Cemetery Cuisine

As I left for New York for the Christmas Holiday I couldn’t help thinking about visiting the cemetery there to get some great food.

Would dad, grandma and grandpa, resting in peace in the family plots be offended that I put cuisine and their eternal home in the same thought?

I don’t think so.

Grandma, after all, contributed to my love of food with the great Hungarian meals she made and sweets she baked, especially those apricot cookies at Christmastime. And dad was famous for his shrimp scampi and salads. Grandpa? Well, he simply loved eating his wife’s creations.

But of course food isn’t the primary reason for the cemetery visit: I want to stop by and give the three of them my Christmas and New Year's greeting.

And I couldn’t properly do that on an empty stomach now could I?

Okay, so here it is Christmas Eve Day and we are driving west on Long Island’s Southern State Parkway getting closer to the New Highway exit. It is lunch time and I, with LA cousin Gene, am beginning to drool in anticipation of the upcoming culinary delight.

Not 100 yards from the Republic Airport exit, just before the ninety-degree right turn in the road, there it is: Family Motor Coach Association Member 63933 parked on the sandy soft shoulder.

A registered motor coach?

It is tough to find a parking space quickly since cars are parked helter-skelter, and on either side of the coach, as if someone continued to yell to the oncoming traffic: COME AND GET IT!

And do they!

There is a small overhang and service counter protruding from the middle of this faded cream-and-green-colored mobile-home-like vehicle. A continuously refreshed line of about ten people is serviced. The mélange of auto’s and bodies makes it a challenge to find a space without crushing a person or some sheet metal.

We manage to remain unscathed parking the car and walking over to join the lineup.

As I make a few comments of local color to Gene the guy in front of us joins the conversation. The short, dark-haired, mustachioed man’s jacket says he is a mechanic for the State Police. He too has been coming here for years, and tells us that there are two women who own the business and on different days take turns manning the counter.

As we shuffle closer to the window the three of us begin to ask each other how many can we “do” today? Note, not “eat,” but “do.” Our line-buddy gets two and a plain to go. Plain to go?

What is he doing with the solitary, naked takeout, sucking up to his boss? We can’t make that accusation stick, he says, since they don’t appreciate anything he does; even a Sabrett can’t change that.

Oh, have I mentioned that the gourmet food I had been longing for is hot dogs?

But these are not just any hot dogs, these are Sabrett’s. Why else would ten adults - well at least in terms of age - be standing out here on a blustery, 20’s degree winter day?

What makes a Sabrett a dog gourmet’s treat is the casing which when boiled - never grilled - retains all of the juices and spices and which at each crunchy bite explodes in flavor.

I decide that I can do three, all with mustard and kraut. [And since we are in New York I don’t have to ask for brown mustard. Is there any other?]The dawgs are served in a neat cardboard tray, side-by-side, and cozy in their round buns.

But not to be forgotten is the quintessential New York drink, the chocolate egg cream, which to the uninitiated has neither egg nor cream.

Cousin Gene sees the drink-making, and impressed, comments, “She is making it from scratch.” The long brown-haired, pleasant, forty-something woman pours milk directly from its’ carton into the cup, adds the chocolate syrup and seltzer.

I pay my five-fifty, scoop up the tray, drink and a few napkins, and move ever so carefully to the car, having come so close to satisfying my food fixation that I can’t let the blustery wind blow and drive my five-star meal to the ground.

Whew! I make it safely into the car!

Gene gets in on the passenger’s side with his food, which includes two dogs with mustard and relish. So there we sit, noshing on possibly the best lunch food and drink on the planet.

When done we drive around the runway end of the airport, continuing the half mile or so to and through one of the cemetery’s entrance gates.

Arriving at the grave site's we place a Christmas wreath, one each on my grandparent’s and my dad’s.

As I bend forward and push down into the soil the wire rod on my father’s wreath, I swear I hear him ask, “And how were the dogs?”

[EdNote: In the interest of truth in imaging, the picture accompanying this article was taken in New York City. It is not of the motor coach. It goes to prove, however, that Sabrett’s are ubiquitous in Greater New York.]

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