Playing With Marbles

An ongoing theme of these blogs is the powerful connective tissue between food and memory: the process of shopping in the market evoking growing up years in the grocery business; the overwhelming sensibilities of smell, of taste. Most of the time, these time portals are obvious, expected even. Not this time. Blind-baking a pie shell for a key lime pie hit me from out of nowhere.

All of a sudden, I am transported back in time, aged ten, playing marbles in the Pulaski Elementary school yard with Steven and Kenneth and a host of others from our Sylvan Terrace neighborhood. There was a whole sociology to the game, although I obviously wasn’t aware of it then. The marbles-playing crowd could be divided into the following categories: 1) The Riverboat Gamblers, who loved the action and excitement of winning others’ stash; 2) The 1%-ers, who just accumulated the wealth of us others with eery calm and precision; 3) The Onlookers, who wanted to be part of the play, but for various reasons were relegated to spectators; 4) The Obsessive-Compulsives, for whom protecting their stash was of utmost importance. I was in this last category.

I almost burned my fucking pie, losing my marbles so to speak meditating about marbles in my childhood. I’d happily do it again. It is not, unfortunately, something you can plan in advance. This shit just happens. And when it does, it’s pure gold.