How to be a Good Little Orphan II: Filling in Some Gaps

When I was a kid, I had braces. I also had an addiction to Cool Ranch Doritos, so I popped lots of braces off, which means that the process took extra long. I had braces for a long damn time.

When I met my birthsister Beck, she had braces. I can't remember if she had braces at her wedding. I wish there weren't so many gaps in my memories from back then; September of 1997 was the tipping point of my life. I remember that in Beck's photo on her wedding invitation, her lips were very consciously together. I remember Beck being self-conscious about her diastema -- the gap between her two front teeth. I suppose she saw how much a diastema hurt the careers of Lauren Hutton, Kate Moss, and Madonna.

If a gapped-toothed smile is a common trait within my birthfamily, then I am an exception. I have a small gap between my two front teeth from a childhood injury to my gums (I can spit a thin jet of water Super Soaker style). Apparently my orthodontist thought my mouth was too full, as he had four of my permanent teeth pulled. I had one more pulled because of a cracked root. Oh...and all four of my wisdom teeth were cut out -- which may explain the gaps in my memories. I am down nine teeth already. I feel like such a stereotypical hillbilly.

I was raised by hillbillies (hillbillies with teeth, though). My Dad is from western Kentucky near Ft. Campbell. My Mom was from eastern Kentucky in the mountains. Growing up in Lansing, most of our neighbors were third and fourth generation Dutch. I think some of those neighbors were puzzled that we weren't obliged to live in Black Oak or Lake Station -- but I have never been a Hoosier. Lansing is my hometown. As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. So, I left Lansing for Carbondale -- southern Illinois, hillbilly country.

While living downstate, I began to worry about my birthmother whom I did not know. It seemed like every Lifetime movie in the 1990s starred Melissa Gilbert (a fellow adoptee) as a young mother who gave a child up and then spent her life trying to fill that gap -- with booze, with men, with pine cones and hot glue. If there were I gap left in my birthmother's life, I thought I should at least preheat the hot-glue gun. I searched for my birthmother through Children's Home and Aid Society...and quickly found her. Surprise, my birthparents raised five girls an hour north of Lansing.

I originally sought my birthmother to let her know that I was okay, to tell her that I did not begrudge her anything. I let her know. I told her. Then what? I had sought and found and filled in what gaps I could, but had scant idea how to proceed. I didn't just have a birthmother, I had five birthsisters. Six women, familiar strangers, came slowly toward me like a horde of loving zombies.

I let my Mom and Dad, my adoptive parents, know that I was doing a search for my birthfamily. Growing up, they had asked me numerous times if I was interested it finding my birthmother. It seems they expected me to do it sooner or later.

Mom said she was glad for it, glad for me.

Lie.

Dad said that once the newness wore off of the situation that he wanted to get everybody together for a barbecue -- my birthfamily and my adoptive family.

Complete insanity.

Extended analogy? Don't mind if I do. Let's say I had a girlfriend who left me (although she loved me) because, for one legitimate reason or another, she did not think she could stay with me. She even went so far as to leave me in the hands of a matchmaker. In short order, the matchmaker set me up with someone else and I married this someone else. Years later, I reconnect with the ex-girlfriend and it is obvious in hindsight that she could have indeed stayed with me and that she never stopped loving me. Am I going to invite that ex-girlfriend to a barbecue thrown by my wife? Nuh-ho Wuh-hay. After that, I tried to avoid talking with Mom and Dad about my birthfamily.

I was in Carbondale then. The 340 miles between Six Corners and SIU hindered relationship-building somewhat -- but slow and steady as she goes.

Then, in the fall of 1996, Mom got sick -- my adoptive mother, the mother I grew up with. She had a heart condition called cardiomyopathy, a weakening of part of the heart caused (in her case) by a viral infection. I didn't come see her when she was first hospitalized. She told me not to. She told me she was fine, just a little wake-up call.

Lie.

Mom got sicker. She had to take IV treatments of dobutamine for several hours at a time several times a week. Angioplasty didn't help. A stent didn't help. A permanent port for the IV that was put under the skin of her arm didn't help.

Multiple drugs used in combination helped -- but those cocktails had side effects. The drugs made her loopy-headed and paranoid.

At this same time, my marriage was on the skids. I withdrew socially from just about anyone I couldn't go have a drink with -- even my new-found birthfamily somewhat, even my adoptive family somewhat. When I called my Mom to tell her that my marriage was on the skids, she absolutely shredded me. She was sure that I had violated my marriage somehow. I had not. She was sure that I had stepped outside the marriage to fill some petty imagined gap in my sex life. I had not. Mom set fire to a heap emotional trash and dumped it in my lap. She pushed every one of my buttons that she could. I froze -- too shocked to hang up, too shocked to cry, too shocked to even breathe.

Eventually, my wife Tracey and I fixed our relationship -- but right then, at that moment, during that phone call when my Mom was shredding me, my wife who was packing her shit to move out took the phone from me and explained to my Mom that I was a faithful husband. What was Mom thinking? Why was Mom so angry with me? Why couldn't Mom see the gap in her reasoning? Why could Tracey (who was only in my Mom's life because of me) convince Mom, when I (her own son) could not?

I met Tracey about a month after her mother died. Tracey took to Mom right away, and Mom took to her. I understood this. Still, I was family, goddamn it. This was a matter of family, of real family -- not an add-on who was soon to be a used-to-be. I couldn't figure Mom out.

I didn't speak to Mom for a long time after that. I barely spoke to anyone for a long time after that. Dad -- with the look of Norman Schwarzkopf, the diplomacy skills of Bobby Knight, and the voice of Strother Martin -- made a sincere effort to patch things up between Mom and me. It never really took.

Within a year, my wife and I had reconciled. My Mom was still sick, but was acting as if she had never shredded me. I was still gun-shy. Mom had blown a big hole in our relationship, and done nothing to mend the gap.

By September of 1997, my wife Tracey and I wanted a fresh start together, but the culture gap between our student lifestyle and and our professional lives was a problem -- as was having professional lives in Bumfuck Little Egypt. We decided to move back to Chicagoland. Every week of September of 1997, something momentous happened. Week one: I accepted a transfer from the Kinko's in Carbondale to the Kinko's at Ashland and Clybourn via teleconference from St. Louis. Week two: Tracey's amazing grandfather Walter died, so we went up to Chicagoland and back. Week three: I headed for Chicago alone while Tracey continued at SIU Press until she found a publishing gig up north (our goodbyes conceived our daughter Chloe). Week four: Tracey came up from Carbondale to go with me to my birthsister Beck's wedding to a bass player -- where I met my birthfather. After Beck's wedding, there were only a couple of days left in September, yet Tracey and I managed to squeeze in dinners at two of out favorite local restaurants -- Cafe Borgia and Mario's Tacos.

Last month, my birthsister Beck and I met up at Mario's Tacos. I think we had only seen each other a couple of times since her wedding. I wish there weren't so many gaps in my memories from back then; September of 1997 was the tipping point of my life. I had been going through some old pics before I saw her, so mentioned that I had recently been looking through pictures from her wedding.

Beck made a very still face. "You were at my wedding?"

Hurray! Her reaction made me incredibly happy. Here I was, trying to remember whether or not she still had braces for her wedding -- trying to remember details of all the important events of that month. September of 1997 had obviously been a huge month for Beck as well, yet there were some gaps in her memories from back then. I wonder if she's had her wisdom teeth cut out? I'll bet it's genetic.

Next time: more hi-jinx, and I will try to wrap up this orphan business John Irving style.

The Fall Eating Season III: Fifteen Years! Fifteen Years! She had one of my kids, got me for fifteen years

November sixth was my fiftieth wedding anniversary. Fifteenth. Fifteenth anniversary. Why would I say fiftieth? It doesn't feel like....time isn't dragging...don't feel like we're seventy-five...um....

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November sixth was my fifteenth wedding anniversary. Fifteen years...well, not in a row. That is another story for another time. Shit, my wife reads this blog. She is going to be pissed off that I even alluded to our marriage having its rough patch.

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November sixth was my fifteenth wedding anniversary. We celebrated. Twice.


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November sixth was my fifteenth wedding anniversary. For years now, we have given each other token gifts -- fragrance, or a book, or movie (or two). Our wants are small. We do like to have a nice meal together somewhere. This year, it was at Cafe Borgia, the Chicago southland's famous northern Italian trattoria.

Recently, Cafe Borgia moved from it's digs in the old Lansing House of Pizza location to an airy new building in neighboring Munster, IN. I would love for House of Pizza to go back into the Lansing location, as that was the kick-ass thin crust of my youth. House of Pizza in Hammond, IN, is pretty similar to the old Lansing HoP; but, by the time I bring a pie home from Indianapolis Boulevard, it's cold. There are various Zuni's HoP and Dante's HoP locations around the area, supposedly (I have my doubts) owned by the same family as the old HoP, but the pie is different.

Wedding anniversary? Cafe Borgia? House of Pizza? Sentence fragments? WTF?


I do not know Karen and Mike Jesso, the mom-and-pop of Cafe Borgia. There is a story that goes around town about how they met. The story holds that in their youth, they first met while they were waiting in line at Lansing House of Pizza to pick up their carry-outs. After their marriage, after culinary school, they found that Lansing House of Pizza had closed and that the very place they met was available for lease just as they were about to open their own restaurant. Serendipity! Kismet! Fate! Karma! Interjections meaning luck!

Now the old Lansing House of Pizza is the old Cafe Borgia, and the old Cafe Borgia is empty. The new Cafe Borgia is built across from the Munster dump. Like every dump in America, this is called Mt. Trashmore by the locals. Munster has been developing the area around Mt. Trashmore: exhibit-style veterans memorial, shiny new park, pricey subdivision downwind of the dump, and Cafe Borgia.

We went for lunch. This was our first time at Cafe Borgia since it moved.

There is a fine line between ambiance and pretense. Cafe Borgia treads upon that fine line like Karl Wallenda (Google it, kiddies).

Just inside the front door, appearing at first to be a narrow corridor, the bar juts off at a right angle. The quick peek I gave the bar told me it was fashioned after a club-car in Rat-Pack chic (remember the bar in Phil Smidt's?). We were seated immediately in the main dining room. This new building fosters the impression that it is a converted warehouse -- high clattery ceiling, duct-work to nowhere. The large open kitchen is on the same side as the bar, with a yards-long order-up window that had me worried that Mel Sharples was going to ash his cigarette on my food before passing it to Flo or Alice. Our waitstaff could not have been more attentive if they had chewed our food for us and fed us like nestlings.

The menu was short but varied. The usual Italian suspects were present: pizzas and pastas, chicken vesuvio, risotto, calamari, veal, lamb this, eggplant that. Not-so-usual fare includes: cubanella peppers with four cheeses and marinara, duck ragout and polenta, and a salad of apple and mixed greens with gorgonzola and pine nuts in a raspberry vinaigrette. The daily-specials menu was nearly as long as the regular menu.

We started off with the marinated olives and the baked goat cheese.

• Marinated olives were a great appetizer: starting off a meal in a classy joint by spittin' out pits, ptooey. The lightness of Cafe Borgia's favored olive oil cannot be overemphasized. Other places, an appetizer of marinated olives looks and tastes like an unchopped version of the olive salad in a nice muffuletta; Cafe Borgia's olive marinade did not overwhelm, so that the different flavors of the different olives (kalamata, cerignola, galega, and castelvetrano) were distinct.
• Goat cheese was served as something of an Italian version of brie en brioche. Baked to gooey bliss in a thin pastry crust and surrounded by marinara, the goat cheese was the kind of good that makes me roll my eyes and smile as I chew. On rounds of the warm house bread, or by the forkful, we couldn't leave it alone until it was gone.

The herb and raspberry tea was strangely appealing. Even though a small carafe of tea was left on our table for self-service, not a sip was taken that was not immediately refilled by the staff. If the service at Phil Smidt's ever really was the way Dad bragged that it was, it would not have beaten this.

Our main courses came just as we were finishing the last bites of out appetizers. I ordered the pork scallopine limone. My wife, a pecso vegetarian, had an ultra-thin (Roman-style) pizza off of the daily-specials menu.

• My pork scallopine limone consisted of thin triangles of pork tenderloin that had been sauteed in olive oil with garlic, artichokes, mushrooms, and lemon. A lot of lemon. A lot a lot a lot of lemon. I love intensely sharp acidic flavors, so I was pretty okay with this, but this is not for everyone. This extreme acidity, however, was only evident in the pork, so I think it must have been marinated in a strongly acidic solution. As much lemon as I like, this was a little much even for me. I would have liked to cut the sour a bit with a little salt. Here is where the pretentiousness of this wonderful trattoria comes in. There are no salt-and-pepper shakers on the tables. Of course, ask and ye shall receive -- as the service is beyond reproach. The pretense is that the chef knows just the right balance of seasonings, all seasonings -- even salt and black pepper -- so no possible correction should be necessary. There's the tiniest of social stigmas attached to asking for the salt and the pepper you pissy little cretin...No soup for you! I have already given more space to this than it deserves. The only other thing I'll say on the subject is that the alleged Italian Christopher Columbus braved the uncharted Atlantic to bring back black pepper from India but found America instead, so maybe an Italian restaurant in America should consider having some black pepper -- and its longtime companion, salt -- on every table, like every other restaurant (see my blog entry The Fall Eating Season I: ...and since Columbus discovered India in the Dominican Republic, we use precious cinnamon to make elephant ears. for more on the spice trade). I digress. I do not think I was ever told what my side dishes were, but they appeared to be a large-grained couscous in a tomato sauce and some grilled green beans of the spindliest variety in the world. Both were unexpected, unusual, and excellent.
• The daily pizza was a Roman-style ultra-thin crust with eggplant, arugula, and cherry tomatoes. This was large enough to feed two and somehow tasted alive...almost like is sparked when eaten. I assume that this was because of the exceptional freshness of the produce used. This was the greatest pleasure in a dinner of many pleasures.

With no empty space in our stomachs and half of a pizza to take home, we still managed to share a desert and have coffee. The coffee came with real cream and real sugar. I might be tempted to burst into a tirade here about the waitstaff not supplying artificial sweeteners with the coffee, like my earlier tirade about salt, but this is different: anyone who is willing to eat even half of a high-calorie dessert and then worry about the 16 calories in one teaspoon of sugar, well, that person is a nut. Great coffee. If you aren't hungry, just stop by for coffee. Great coffee. Thick and strong, not even the slightest bit bitter. I usually drink my coffee straight black, but when it is really excellent coffee, I like to add just a drop of cream and about half a spoonful of sugar to really bring out the complex flavor. Who's being pretentious now? It's me, bitches.

If you take a ball of white chocolate mousse with pistachios, wrap it with chocolate cake, slice off one half, and serve it -- apparently, that is called zucotto. The zucotto was plated with a pool of chocolate sauce and a pool of raspberry sauce. This was a lot of wonderful competing textures and flavors. This was the fireworks after the home run.

If it sounds like I had a foodgasm at Cafe Borgia...well, a gentleman does not kiss and tell. Outside of a brief lemony leg-cramp, this was the consummate anniversary dinner -- food I loved at a restaurant I loved with the woman I loved...love...the woman I love.

Yeah, yeah. Awwww, right back at you.

Next time: more hi-jinx, and how to be a good little orphan.