotdog. And in the words of Billy Joel, “Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television, North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe”