Food, Life and Good Stories

“Find something. Make something,” my aunt said to us in an email. “Times are tough and we may as well put thought and meaning into our gifts.”

Vaguely in my mind I imagined myself knitting in my room bracelets for everyone. But when Xmas music played at the café where I went to write and put it off another day, I felt the holiday creeping up on me. I listed names of people in order of priority: parents first and cousins later, and a second list for maybes. I meditated on the image of giving bracelets to people. I imagined compiling my recent art for family, but it wasn’t for them.

That was the paragraph that I wrote in the café a week before Christmas and it followed the beginning of a story that I would finish the day after Christmas. I didn’t have writers block at all when I started but I didn’t know what I was writing. Then a progressive guy I knew from school walked in and we talked a while. I told him about our family’s Christmas pursuit and he said his family acknowledged tough times too on Christmas. He also said he did some writing and song writing too. I asked if it was political, and he said it just dealt with emotions, and then it struck me that I had the challenge of doing just that.



Food, Life and Good Stories


My family expected me to show up on their snowy doormat on December 24th. This was back in 2009, and they hadn’t known it but my job in New York didn’t work out and I’d been sleeping on my friend’s couch for a year. It was my chance to get out of Wisconsin and be somewhere new. My friend had the job all waiting for me, Phil Aranok who had been in the paper with me at school. It was February 2009 when I moved out, six months after graduating and mowing the occasional lawn as a fill-in.

It was a small, independent newspaper office with their funniest articles on the walls: “Bearded Five Year Old Roams Streets,” “Teachers Strike Until Students Do Homework,” “Bottled Water Companies Forced to Put ‘Tap’ in Ingredients,” “Mayor Takes Apology Back and Declares Cheating Not Our Business.”

The scariest thing of my first day -of two days- was when the Editor and Chief, Megan Shoe asked me where I was from.

“Wisconsin,” I said.

“Wow. And you’ve been living in New York?”

“Since yesterday.”

“Oh yea?”

“Did Andrew not tell you that?”

Andrew looked over from his computer and gulped.

“No,” she said, “but he told you how the test week goes, yea?”

“No,” I said, staring Andrew down until he slowly turned back to his computer.

“Yea,” she said. “Hopefully we could hire you. We’re going to find out tomorrow if we’re getting our annual donation from Maryanne Lewis Frank.”

“Who’s Maryanne Lewis Frank?”

“She’s a real interesting person. She owns a sustainable farm in New Jersey and the largest self-supplied restaurant in Queens. She also owns 81.4FM and hosts a show at one on weekdays. She practically bases her show on our paper.”

“How old is she?”

“She’s in her eighties. She has two autobiographies.”

“Cool.”

“Yea. So this week you can take your time on one article and pitch at least one idea tomorrow.”


At one that afternoon I turned on Andrew’s clock radio, sitting on his window ledge, looking out at the Brooklyn Street.

“Hello world! It’s one p.m. and this is Maryanne Lewis Frank and Pete Logran! Despite all the problems in the world and in New York City it’s a beautiful gray day. I love gray. Don’t you love gray Pete?”

“Yes. You need shades of gray.”

“Right. It’s not all black and white.”

“It’s not always blue.”

“That’s right. Everyone wants blue all the time. How about some gray?”

“No discrimination.”

“Right. Speaking of discrimination, the New York Footprint ran an article today on a discrimination issue.”

“Is segregation back?”

“No! Well, let’s not go there, but a new poll reveals that most New Yorkers prefer banks where no one greets you when you walk in.”

“Tellers?”

“No. Sometimes a manager-type tries to get you to come to his desk and offer you deals so the smile business seems like just a ploy.”

“So they don’t trust smiling managers.”

“They discriminate because they’re okay with Kristoffs greeters.”

“Well the old Kristoffs greeter has no agenda.”

“Exactly. It’s safe to smile back at that greeter. And we happen to have a Kristoffs greeter with us.”

“Hello,” said an old woman.

“Mrs. Stallworth. Hello,” said Maryanne.

“Hello,” she said again.

“Ms. Stallworth. How is it being a greeter?”

“Oh. I’m no longer a greeter.”

“Since when?”

“This morning. I was let go with advanced notice.”

“Oh no! Why, may I ask?”

“Oh. I’ve been forgetting where I am recently. So sometimes I have to sit down and close my eyes.”

“Oh. Okay. Well that’s normal.”

“Maryanne,” said Pete. “Is she okay?”

“Mrs. Stallworth? Okay. Let’s hear from our sponsor.”


I said to the cabdriver, “Please. Put on 81.4!”

As we rode over the Brooklyn Bridge Maryanne said, “We have to cancel today’s show. Enjoy a recording.”

After I asked the security guard at the desk, “Could I talk to someone for an article?” police officers rushed past me to the elevator.


“Did they let you up?” asked Megan Shoe in the office.

“No but when I spoke to a janitor outside, later, Maryanne herself was being carried out on a stretcher.”

“Why?”

“Someone killed her.”

“Who?”

“Some guy who ran in alongside the paramedics for Mrs. Stallworth, shot her, and ran out.”

“Do you know why?

“No. But I’m thinking the guy thought she purposely had someone on the show that was let go from Kristoffs. This could be the focus of my article.”

“Wow. So we can’t hire you just yet now that Maryanne Lewis Frank is dead but go ahead and write it but just this once
because we need a new source of fundraising now.”


“What do you think?” asked Andrew at his small table that night in his kitchen.

“About?”

“Maryanne Lewis Frank. Think she asked for it?”

“All I know is she likes gray and has a sustainable farm. You haven’t read her autobiographies have you?”

“No but we have copies at the office, a boxful if you want to investigate.”

“Yea. Maybe I’ll take my time and explore this.”


Megan Shoe gave me the books directly and said, “Great idea. I can probably get you some access if you need it.”

I opened her second book on the bus, thinking a connection to Kristoffs might be in there.


By 1967 I had been living in New York City for twenty years and for nineteen years I lived in Harlem where I ran what was known as a healthy bakery. I had written an autobiography because people thought I was very peculiar and wanted to know my story. It was also just to have a relevant book in the place, but I didn’t realize that at the time of printing it, a much more compelling story was about to unfold.


“Authorities still don’t know who took the life of the late Maryanne Lewis Frank,” said a reporter on the TV screen in a green room where 81.4 was painted on the wall. A man in his sixties with a long, white ponytail came to the entrance and said,
“Clarence?”

“Yea.”

“I’m Pete. Come in.”

His office had flags from every country on the walls. He sat in a chair in the middle of the room with me.

“So Megan Shoe says you want the scoop on Maryanne and Kristoffs?”

“Not necessarily. This could be a long term project so I’m just finding out what I’m looking for.”

“Well this is what I think. Ready?”

I took out my recorder and turned it on. He said, “She let ideas come out from between the lines. She didn’t make
statements. She asked questions. Nothing was right or wrong to her, but everything was peculiar. She met that woman at Kristoffs and invited her, knowing nothing about her see? That’s all.”

I shut it off. “Why do you have these flags?”

“I try to provoke curiosity for other places. I feel I’m with everyone in the world with all these flags.”

“Wow. Can I maybe follow you up on an email?”

“Sure. Hey. Read her first book first.”


In 1947 I worked at the local bakery in my New England town at the register. I was twenty-two years old and was back home after graduating from a university. It was a small town and we had regular customers. There was a little boy that came in all the time named Billy Norton. The boy was rather large for his age and always by himself. One day he came in with a black eye. I said, “Now Billy. What happened?”

He shrugged nervously.

“Did someone start a fight with you?”

“It’s no big deal,” he said.

“You’re right,” I said. “It’s not big deal. It’s probably just kids that do so bad on their tests at school that they try to prove their toughness by hitting my great friend.”

He laughed, which I had never seen before. In fact, I had never seen him smile.

On my last week there, my third week, Mr. Hancock who I’d known my whole life taught me how to make some sort of
pastry. He poured massive amounts of sugar on the dough. The first treat I made came out rather funny looking; it was skinny
on one side and fat on the other. Then I poured sugar on it. “More,” said Mr. Hancock. “Don’t be afraid.”

Just before I left that day I sold that awkward pastry to Billy, who wasn’t smiling. When he left Mr. Hancock said, “He comes in more than ever. I think he likes you.”

Six months after quitting that job and reading books in what felt for the first time like “my parents’ house,” and not “our
home,” I moved in with a friend in New York City.


“Find anything about Kristoffs greeters?” said Andrew walking by me behind the couch.

“I’m in the forties right now.” That Pete guy suggested I start in the beginning.”

“What if all you get out of this is a good read?”

“I’m sure I’ll get something out of it.”

“I just mean as far as writing something.”

“Hey are you nervous about me laying on the couch all day?”

“No! I feel bad enough having made the mistake with The Footprint. Please, read two volumes of Maryanne Lewis Frank on
my- on the couch as long as you want. But maybe you should visit her farm.”


There were a hundred people on the endless farm when I got there from the bus stop by the elementary school. A thirty-year old woman in a bandana greeted me. “Clarence?”

“Yep.”

“Heidi. Thanks for calling and not just showing up like some radio fans do.”

“Oh yea?”

“Walk the farm with me.”

“Okay so why are there so many people here?” I asked as we headed down a path.

“Because we’ve got child labor. We’ve got a volunteer educational program going on which accounts for half the people
here. Then you have a class of people that want to be sustainable farmers, which accounts for another forty people. Then you have regular people.”

“Okay. Do you have any idea of why the tragedy may have happened?”

“I have a few ideas. What do you think?”

“I’m just reading her books now.”

“Did you read the second one?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay. Well you’ll get an idea in the second one.”

“Really? Can you tell me what you think anyway?”

“Sure. But you should read all of it before writing anything. Maryanne pissed a lot of people off in the sixties when she took
over this land.”

“Is that it?”

“Well. It seems outlandish that someone would kill her because of it decades later. Some people are crazy.”

“Why would it bother people to take over the land? Was it supposed to be for something else?”

“Yes. Big time retailers were trying to develop it.”

“Oh okay. Probably the same owners as Kristoffs right?”

She chuckled and thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. Listen babe. I wasn’t around back then but I don’t want to say your investigation isn’t interesting. If it turns out it has something to do Kristoffs then my guess is that’s interesting but Maryanne Lewis Frank is interesting in her own right.”


Suzie was some sort of secretary in the publishing world but on the weekends she served tables at Lorkinvalle’s, the most disgusting place you’ve ever seen. She told me not to go and distract her but I went anyway and saw that she was just embarrassed by the place. It was dark and heavy with loathsome old men. I pulled her behind a curtain where we accidentally stumbled into something ridiculous and so I pulled her another way and asked her, “What are you thinking working here?”

“I told you not to come here,” she said.

“Well maybe I wanted to see if it was a place I could pick up something for the meantime too.”

“Maryanne. If you want a job I could get you it like that.”

“Really?”

She inflated her gum and popped it.

I liked working there. I could mess up people’s orders and it didn’t make a difference to them. Winking always earned me a
bigger tip. And the best thing about the place was Joanne. Joanne Current, from Harlem who said to me when she first saw me in the trashy uniform, “Hey Nancy. You aught to not eat before working if you want to not get sick in this place.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“But if you do get sick, there’s an ally out the back door.”

Because Suzie actually worked in an office during the week and Joanne only worked at night, I asked Joanne to show me around during the day.

“I hate it,” she said in the frosty weather at the bottom of Central Park. “I want to get out of there as soon as possible.”

“If you had a special magic, I don’t know…”

“Bowling pin.”

“If you had a special magic bowling pin, and you could leave that place right now, what would you do?”

“Go bowling.”

“I mean if you had to chose a work option.”

“Oh. I like cooking. I wish I could take Lorkinvalle’s and make it a nice place with really good food. Actually you should
come over and have some of our food.”

The meal was the second best food I ever had at the table with her sister and her brother-in-law and their little boy and
little girl.

“Where are you going next?” said the brother-in-law to me.”

“What do you mean?” I asked while Joanne got up from the table.

“Well you’re not going to stay at Lorkinvalle’s. You have some New England degree of some kind. I’m sure you’ve got
something in mind.”

I sighed. “My only interest is to experience whatever is here in life and to try to help if I can.”

“Joanne says you’re a bowler.”

I laughed real hard.

The children fought with each other and Joanne’s sister whispered in their ears to calm them.

“I actually want to open up a place with Joanne,” I said.

“A bowling alley?”

“I don’t know.”

Joanne returned and put a tray with a pile of circular pastries on the table that were black on the bottom and blue on the top and the kids and everyone were suddenly silent. Her sister clamped her hands together and said, “Magadols.”

“Yes!” said the little boy.

“I’m sorry if I offended you,” said the brother-in-law to me. “Have a magadol.”

“What in the world is that?”

Joanne laughed and sat down. “I can’t eat sugar,” she said. “So when I was a kid I experimented with my mother to cook stuff I could eat when everyone else had some sugar thing and well this is just one of my famous, healthy desserts.”

“I love them already,” I said and ate one.

“Best food you’ve ever had,” said her sister.

I nodded. “This is beyond food. This is the next life.”


The next stop on my journey was Lorkinvalle’s sleazy restaurant, which was in Queens, but it wasn’t Lorkinvalle’s anymore. It was actually called The Next Life. It was all very wooden inside and there were plants everywhere. There were probably fifty tables but only ten full because it was three p.m.

Someone my age with red hair pulled back tight and a plead shirt tucked into her black pants greeted me by the entrance with a menu. “Hi. Would you like a table?”

“I don’t think so. I was hoping to maybe speak to a manager or someone that knows a lot about Maryanne Lewis Frank.”

“I do.”

“Oh yea? Are you her daughter or something?”

“No. I’m just a big fan. I listen to her radio shows when they repeat at one a.m. because of my shift. Why? You’re not the killer are you?”

“No. I’m just interested in her. It started as an investigative article but now I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“What are you from Wisconsin?”

“Yes?”

“Wait a minute. What’s your name?”

“Clarence.”

“Clarence. I’m Robin. Don’t go anywhere. I will help you.”


She gripped her black coat tight as we walked up an avenue in Harlem.

“Oh my God,” I said. “Have you ever had a magadol?”

“Of course!”

“Are they going to have magadols there?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll see why.”

“Oh maybe this will connect to Kristoffs.”

“No. It has nothing to with that. Or maybe it does” she chuckled. “Here it is.”

It was a fast food place with bright signage, bright interior and prices all over the window.

“What?” I said. “This isn’t Mary-Jo-Anne’s.”

“It was. Ok, it’s freezing, let’s go.”

As soon as we sat down on the subway I pressed her. “When did that happen?”

“Decades ago man. She sold it. Read faster.”

“I read the whole first book.”

“The first book sucks. Read the second one.”

“What sort of fan are you? You just like her magadols and radio show.”

“I’m just kidding. But you have to try a magadol.”

“When do you work?”

“No. Come in when I don’t work.”

“You wouldn’t want the awkwardness of me tipping you. I get it.”

“No. That way I can go eat magadols with you and figure out what you’re figuring out!”


Mary-Jo-Anne’s was often investigated by the police because it was known as a hip place believe it or not. I don’t know why that warranted so much suspicion. Even in 1967 it had the same black and white checkered floor. The music and our looks changed with the times a bit and we hung beads over the front door and one day splashed various paints all over the walls but other than a slightly new ambience it was still just a healthy bakery.

It was a Saturday morning when three boys and a girl walked in. Only one of them I knew quite well, His name was Joel.
They took one of the two tables and I said, “Joel, right?”

“That’s me. Mary right?”

“Where did you get all these people from?”

“What does that mean?” said a boy with fuzzy sideburns and a long brown coat.

“Just curious. Do you go to school together?”

“These are my stepbrothers from New Jersey. My father lives in New Jersey with my twelve other siblings.”

“He’s just joking around said the one in the coat.”

“Would ya’all like anything?”

The girl next to Joel said, “Are we aloud to not get anything?”

“It’s encouraged here.”

The one in the coat rubbed his chin and nodded.

“We’ll have a plate of mi-kis,” said Joel.

While I made the plate I listened to them talk.

“Can you get people to come to this auction next Sunday?” said Joel’s other brother.

“What are my friends going to do? You thinking of actually raising money?”

“You’re friends,” said the one in the coat, “can help us stop the auction all together.”

They were quiet and I set the plate down. “If ya’ll need anything, even ideas, just let me know.”

“What kind of ideas do you have Mary?” said the one in the coat.

“This place was my idea. Not a bad idea right considering my friend Joanne’s amazing cooking and my name’s Maryanne.”

“We all used to go to a grade school in New Jersey,” said Joel. “There was a farm next to our school. Part of it was sectioned
off for the kids so we actually grew food in there when we were little kids.”

“That’s wonderful,” I said.

“Just around the time I moved well, so did the farmer. He went bankrupt but we kept the garden anyway, even though the
guy couldn’t help anymore.”

“Now the whole thing’s going to be parking lot,” said the one in the coat.

“For what?” I asked.

“We don’t know yet,” said the one in the coat. ”But all those kids are going to see is stores and parking lot. It’s the only
space left.”

“It’s a problem for the kids,” said Joel’s other brother. “But it’s also a problem for everyone that has to move out of the
town because it’s an expensive place now.”

“I have an idea,” I said.


It was May when Robin, Heidi, Andrew, Megan and I had dinner together at The Next Life. It was the next life. The food was ecstatic, I couldn’t stop laughing, and I finally felt planted in where I was.

“So are you going to do anymore writings on Maryanne Lewis Frank?” said Heidi to me.

“I might have to move on with life,” I said.

“No!” she Robin across the table from me. “You’ve been keeping her alive for us.”

“You don’t listen to reruns?” said Andrew? “You’re not a real fan.”

“I admit I stopped listening to it. I needed to start sleeping before midnight.”

“You know what?” I said. “I’m pretty ready to just work anywhere now or go home.”

Robin threw a string bean at me. “Don’t go home.”

“I want you to stay,” said Andrew.

“Do you know anything about organizing a giant concert?” said Megan. “Pete thinks we should have a giant concert on the farm to fundraise.”

“Where would the food go?” said Robin. “Does Pete know what a farm is?”

“”Robin,” said Megan. “I think you should take over Maryanne’s show. You’re it.”

“Oh my God you’re right!” she said. “What the hell would I talk about?”

“Why don’t you say to Pete you want to do a show for a week to see if it works out?”

“Okay.”


“Hello. It’s one a.m. and you’re wondering who the hell am I? Well you probably heard that Maryanne Lewis Frank was shot
right here and as a result is not a living person anymore.”

“And I’m Clarence.”

“I’m Robin Cherry Gile. We’re more interested in you than us so we’ll be taking calls of Maryanne fans to see how people are
feeling about the end of this woman. We’re at 917, 789, 5124. That’s 917, 789, 5124.”

We waited a second and it rung. “Speak to us,” said Robin.”

“Wow. Hi.” It was a woman’s voice.

“Hi,” said Robin. “What’s your name?”

“Michelle. I just want to say that I’ve been listening to this for the full fifteen years since it’s been on.”

“What made you tune in?” Were you an eater at The Next Life?”

“Well. When her second book came out in 1990, I read it and it just had a big affect on me.”

“How so?”

“The woman stuttered and sounded like she might have been crying. “She made me feel good about food. Food had always
been the worst thing I could think of. My father died from a heart attack because of how he ate and I never felt good around it.
But it became a beautiful thing.”

“Thank you Michelle.”

“Okay. Thanks for doing this. I’ve been frustrated for this whole month listening to her recordings. I’ve never called before.”

“Thank you.”

“Hello?” It sounded like a middle-aged man with a rough voice.

“Hi there,” said Robin. “What’s your name?”

“Hi. I’m Steve. I eat at The Next Life all the time. I’ve always been inspired by the story about the farm. The same thing happened to my neighborhood growing up. It was beautiful when I was a kid and we watched all the grass disappear and food became worse and worse. In fact, I got sick with food poisoning ten years ago. It was frightening. I thought I was going to die. I started listening to this show because I heard Maryanne knew something about safe food and cared about hot it was grown and made.”

“Great. This is going good.”

“Okay now,” he said.

“This is awesome,” said Robin. “Who’s this?”

“My name’s Tina.” Her age was ambiguous. She sounded very subtle.

“Hey Tina!” we both said.

“Hi. Well. I read those books both the first and the second. The first was given to me in the hospital in 1988 because I had been battling anorexia since I was thirteen a few years sooner. It definitely celebrated food and helped a little bit. But the second one absolutely cured me.” She cried.

“Take your time,” said Robin.

“Thank you. The woman broke the law and lied at an auction so that children could learn how to grow food and appreciate healthy food. When I grew up, food was just this horrible thing that if you actually enjoyed it made you fat. I felt like it was some sort of trap. You know what? In the nineties, I joined the community garden in my neighborhood and made friends that used to have similar problems! We would eat stuff out of the ground! So now every meal is a sacred activity and I try to make my kids love it too and they grow it too.”

“Thank you. We’ll take on more before The New York Footprint. Who is this?”

“This is Carl.”

“Hey Carl,” she said.

“Yea. I miss Maryanne. Are you taking over?”

“We’ll see.”

“I like you guys already. I liked Maryanne. I don’t know why.”

“Maybe it was because she promoted healthy food?”

“Lots of people do.”

“But she promoted that every ingredient and source be healthy and natural and she served it.”

“Okay. But I think she was also interesting because she always acted like everything was okay. She was cool. She liked the
funny newspaper.”

“Yep.”

“”Yea. But she wasn’t obsessed with food. She just did that stuff because of the people she met. She happened to meet that boy and that baker, Joanne and the kids from New Jersey. Food had nothing to do with her.”

“So why did you listen Carl, or read her books?”

“I love food. I don’t watch the food channel or go to chic restaurants. I just love food and I could never admit it. I never felt secure about being a very large person, or comfortable eating around other people, but when this strange woman came around, I felt comfortable talking about food and I came out of the closet as a person that loves food and life and good stories.”


The next day I printed the front-page story of The Footprint, “The Next Maryanne Hit by Car.” Robin was hit after the show and wound up in a coma for several months. She came to in September. The station had lost funding and was taken over by a Spanish radio company. Since the accident I spent the rest of the year taking some register jobs here and there. My family expected me to show up on their snowy doormat on December 24th in Wisconsin but a few days sooner I didn’t get on the bus. Instead I volunteered at The Next Life with Robin and Megan, serving healthy food for free to people who needed it the most. Robin played her acoustic guitar and sung too. We did it for five full days. Soon The New York Footprint couldn’t operate anymore except voluntarily and without regularity online. Things picked up for me later. I decided to just go with the current and see what stories awaited for me, paying attention for whenever something peculiar seemed to suggest an opportunity.