No, we’re not talking about salad dressing. We’re talking about Ann Bancroft’s tribute to A Dish Called “Wanda” – a riff on the theme, an homage, a toccata to our fugue. It’s a story about desire and loss, about wanting something desperately, yet allowing it to slip through your hungry fingers. Popular wisdom says if you want the real scoop, ask the locals; in Ann’s tasty tale, maybe it’s better to ignore them.

*****************************

Barker’s Lament

I’ve been looking forward to this meal for weeks. “Don’t let the name put you off,” it said in “Hidden Morsels,” my favorite food blog. “The best orrechiete con funghi in all of Little Italy – maybe all of Manhattan – is at Wanda’s.”

I don’t get into the city much, but when I’ve got a sales meeting there I usually wind up ditching the other guys afterward, in search of another restaurant find.  They’re probably all off at some crappy, overpriced steakhouse as we speak.

My criteria is this:  excellent, authentic food of a specific ethnicity (no pretentious chef’s experiments for me), with the feel of a neighborhood gathering spot, and prices that won’t bust my company’s cheapskate expense account. “Hidden Morsels” has never steered me wrong.

Half a block from my destination, I am thinking about a nice Sangiovese – veal polpette will follow the orrechiete.

“There’s always Wanda’s, but you don’t want to go there,” a stranger says to me, out loud, as if he’s reading my mind. And just as I’m getting the creeps about that, he makes it worse by adding, “Rats. I saw a big, fat, slimy rat in the freezer there.”

I shudder. I will put a comment on the blog the minute I got back to my hotel room! But meanwhile, where on earth to eat?

The guy touches my elbow. “You okay?”

Black hair slicked back, his brown khakis in need of pressing, cream colored dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, five-o-clock shadow – he doesn’t look so hot himself.

“Of course,” I say. “Just have to figure out where to eat, is all.”

“C’mon,” he says. “I’ll show you a hidden gem. Been here 100 years, neighborhood joint.” Now I really am getting a weird feeling. The guy knows my criteria!

We walk two blocks, take a right and then another right into what looks like an alley, closed to traffic.  Narrow houses in need of paint squeeze between hardware stores, a kitchen supply. One tiny establishment has a tattered green awning and neon blinking sign: “ED IES”

“Arab?” I ask.

“No, Eddie’s. Strictly American,” the guy says. His name is Sal.

At this point I am so hungry my standards are plummeting.

“Yo, Eddie!” he yells at the bartender. “Meet my friend…Ray? (He looks at me for confirmation)…just in from upstate. Guy wants your house special.”

Sal, now sitting across from me in a wooden booth with red padded naugahyde seats, seems like a decent guy, working his ass off, just getting by. The brown pants are from UPS, turns out. Once he gets off work at the loading dock he changes his shirt and goes straight to the next job, hawking customers for one of the tourist restaurants.

“I’m the best damned barker there is!” he says. A man’s gotta have pride.

We talk about the Mets and Yankees. The usual. Kids? Married? Then I learn he’s just been two-timed by his fiancée, Sheila.

He pounds the table so hard our beers rattle and slosh.  “Busting my ass so she can keep buying goddamn shoes!”

The big mistake, he says, was getting her that coat-check job at the restaurant.

“I missed her, y’know? I mean, home at 11, up at 5, not much time for foolin’ around, if you know what I mean. Not much time for watching TV, even. So I get Carlo to give her the coat-check gig, we get to see each other at work.

“Once in awhile, say late on a Tuesday night, restaurant’s dead, street’s dead, and I’d pop inside, see Sheila. Sometimes back behind the coats, even, y’know? Everything’s great till the freezer.

“Last night I go inside. No Sheila. I look in the kitchen, see the freezer door open a little, Aldo and the Mexican guys running around like usual.

“’Seen Sheila?’ I ask. Aldo looks at the freezer and I think, what, she getting ice cream or something? So I walk on back, Aldo yelling at me, ‘No! Signore!’

“Too late. She’s in the freezer, all right, and so’s Carlo, keeping her plenty warm, the bastard.

“I walked right outta Wanda’s and now I’m the frikkin’ anti-barker!”

His laugh is loud, vengeful.

I look down at my half-eaten burger, the soggy fries.

He looks at me as if we’re co-conspirators, as if I’m the kind of buddy who’d help him write lousy restaurant reviews, no stars for Wanda’s.

*******************************

Ann, you had me at orrechiete con funghi.

As for the rest of you, there’s still two delicious weeks left until the deadline for A Dish Called “Wanda.” Our mouths are watering for your stories – and if you win, $50 could buy you a lot of Sangiovese.