Scenes From A Summer Vacation In The Finger Lakes

Ithacans treat a good restaurant, in this case Mexican, the way New Yorkers treat Governor’s Island on a gorgeous summer weekend: happy to go themselves, proud to show it off. Ithacans also eat early. Our quartet -- lazy day behind us featuring a 3-mile walk from our cabin to a wetlands/bird sanctuary (watching a great blue heron, its feet lifting, its wings unfolding, is a window into pre-human time) and a narrowly-avoided thunderstorm viewed from the cabin porch and two naps (for the adults) and two writing sessions (for the 9-year-old) and a very late lunch -- must wait 20 minutes for a table at 6 p.m. on a Monday night. My sister (the Aunt) and mother (the Grandma) stroll on the commons while my daughter (the Kid) and I (the Dad) play tag. Back on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant: 

Dad (nodding at restaurant across the street): We’re missing a chance to get oysters. 

Grandma: Do you like oysters? 

Dad: I do. I mean, I won’t knock over small children to get them, but, yeah. 

Aunt: What food would you knock over small children to eat? 

Dad: Hmmmm. Maybe a caramel sundae? 

Kid: You’d knock over small children to eat a caramel sundae? 

Dad: Only if it were the last one. 

Kid: You’re terrible. 

Dad: Why should they get it? 

Kid: I would push you into the street to stop you. 

Aunt: That’s more serious. He could get hit by a car. 

Kid: He’s trampling children! 

Dad: Yeah, but they’re only going to get a little bruised. And kids heal fast. 

Kid: Knocking you into the street is not worse. 

Dad: Despite the risk of my serious injury, or even death. 

Kid: Yes. 

Dad: You feel the punishment is commensurate. 

Kid: Commensurate. 

Dad: Roughly equal. 

Kid: I do. 

Dad: That seems harsh. 

Kid: You’re terrible.

Families come to this Mexican joint. A sobbing 4-year-old boy exits in the arms of a sympathetic, obdurate grandfather, fat tears rolling down the boy’s fat cheeks; his 3-year-old butterfly-barretted sister trails, chipper, hand-holding her mother who stops to chat to a table dining al fresco, the girl charming, twirling, blowing kisses. We can hear her brother’s wails from a half-block away. I’m certain the sister has outraged his sense of justice. I hate her. 

Our quartet is seated next to a vacated table above a floor littered with crayons and lettuce and chips and tomatoes and tortillas. 

Grandma: I’ll bet that was that little boy’s table. 

Aunt: No, Mom. We just saw that table walking out. Those two kids with the gorgeous parents. 

Kid: Those kids looked happy. 

Dad: Not only bad kids make messes, Mom. 

Grandma: I didn’t say the boy was bad! You know how I feel about people calling quiet babies “good babies!” As if all other babies were somehow not. 

Dad: Yes, Mom. We all know how you feel about that. 

Grandma: Well, it makes me angry. 

Two summers ago, 7-year-old Kid ate nothing at this restaurant but plain chips; now she orders a quesadilla and chips and guacamole: progress. Our house margaritas arrive. I run my finger on the outside of the glass, offer it to the child.

Kid: [shakes head]

Dad: It’s pure salt. Do you know how they prepare a margarita? 

Kid: [shakes head]

Dad: Before any liquid, before any ice cube, touches the glass, they turn it over and rub the rim in salt, with this twisty motion. Look at these fat grains. [To Grandma] The Kid would knock down small children to eat a fingerful of salt. 

Kid: I would not! 

Dad: But this salt comes from a glass that contains alcohol. Even though it’s from the outside rim and itself has never touched alcohol. 

Grandma: You don’t like alcohol? 

Kid: No! 

Dad: The Kid will not carry from the table to the kitchen any glass that has been drained of all alcoholic contents, since it once contained alcohol. 

Kid: That’s because waiters who are under 21 cannot serve alcohol in restaurants. They can’t carry the glasses. 

Aunt: They can carry empty glasses. And that’s only in a public business with a license to serve alcohol. Parents can serve children alcohol in their homes. 

Kid: Children cannot drink alcohol.

Aunt: Sure they can. In a private residence. 

Kid: Not children! 

Aunt [lists all the arguments the Kid’s parents have marshaled on multiple previous occasions, summing up with]: Besides, who’s going to stop them? 

Dad [cupping hands before mouth]: Sir, ma’am, come out with your hands up! Put the wine glasses down! Hands where we can see them! 

Kid: Dad! 

Dad: We certainly carried our share growing up. Wine glasses. Beer steins. Gin-and-tonic glasses. Whiskey tumblers. Full. Empty. 

Grandma: I just wanted the dishes done. 

Dad: And you wanted a drink. 

Grandma: Did you kids ever sneak drinks? 

Aunt and Dad: Never. 

Aunt: I don’t think any of us liked the taste. 

Dad: You know who used to like the taste? This one. 

Kid: Dad! 

Dad: When you were about 2, for about a year. You wanted anything we were drinking. Beer. Wine. Whiskey. We had to put limits on it. One sip per parent. 

Kid: You should have been arrested. 

Dad: And deprived you of your loving parents? 

Kid: Yes. 

Dad: You weren’t always such a purist. 

The food arrives: chicken enchiladas with green sauce for Aunt, chorizo enchiladas with green sauce for Dad, chicken taco salad for Grandma. The Kid has eaten four-fifths of the guac and wolfs her quesadilla. 

Kid: What flavor could you live without? Salt, sweet, sour, bitter. 

Grandma: I guess bitter. 

Aunt: You could live without coffee? Dark chocolate? 

Grandma: Well, chocolate yes. Not coffee. [Pause] This is a hard question.  

Dad: Maybe salt. The foods I’m not thrilled about are things like olives, pickles. I could live never eating another brined thing. I don’t like aggressive salting. 

Aunt: But no salt? You’d hate it. Everything would be bland.

Dad [to the Kid]: What about you? You hate spicy. 

Kid: That’s not one of the basic four. 

Dad: Shouldn’t it be a basic five? 

Kid: It’s not. I hate sour. You know those Sour Patch candies? I hate those. 

Dad: But that’s sour on steroids. A little sour? A squeeze of lime juice? 

Kid: I hate it. 

Aunt: I can’t do it. I won’t reject a basic flavor. 

Kid: But if you had to. 

Aunt: I refuse. Getting rid of one would throw everything off. 

Dad: What’s that one flavor that comes from the perfect balance of the other four? 

Kid: Umami! 

Dad: I thought that was a kind of sushi. Eel. 

Aunt: That’s unagi. 

Dad: Those Japanese have a different word for everything. 

Kid: Dad.

Grandma: I notice none of us has said anything about eliminating sweet. 

Dad: That’s because we’re not insane. [to Aunt] Have we remembered the name of that ice cream place? 

Aunt: Let me text Randy C. 

Dad: Randy C. knows Ithaca? 

Aunt: Randy C. knows restaurants in every city in the world. 

Kid: The whole world? Africa? China? Idaho? 

Aunt: I was being hyperbolic. But he knows a lot. We were in Paris and he sent a list of places we should try; a few of them overlapped our list, and we tried a couple of others and they were amazing. He and his wife both love to travel and they both love to eat. 

Grandma: A life well lived. 

Dad: Did he go to Cornell? Ithaca seems obscure. 

Aunt: He did. Here it is! [turns phone to show picture of the Purity Ice Cream sign] 

Dad: God bless Randy C. 

Aunt: [Reading] We’re supposed to order black raspberry with chocolate sprinkles. 

Kid: I hate sprinkles. 

Dad: Oh, I know. 

Kid: Eating sprinkles is like eating bits of road tar. 

Dad: You do not have to order sprinkles. 

Kid: Do I have to order black raspberry? 

Dad: You can order anything you like. 

Kid: Do they have mint chip? 

Dad: I am shocked that you want to order mint chip. 

Kid: Dad. 

Grandma: Your grandpa loved mint chip, too. 

Dad: You’re a chip off the old block. 

Kid: Dad. Do they have it? 

Dad: I would be shocked if they don’t. But there’s only one way to find out. 

[All exit]