Mustard

I’ve always had a thing for mustard, and still do; yellow, brown, Dijon, mustard with seeds or horseradish, sweet, spicy, mustard flavored pretzels, honey mustard salad dressing…I love them all. Ketchup (and it has to be spelled K-E-T-C-H-U-P, what the hell is catsup?) only belongs on french fries, keep it the hell away from my corndog, thank you.

Some of my earliest memories are of a Chinese restaurant we used to go to on Sundays after church. We walked through a door and then up a long flight of poorly lit stairs that really scared me, and then through another door into a strange and wonderful world of reds and yellows, lacquer and fake gold, with incomprehensible yelling and fabulous smells coming from behind a swinging door.

I only remember ever eating egg fu yung there, and right now I’m craving the stuff…I wonder what time Yee’s closes…and my grandpa used to trick me into eating the scorching Chinese mustard. Every time. He thought it was hilarious.

When I was a little older I would sometimes stay with my great-grandma, I don’t remember what she looked like, other than she was tiny, but I remember that she lived in a little old trailer in one of those trailer parks where all the trailers are lined up perfectly along little streets with speed bumps and everyone has a little picket fence around their little yards.

I used to think the speed bumps were cool and would play on the edge of the street, pushing my toy cars up and over them and at some point great-grandma would make me a sandwich, plain yellow mustard on plain white bread. No meat, no cheese, just mustard and bread. I loved them.