Schwartz and the mega-super-ultra-stupendous ice cream sundae

I got an email a couple days ago from someone asking for another Schwartz story, so here is one from way back in the day. Since my memory is not really all that great, this story is how I best recollect things. This means that this story may be completely different than how it happened, or an elaborated version of real events.

Schwartz and the mega-super-ultra-stupendous ice cream sundae

We were once hanging out in downtown Toronto, enjoying a nice day strolling around the busy streets. I don’t remember what we were doing down there, except it was a rather warm day and there were plenty of birds chirping. Walking into a nearby mall, we walked around and window shopped, Schwartz looked at the clothing and accessories stores, while I carefully perused the computer and gadget places. After a while, Schwartz told me he was in the mood for something, something cold and delicious. Unaware of what he could be referring to, we continued to ramble, until we happened upon an ice cream stand. Schwartz’s eyes lit up and I thought of my Dad saying “make sure your big eyes match your stomach”. It was hard to take in the multitude of flavors and options; there was just so much milky goodness. I decided on one of my all time favorites, a scoop of daiquiri ice, which is a strange tasting pale green sorbet. I was also eyeing the tiger tail, another favorite of mine. It made up of orange sherbet filled with swirls of melted black licorice and quite a good contrast. My usual third option is my fallback plan, French vanilla. If it was not for the fact I was lactose intolerant, I would be eating a whole lot more of plain vanilla ice cream.

Getting back to Schwartz, he was thinking about going for the mega-super-ultra-stupendous ice cream sundae. This amazing sundae contained everything a mega-super-ultra-stupendous ice cream treat should, a dozen huge scoops of ice cream, a split banana, peaks of whip cream, all topped off by sprinkles, nuts and of course, cherries. I don’t think in the history of the ice cream shack had someone actually ordered a mega-super-ultra-stupendous ice cream, and the woman at the counter asked twice to make sure this is what he really, really wanted. Confirming that he really did want a mega-super-ultra-stupendous ice cream treat, could pay for it, and would probably eat several, the nervous counter woman started to scoop the ice cream. I think she may have felt a little guilty, since it’s like someone going in to a store and asking for a thousand corn beef sandwiches, they just have to make sure you don’t want to just put an end to everything. After all, who hasn’t heard of death by chocolate? Scoop by scoop the ice cream started piling up in the enormous sundae dish. I lost count of how many there were, first came the plain vanilla scoops followed by chocolate. Jamaican chocolate rum, cookie dough, fudge, maple walnut, strawberry cream, cookies and cream, cream and cookies and many, many more followed. Once the ice cream was arranged just so on the tray, an entire can of whipped cream, or several thousand calories worth, followed. From the forests of Brazil rained hundred of various nuts, closely followed by a rainbow of sprinkles and candy bits. Not to be outdone, several scoops of crushed cookie were liberally applied, and to top it all off, enough cherries to, well, enough cherries. The mega-super-ultra-stupendous ice cream sundae was all its name said it would be, and a lot more. After waiting patiently as this stupendous ice cream concoction was created, Schwartz dug in with gusto.

I won’t go into detail about what happened next, suffice it to say he stared the sundae in the eye, and it didn’t blink. Since that day, I think about projectile vomiting in a whole new way. The lesson to learn here is, if the ice cream is mega-super-ultra-stupendous, just walk away and leave it alone before it comes looking for you.

Return of the Schwartz and the Dinner at Dougie's

Here is another ramble about how things were way back when.
Schwartz and I were on many adventures together over the years. Our Dad’s grew up across the street from each other, years later we went to grade school together, made aliyah around the same time, went to yeshiva together, were roommates in Toronto, and so much more. Our stories could fill a book; we both have very different interests, yet were always close friends. I think the common denominator between us is that Schwartz and I always loved the news. To this day I have a fascination with what is going on around the world and read a dozen papers every morning. A typical breakfast was Schwartz frying up a package of Perl’s beef strips (a.k.a. kosher bacon) and me eating a grapefruit and toast, or something left over from the night before like a burger. We would sit at the table and say things like “so, have you heard what’s going on in China?” to which the other would say “yeah, that train derailment in Fujian province…” to which the other would say, “no, the one about the panda biting the guy in the zoo in Beijing”. That’s how good we were, both plugged into the news and deadly at trivial pursuit.

There are so many adventures we had together over the years…There was that time Schwartz almost got arrested by the police in upstate New York while eating a bucket of chicken and speeding. Or perhaps the time when the world went crazy when he couldn’t find his keys and we were stranded at a party. Maybe even the story about being at a friend’s house in the middle of the night and being confronted by her mothers screaming Italian boyfriend. All good stories, but I was thinking of New York a few years ago. These days, even when we end up on opposite sides of the globe, we still try to keep in touch with the occasional email or instant message. I guess that was one reason it was so shocking to meet his daughter, who is now a very mature three. She is a really cute kid, who walks and talks, and of course makes me feel old. We were all together in Flushing, NY the night before she was born, and this is more or less what happened.

I guess I could start by how strange I thought it was to live in a place called Flushing, NY. I quickly got past the toilet jokes when they took me over to the Israeli restaurant literally a couple doors down on the corner and got me some delicious lamb chops. I thoroughly enjoyed the visit, and realized I would easily weigh a few hundred more pounds if I lived around the corner from that restaurant. Living in close proximity to such a delicious eatery really takes some self control. Actually, I think the restaurant was near their second apartment and doesn’t really come into this story, but how could I pass up a mention of lamb chops?

In any case, I was in visiting from Toronto, and we all went out to Dougie’s in Brooklyn. It was a Monday night, and little did I know, there was an all you can eat buffet. Dougie’s is your typical meat burger/steak/chicken kosher restaurant with some interesting flair. The table cloths were made out of paper and you could draw your dinner with the supplied crayons while waiting. They come and give you salsa and nacho chips while you’re waiting, and the service is usually good. They had some interesting items on the menu, spicy chicken poppers, salad with a liberal sprinkling of meat, grilled meats, the works. We grabbed a table, and the gastronomic orgy began. There we all sat, Schwartz, his extremely pregnant wife ML, and I. We sat and stared at the rows of the buffet, chefs whipping and grilling, all for the taking. We ordered some drinks and grabbed our plates and it was off to the races. I have heard eating spicy food helps induce labor, and since ML was just snacking on the spicy chicken poppers all night, I guess it’s true. That’s the great thing about snacking, you can say you’re not really eating, but before you know it, you have nibbled away enough meat to feed a football team. From what I recall, I went up and grabbed about eight to nine plates of food. There was some great grilled meat, meat and chicken in sauces, salads, and not much in the way of “light” food. It was a real mans meal, meat, chicken and potatoes. I think that’s where the problem was. Women might have the common sense to know when to quit or maybe switch those last ten steaks for salad, but what can I say? I was captivated by the abundance of meat for the taking. I was drinking coke like a camel as well; I think I also drank a number of water pitchers. Once it got to the point where I could no longer get up, I sent Schwartz to grab me some more, a huge miscalculation.

At the end of the meal, I had the feeling that someone had rammed a pointy box into my round stomach, and things were poking out, just like when a snake expands and swallows an elephant. I could almost feel those small round chicken poppers poking me and trying to bust out. If you are what you eat, I am scared to think what I was after that meal. When we were finally done, I got up to pay. I stumbled over to the counter and was greeted by the chirpy woman, pretending not to stare at the guy who just ate and drank her out of business. She said “thank you so much for coming to Dougie’s! I hope you enjoyed everything, can we expect to see you back soon?” My brain was a little foggy from the mass quantities of everything I had just ingested and replied “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be back on a Monday night, I have better self control when I have to pay for what I eat.” She thought it was funny, but since then I had not been back to an all you can eat meat place until a couple months ago when we went to Papagio in Tel Aviv. I don’t remember much else of what happened that night, we went back to their apartment and I urinated for about half an hour, and somehow got back to where I was staying and passed out. The next thing I knew, Schwartz was calling to tell me they had a baby girl, Mazel Tov!

I guess its good luck to have the dinner to end all dinners the night before you give birth, or at least watch someone else eat one. The baby lives up to the hype, because while visiting Israel a couple months ago, she sang a song about cows by the Arrogant Worms, lyrics posted below. Anyone who sings songs about cows is a singer after my own heart. Everyone can sing about love, relationships, and being a teenager in angst, you have to be a genius to come up with a good cow song. I am sure one day she will be old enough to understand how she was born with the help of Dougie’s spicy poppers, and I will still be an old guy reminiscing about the good old days.

Arrogant Worms – I am Cow

I am cow, hear me moo
I weigh twice as much as you
And I look good on the barbecue
Yogurt, curd, cream cheese and butters
Made from liquid from my udders
I am cow, I am cow, hear me moo (moo)

I am cow, eating grass
Methane gas comes out my ass
And out my muzzle when I belch
Oh, the ozone layer is thinner
From the outcome of my dinner
I am cow, I am cow, I’ve got gas

I am cow, here I stand
Far and wide upon this land
And I am living everywhere
From B.C. to Newfoundland
You can squeeze my teats by hand
I am cow, I am cow, I am cow
I am cow, I am cow, I am cow!

My College Apartment

My college apartment had a unique feature that separated it from most other bachelor pads. New forms of life were slowly taking over the apartment, but I skipped ahead to the end of the story. To start at the beginning, my roommate Schwartz and I rented an apartment in Toronto almost ten years ago now. We had both decided to come back from Israel and go to college back in the old country, Canada. We had a small three bedroom apartment in the middle of the city, which in most ways was unremarkable. There were the small quirks of living in any building, but generally it was a nice quiet place to live.

The owner of the building, an old woman, also owned the laundry machines. The laundry room was located right across from our front door. We often “forgot” our laundry in the dryer, and the friendly superintendent, with teenagers of her own, folded our laundry with a smile. I tried not to take advantage of her kindness, but she really wanted to help us, and we had no idea how to survive on our own, so we happily accepted. Easy access to laundry facilities is one of the perks living in the half basement, we still had windows, but about half our walls were underground. It actually came in handy on occasion when we forgot our keys and had to break into our own place.

The laundry/owner lady had an obsession with quarters. We had made a sport out of getting our endless rolls of quarters for the laundry. From the bank to the 7/11, they knew us well and usually saw us coming. When you come in every day and buy the cheapest item in the store with a $20 bill and ask for change in quarters, they tend to catch on quick. Back to the owner, I don’t know what she did with all those quarters, or why she refused to sell them back to us, but I am sure there was a good reason. She was always lugging away sacks of our scrounged up quarters. Perhaps like Scrooge McDuck, she enjoyed swimming in pools of coins in her massive vault. It’s a mystery, but I guess we’ll never know. In the apartment, we often had guests over, as I liked to cook, they liked to eat and everyone watched hockey or football, depending on the season. As these types of gatherings call for, someone inevitably brought beer.

Now in those days, we thought being fancy and sophisticated meant putting a slice of lemon or lime in the bottle. I think we used a few groves of lemons in that apartment. Thinking back, I imagine it was because I had a thing for Corona beer early on, probably because it was so expensive in Israel I could never afford it. Once we were in Toronto and I had sampled the multitude of Canadian alcoholic options, we applied the lemon rule to just about anything. Once the drinks were drunk, and so too were our guests, the lemon wedge was dropped in the bottle and set on our massive window ledges arranged all over the apartment. Within a few months, hundreds of bottles were neatly arranged around the windows in rows. Day after day, the sun beat down on those beer soaked lemon wedges, week after week, and month after month. One day, the lemons decided they had enough. It seems that’s it’s a cruel way to end your life, growing up in a sunny grove in Florida, only to be stuck at the bottom of a beer bottle. I guess that’s when they decided to get even and started forming bacteria in the bottles. The apartment smelled horrendous, and slowly but surely new forms of life started slowing making their way out of the bottles. I use the term “new life form” because unlike the regular types of mold and bacteria any university student can easily recognize, these molds were unique. The memory of the smell, colours, texture and shapes still to this day make me want to slap on a pair of rubber gloves, scrub something and jump in the shower.

While the bottle revolution was slowly forming on the window ledges, the battle of the sink was in its early stages of development. It seems that much like lemon wedges, dishes and food dumped in the sink with some water shpritzied on them, don’t stay happy long either. It soon came to pass that both of us would just dart into the kitchen, grab something from the fridge, and try not to look at the sink, gagging all the while. I think we had the policy of not looking at the sink as not to anger it, after a few days it was very, very angry. Tall, strange, foamy bacteria had started forming, and it threatened to take over the kitchen entirely. I don’t know what could have happened if not for the intervention of our friend Itimar. One day he came over to the apartment, put on some gloves, and started spraying soap and water at the sink. I don’t think the sink liked that much and started to fight back. This type of combat is not for the faint of heart or the weak stomached, I went to go lie down on the couch and tried not to gag. I don’t know what happened next, but ten minutes later he emerged from the kitchen and had clearly won the battle. From that day on, we tried to keep the kitchen as clean as possible, I had a feeling that Brutus the Bacteria was lurking, just waiting for him chance to come back and take us out once and for all. Suffice it to say, the bottles were gone the next day, and the only life forms left in the apartment were the two of us.

There are too many stories and adventures I have had with Schwartz to write them all down or ever remember them, this is another one that I won’t forget.

There was that time I put a knife though my hand, in one side and out the other while making hamburgers. The burgers were frozen and slippery and all stuck together. I placed them in the palm of my hand and tried to pry them apart with a serrated steak knife. In retrospect, it may not have been the most brilliant idea, but then again most ideas seem stupid post fact. In any case, I put the knife right through my hand and shpritized blood all over the open freezer, the ceiling, the cupboards, and the floor. I am still to this day appreciative of the guys wiping it all up while I was in the hospital. I know it wasn’t easy for them and had planned on doing it myself when I got back. I really wasn’t thinking when I pulled the knife out, it was an instinctive reaction. I grabbed a couple new dish towels, applied pressure, elevated the hand, and walked into the living room where Schwartz and a couple guests were watching the hockey game. I think it was an important game because they were both glued to the TV. I was completely calm and asked, I think it was Yona, to call an ambulance. Schwartz said, “can’t this wait until after the game?” After the told him it could not wait and it was an emergency, they got up and took a look at the kitchen. I don’t mind the sight of blood, but considering as the kitchen looked like it had been the set for a slasher movie, they were freaked out. There was a huge snow storm outside, and it took the ambulance a while to get to us. In fact, a couple days later, they ended up using ambulance APC’s from the Canadian Army, some areas were so snowed in they were impassable. The next thing I did while waiting was of course to call my Dad in Israel and ask what to do. Since it was 3am and he was sleeping, I apologized for calling so late and asked Doctor Dad what to do. He told me to head straight for the hospital and get sewn up. It was practical advice.

When we had waited for ten minutes and were sure the ambulance was due at any moment, we went out in the snow and waited at the curb. Within minutes a police car drove up, two officers got out and started asking us questions. I think I should have been clearer when I said to the guys they should call 911. Apparently if you call and say “come quick, someone’s been stabbed”, they tend to misinterpret the information. After reassuring them I did it to myself, and yes, I was actually stupid enough to cut frozen hamburgers while holding them in my hand, the ambulance rolled up behind the police car. They told me that they could not take me because of the storm, since my injury was not that critical, but I should get to the emergency room right away because losing lots of blood could be fatal. I love it how everyone gets pleasure out of stating the obvious. Fortunately, Schwartz’s cousin Elana had recently gotten her drivers license, and she rushed me over to the hospital. Everything ended up well, and I have a scar on either side of my hand to remind me to defrost first in the microwave.