Are You Kosher? (18 page)

Chapter 33

Drugs Are Bad

There are a great many things that I have done over the course of my lifetime that I am not proud of. One of them is I used illicit drugs. Bubbe and my mother may have had an idea, but I was never actually caught in the act of using them. In my experience, the sooner that you can come to terms with the fact that you are a drug addict, the sooner you are in control of curing yourself of this insidious disease.

That being said, my drug use has occasionally spawned some interesting conversation. I am not about to name every single drug that I did, but it is safe to say that if it exists, I did it.

Drugs have caused me to do some pretty ridiculous things that, if I was in a right mind, would never have even thought about. For example, when I was hooked on cocaine, I once had a torrid affair with Ruth Gordon, no fun for anyone concerned. I had an addiction to opium mixed with absinthe and my friend Jack Greenwald found himself at the center of the whole “Jack the Ripper” scare. As the title of this chapter says, drugs are bad. I can still recall when I sold my airline ticket from Scotland to some Arab in the airport not too far away from Lockerbie; you know what followed shortly after. Drugs ruin your self-esteem and can cause damage to the most unsuspecting. This was never more obvious than it was a few centuries ago, 33 ce to be exact.

I was sitting in my room, smoking some great hash that I had purchased from the local chemist. Bubbe was out shopping, and my mother was at the gynecologist. Not that she needs to see one; I think she just enjoys the exam.

I heard a knock on the door and remember yelling “G-d damn it!” mainly because I spilled my glass of Manishewitz all over a brand new robe. “I’ll be there in a minute!” I replied. I got up and approached the door. “Who’s there?” I asked, slightly irritated.

“It’s Judas. Open the door.” Shit, it was Judas Iscariot, the biggest fucking drug whore on the Galilean coast.
What the hell does this shmendrik want?
I thought. I opened the door and in came the insufferable son of a bitch.

“Great news, Izzy,” he said as he passed me. “The Romans are about to let the Jews vote. Everyone is in an uproar about which shvartze we are going to elect Emperor just to fuck with them.”

“That’s great news,” I started, “But I am actually …”

“Is that hash I smell?” he interrupted.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.

“Don’t bullshit me, Izzy,” he replied. “That’s hash. I’m in.”

I was slightly annoyed by his presumption. “You still owe me for the last batch that I split with you, and you didn’t even put in on this one.”

He looked at me with a look on his face that said
Who, me?
He walked around the room looking for the stash and said, “Okay, what do I owe you?”

“Thirty pieces of silver,” I replied. He shrugged it off with a wave of his hand and said, “Not a problem. I’ll have it for you tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah? How?” I asked, skeptical of his track record.

“Do I ask you your business?” he asked. “I’ll have it tomorrow, you can bank on it. Where’s the hash?” I don’t know why, but I have always found that it is better to smoke with someone else. Even if that person drives you crazy.

The two of us went off to my room and lit up. A cloud of intoxicating smoke wafted its way around us and the pain of being in Judas’s company was beginning to disappear.

“Hey Izzy,” Judas said in a sort of California surfer dude way, “What if your Bubbe comes home?”

“Relax, man. Moishe is watching the door and he is more reliable than the cherubs in heaven.” Moishe was the name of my cat at the time. He was adorable beyond belief, but a complete and total drug hound. I looked over at the door and flicked a couple of crumbs of hash as a reward to the “best cat ever.” Don’t tell Yankel.

We continued to smoke. I would take a drag, and Judas would take a drag. He was a bit sloppier at the art of sharing, though. He had a bit of a drooling problem. “Jesus, Judas!” I screamed, “Try to keep it dry, you shmendrik.”

“Sorry, man,” Judas replied. “It’s like you never drooled on a spliff before.”

“Of course I have, “I answered, “but I don’t make an art form out of it, you ignorant bastard.”

Judas looked at me with hurt in his eyes and said, “You know, Izzy, when you smoke, you get abusive.”

“Fuck you, Judas,” I said before taking another drag. I turned to him and asked, “Hey, is it true that your boss can turn water into wine?”

“Yup,” he said.

“Fuck me, we should have him over right now. I spilled my Manischewitz when you knocked on the door. Did you know that he once came over for dinner?” I asked.

His eyes lit up and he asked, “Oh yeah? Did he turn stones into bread?”

“No,” I replied. “Can he do that?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen it. Give me another hit.”

The two of us continued to smoke our tuchases off, and I eventually asked the question. “So do you really believe he is the son of you-know-who?”

Judas shrugged his shoulders and replied, “I don’t know, but his checks don’t bounce.”

“You’re such a Jew,” I said.

“Look who’s talking, you fucking kike.” Judas spit.

“Why do I let you in my house?” I asked.

“Because I’m lovable and loyal, dickhead,” Judas replied.

How can I argue with that? “Stop drooling!” I shouted as I saw more ribbons of saliva drench the end of the delightful cigarette I had just hand crafted. We continued to waste the afternoon away. Finally I asked him, “How did you become an apostle, anyway?”

He shrugged his shoulders and said, “It was an open audition. He was looking for specific attributes.”

I smiled and asked, “What did you do to impress him?”

“I was just myself,” he replied awkwardly.

“Oh yeah? What did you do?” I prodded further.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said.

I sat up and said, “You sang for him, didn’t you?”

His face dropped and he flatly denied it. I could tell that he was lying and probed further. “What did you sing?”

“I didn’t,” he said, his cheeks beginning to get red.

“You sang about your mother, didn’t you?” I asked. Judas had an unnatural affection for his mother.

“No!” he shouted.

“Yes, you did!” I shouted back. “I know when you’re lying.” His head dropped and he looked defeated. I looked at this pathetic little man sitting next to me and asked, “What did you sing?”

He sat there for a moment shaking his head and finally said in an almost inaudible tone, “You are the Sunshine of My Life.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I screamed. “What is it with you and your mother?” He immediately got defensive and shouted back, “At least my mother is not the town drunk!”

“Let me tell you something … Okay, you got me there.” He did have a point, after all.

The two of us sat there quietly for a few minutes when he finally asked what time it was. I told him that it was about four thirty and he almost shit himself. “Damn, I’m late!” He hopped up off the floor. “I’m supposed to meet the boss and the guys for dinner tonight. I haven’t even showered yet.”

“I was about to say something about that,” I replied.

Judas started to get his bearings about him and asked, “Hey, do you want to come?”

This was intriguing to me, dinner with the son of you-know-who. “Where are you going?” I asked.

“EHOF’s” he said. Ephraim’s House of Falafel, the world’s first “greasy spoon.”

“No, I think I’ll pass,” I replied. “Bubbe will be home in a little while and I think that she is making stuffed cabbage. Tell your boss I’ll save some for him.”

“I’ll do that,” Judas replied. “I have to go. Thanks for the hash.” He exited my house. “Don’t forget the thirty pieces of silver you owe me, you cheap bastard!” I yelled after him.

“You’ll have it tomorrow, you greedy douche!” he yelled back.

Bubbe came home about ten minutes later. The first words out of her mouth were, “Izzy, I smell smoke.”

“No smoke in here, you crazy old broad,” I answered. “I think an incense merchant just passed.”

Dinner was amazing, for a change. Nobody can stuff a cabbage like Bubbe. Judas never did pay me back. Apparently, his boss was arrested and brought up on charges of heresy, sold out by that little conniving druggy.

Judas was found the next day; he’d hanged himself. I am assuming that it was over the guilt he felt for selling out a very good man, but it is also quite possible that he was so cheap he would rather kill himself than pay me. I decided at that very moment that in the future, I would see to it that if I was ever going to supply the entertainment for an afternoon fling, I would either make sure that everyone brought their own, or, like any self-respecting Jew, I would ask for payment in advance.

Not only does Judas still owe me those thirty pieces of silver, he apparently used Bubbe’s potted palm tree as an indoor urinal on his way out. Fucking shmendrik. Like I said, drugs are bad.

Chapter 34

Chef Izzy

A few years back, I decided to take up a new hobby. Being a hedonistic pain in the tuchas was beginning to leave a bad taste in my mouth, no pun intended, and it was starting to annoy those around me. After being alive as long as I have, it was not easy coming up with a suitable diversion, so I thought long and hard about what I could really sink my teeth into. I then realized, what do I love more than feasting and cunnilingus? Cooking.

I decided to go to culinary school; it’s not like I had to drastically alter my schedule. I don’t work, I don’t donate any of my time to charitable causes, and there are only so many times that you can watch an episode of
The View
before you become homicidal, so cooking seemed like the logical choice. I love food after all, and why should Bubbe have all of the fun?

Almost immediately, I was disappointed with what I saw in culinary school. My first impression was this seemed more like a halfway house for juvenile offenders than a school. It was as if three-quarters of the student body were given a choice of going to prison or getting an associate’s degree. Bubbe was not pleased with my decision or choice of school because she felt that I was not going to be properly trained in the art of kosher cooking. Why should that even matter? It’s not like she lets anyone cook in her kitchen anyway. I attended what I thought was a renowned institution whose name I will not mention, for fear of defamation lawsuits and royalties. If you have half a brain, and it is not up your tuchas, you should be able to figure it out.

School was an eye-opening lesson in mediocrity. Every morning, I and my fellow classmates arrived in our clean, pressed chef coats. We wore our stupid little hats and cravats, and were asked to line up in a military manner for inspection by alternating chef-instructors, who all looked tired and aggravated that their own personal careers had brought them to this point. Apparently, they sold their culinary souls for the right to have weekends, holidays, and seasonal school breaks off. They checked us for wrinkled coats and aprons, stains, polished shoes, clean and trimmed fingernails. A few even made us rotate, claiming that it was to check the backs of our uniforms. Fortunately for me, I have the ass of a rock star.

My classmates were obviously the cream of the crop of rejected stars of poorly written reality television programs. This group of shvartzes, drug dealers, and single mothers with multiple fathers for each one of their larvae seemed to struggle with authority and the concept of cuisine as much as they did the English language. Somehow, they assumed that by sprinkling expressions like “Fa real?” and ”Know’m sayin?” into the conversation, they would sound more intelligent. This was the future of
The Food Network
at its very finest. This is not what I’d seen during my tour of the school.

I can remember walking the halls with the registration representative. “If you are accepted, you will become part of an elite group of people that have walked these very halls before you.”

If I get accepted? An elite group of people? From what I was able to decide for myself by the end of my first week there, if you had a pulse and a student loan, and a favorable letter from your parole officer, you were in. As for an elite group of people, these shmucks were only elite in that they somehow survived childhood with the basic skills of being able to tie one’s own shoes and knowing how to open a door.

It was not all bad, though. I did learn quite a bit about the history of food, the way different cultures treat similar ingredients, and something that gives me an absolute culinary boner, technique. I love technique. It’s what separates a chef from the Guy Fieris of the world. I was taught many things that, even though they were fun to learn, I knew that I would never use again—chauffaud, pâté en croute, and terrines. See, Bourdain, you’re not the only one who can throw around useless, archaic cooking terms. I learned to make decorated aspic platters. Mine looked like a dreidel. The instructors, in spite of first impressions, for the most part were quite capable and I liked many of them. There was one little, bitter Jewish one who should thank G-d that I did not dismember him, but if there is one thing that I have learned from watching Bubbe over the centuries, the best revenge against a food snob is to outdo him. He thought that he was an expert on Jewish cuisine. I was eating Jewish food when he was just an itch in his father’s left testicle. I made Bubbe’s brisket for the class one day to rave reviews, and the little douchebag could not even act magnanimous. What he could not possibly appreciate is that her recipe has been perfected over a period of five thousand years. His was the Jewish equivalent of Olive Garden.

Another instructor was an adorable little Italian who completely captivated me. Here I was, a six thousand-year-old vampire, and I was catching a bad case of the schoolboy crush. There was something about her. Some of my fellow students warned me that she had a reputation for being a bitch, but one man’s bitch is another man’s feast.

It took a couple of weeks of careful observation and planning, but eventually, she let her guard down and I struck.

Class had just ended, my criminal culinary brethren were running to the parking lot, no doubt to push the limits of depravity in their personal lives, and I stayed behind to catch her when she least expected it. I could not help myself. Ever since D.J. broke my kosher cherry, I have been a slave to the feast of the Italian woman.

I watched as she walked into the cooler and crept up behind her. She did not know what hit her. I feasted on her in the perfect way. She passed out and I drank long and hard, enjoying the flavor of that sweet Italian nectar. It was everything that I hoped it would be. She awoke to find nothing more than a couple of mosquito bites on her neck, a couple on her lovely olive-skinned breasts, and a slightly sore tuchas. What? She was asleep, don’t judge me. I really was quite taken with her, I might have even been in love with her and considered converting her, but that was all I needed, another strong-willed woman to drive me crazy for all of eternity. Besides, women chefs tend to have bad tempers.

It reminds me of when I was visiting a friend of mine in Paris, Yani Likestosuckdickalot, an unfortunate name. He had invited me to dinner at his friend Paul Child’s house. Yes, that Paul Child, the husband of the glorious Julia.

Even back then, I was captivated by the technique of properly preparing food, even though there was no way that I could eat any of it. I was still kosher, remember? Try to keep up. I watched her move through the kitchen, mesmerized; it was like watching a Russian ballet. Every time she moved her hands it was as if she was being guided by G-d himself. I could not take my eyes off her.
If only she were a nice Jewish girl
, I thought repeatedly. That being said, leave it to me to push the boundaries of decency and respect and have to pay for it.

Perhaps I made one too many lewd remarks about the size of my genitalia. Whatever it was, she was not impressed, and I paid for it. She spun around and flung a potato at me that made solid contact with my crotch. I collapsed in pain. I could hear her say, “That’s not the way that one speaks to a married woman.”

I was rushed to the hospital, and in all of the chaos can remember hearing one of the frog-eating doctors say, “We’ll have to remove one of his berries.” I paraphrase. Fortunately for me, the sun was about to set and they had not yet secured an operating room. As soon as it was dark, my berry was better and I got the hell out of that hospital faster than a gerbil at a Richard Gere film festival.

Let me take you back to my culinary school experience. I stayed the course, attended class every day, gained about twenty pounds, got into a few fights with Blood and Crypt members, graduated with honors, and like many other culinary school graduates, decided to do absolutely nothing with my training. Say what you will, and I have, about “Phony” Bourdain, but he can at least write an interesting tale, which for him is a good thing since his only cooking prowess is bossing around a bunch of illegal aliens, and his only cookbook is published copies of his employer’s recipes. He is living the dream. He is sort of like Paula Deen, reprinting other people’s work and taking credit for it. The major difference is that she is cute and lovable, she is not a bullshit artist, and she has that adorable accent.

I can honestly say that I am a chef. Not the best that has ever lived, but I have a lot more time than most to fine tune my craft. I learned a lot in school. I learned technique, flavor profiles, how tasty one of your instructors can be, and how to carry on a conversation in a gang bang. I actually consider myself bilingual now. Another thing that I learned from my culinary school experience is that I am too old for this shit and there is no way that I am ever going back.

Unless they give a class for new techniques of cunnilingus at the Learning Annex.