’Round Town

Too hot!

Wed, 07/24/2019 - 9:30am

    So consider this.

    Your kitchen is a small wooden building at the side of a busy state road with perfectly lovely out in the open exposure to everything. The temperature outside is pushing 90 (maybe higher in the direct sun) and the humidity is creeping.

    Hungry people love your historic foods and form a line in anticipation. Nope! It's not “Red's Eats,” although you might have trouble crossing the street as traffi blows by in search of God knows what. And not every driver knows to stop for pedestrians.

    Inside your kitchen there is a large vat of 375 degree oil used to cook huge chunks of fish. That's where you get to stand, facing the boiling oils, with dripping wire baskets full of food. It's a glamorous life. Even with a huge exhaust fan capable of sucking pigeons out of the air, the temperature isn't October. Add a fan and an air conditioning unit that help to cool your back side, but there is no way the cooler airs help the front side which hovers at the edge of darkness.

    Lady Elizabeth knows when enough is enough.

    I have wanted to photograph Bet for this column for some time. I have lightly badgered her about an ill conceived composition of her on a skateboard, which she readily admits to have ridden, in a past life. I did not want to chase her around inside her space capsule while she cooked. Everybody can see that she is suffering in there, especially in this heat. I was looking for something a little less angelic. Something with her shrieking down Back Narrows on a skareboard in sweatpants and a tank top sporting a mug of India pale ale in one hand and sparklers in the other.

    But no.

    Let's meet at Hannaford, Bet. Get you some of them fish sticks and fries from China.

    Sell 'em like Brud out in front of Tigger Leather and at the Atlantic Avenue end of the footbridge.

    Cooler!