Super Soldier and Supermarket
Leslie winced at the loudness of Steve's exclamation. Fortunately, everyone within earshot had his attention fixed on the enormous flat screen TV where a spectacular double play was in progress.
"Yankees vs. Red Sox," one customer answered. Leslie could only thank heavens it was two old-time teams. The man half turned to eye Steve suspiciously. You're not a Red Sox fan, are you?"
"Never," Steve answered fervently.
The man nodded satisfaction and turned back to his beer and the game. Leslie touched Steve's arm. He started, then sheepishly followed Leslie out of the restaurant.
Steve was still dazzled by the bright, colorful screen — something new showing baseball, which was something familiar.
"What was that?" he asked breathlessly, when no one was close.
"That was a big screen television set," Leslie answered. "TV for short."
Steve frowned. "I've heard that before. They had a display at the World's Fair, but they were round and small and the picture was fuzzy and gray."
"They've progressed a lot," Leslie admitted. "I remember when TV was just black and white and how excited we were when a friend got the first color TV in the neighborhood."
"And you can watch baseball on them?"
"Sports, news, movies and TV series — like radio with pictures," Leslie confirmed. "One of the first broadcasts was a Dodger game before the war."
"Yeah, I remember. The RCA dealer put a 'TV' in the window so everyone could see, but he didn't let riffraff like Buck and me linger for long. He knew we couldn't buy one. We stood at the back of the crowd. We could hear Red Barber, but I couldn't see over people's heads, so we went home and listened on the radio. Now I'll be able to watch the Dodgers on TV?"
He was enthused. Leslie delayed telling him that the Dodgers had moved out of Brooklyn.
"You can watch the Dodgers on TV, but not today, because they're on their way to Philadelphia. And because we haven't put the TV equipment together, yet."
"You know the Dodger schedule?"
"They're my team," Leslie said simply.
Steve nudged her shoulder. "I knew I liked you for a reason," he joked.
Leslie nudged him back. "So, the plan is to drop off our leftovers at your building. Then go grocery shopping. Tonight we can put together the electronics, giving us tomorrow to finish up if we get stuck. Tomorrow we cook — I've got to show you how to use modern appliances — and play with electronics and talk baseball. Tomorrow night we watch the Dodger game."
"At night?"
"Stadiums have lights these days. Night games are more convenient for working stiffs."
Leslie had rattled off her schedule off the top of her head, but wasn't a bad plan, she thought. A lesson in electronics will segue into baseball, which can be used as an illustration of civil rights and the post-war westward migration.
She just hoped the Dodgers would win tomorrow. Of course, she always hoped that.
Steve had been walking between Leslie and the street as a gentleman ought to when he suddenly paused, swung behind her and took up position between her and the buildings. His sudden vigilance made Leslie nervous.
"What?" she asked quietly.
"That man's talking to himself," he answered just as quietly.
She followed the direction of his gaze and saw a scruffy looking man talking to himself, but he wasn't muttering aimlessly.
"It's OK," Leslie informed Steve. "Can you see the device in his ear? It connects to his cellphone."
"So he's talking on his phone?" Steve asked. He'd seen people holding little squares to their ears and understood they were on the phone, but this man was just talking.
"Yes, he's making a call," Leslie confirmed. "But don't lose your vigilance. We do see mentally ill persons talking to themselves on the street. Just like the old days. Most of them are harmless, but some can be dangerous."
Steve nodded.
They had to walk past Steve's building to get to the supermarket, which allowed them to drop their leftovers with Carlos. Steve studied the streets as they walked. "Isn't that a market?" he asked, pointing to a small bodega on the opposite corner.
"Yes, it is," Leslie agreed. "There are many little markets, delis and mom-and-pop stores in New York, and you may patronize them if you prefer. It's nice to support the local owners and not just the big corporations. And some of the small places carry specialty items that you can't find in the big stores. On the other hand, they don't have the selection of the supermarkets and prices in the big stores may be lower, because they can buy in bulk. You can make those decisions for yourself. My brief is to acclimate you to 2012, so I am going to introduce you to the supermarket." Which actually was starting small, she thought. She could have begun with Wal-Mart or Costco.
Steve eyed the expansive storefront with trepidation. "It looks huge," he said.
"Compared to what you're used to, it is," Leslie admitted. "We're diving in the deep end, full immersion," she teased.
"I've done full immersion. Can't say I liked it," the formerly frozen soldier replied.
If he could joke, so could she. "I promise we won't linger in the frozen section."
When they reached the supermarket door, Leslie said, teasing, "OK, here we go. Try not to gawk like a country cousin."
Steve started forward to get the door for her and the door opened by itself! He started to shy away, but Leslie grabbed his arm firmly. "There's a lever, under the doormat."
Steve controlled his nervous start, looked up and would have halted in the middle of the doorway if Leslie hadn't been determinedly towing him onward. The sunglasses concealed Steve's expression, but Leslie saw his cheeks flex and knew his eyes were wide.
"It's enormous," he said quietly, following her passively.
"It's average for a supermarket," Leslie answered. "There are bigger stores. They call them warehouse stores, so you can guess how big they are."
"Wow."
Leslie looked around the store in contemplation, then steered Steve to produce.
"I think we need to try a few things to see what you like," she decided.
"I'm not picky," Steve told her.
"No, living through the Depression and then rationing and war rations, I don't suppose you are," Leslie agreed. "But today there are preservatives and additives that might not be to your taste."
"Preservatives are good," Steve said. "Food goes bad so fast and I hate to waste it."
Leslie smiled. "People are anti-preservative these days. They want 'natural' foods, though natural doesn't have a legal definition."
"Fresh fruits and vegetables are great, but we didn't live on a farm," Steve said. "We had fresh in the summer when fruits and vegetables were in season. Ma canned a lot during the summer so we could have vegetables the rest of the year. We had preserved meats and pickled vegetables. We bought canned fruits and vegetables, too, especially the dented cans that the grocer would give us a discount on. We had to look for things that would keep."
"Today we have refrigeration," Leslie said. "We can keep fresh food longer. When you have a choice, you might as well get what tastes best. That's what we want to find out — what tastes best to you."
When they reached the produce aisle, Steve stared at the massive quantities. "Ma would have loved this," he said quietly.
He looked a little sad, but he'd had years to come to terms with his mother's passing. It wasn't a fresh wound like Bucky's death.
"What looks familiar?" Leslie asked.
Steve immediately went to the root vegetables — potatoes ("You did say you were Irish," Leslie joked.), carrots, turnips, onions and parsnips.
"I don't care for parsnips myself, but we can fix whatever you like," Leslie said.
"I didn't know carrots came in so many colors," Steve said, pointing at the bunch of orange, yellow and purple carrots.
"It's only the last few years we've been seeing those in grocery stores," Leslie said. "Different colors mean they have slightly different nutrients. That's true for all vegetables, by the way. If you eat lots of different colors, you get different nutrients."
"Are they different flavors?" Steve asked.
"I don't know. My guess would be yes," she said. "Get a bunch and we'll experiment, but get a big bunch of orange ones, too, because I want to make pot roast."
Steve also plucked out a large head of cabbage. Leslie eyed it with deep suspicion.
"I'm not a fan of cooked cabbage. How do you feel about coleslaw — cold cabbage salad?"
"My ma made coleslaw. She canned cabbage with vinegar and pickling spices," Steve said.
"We'll see if you like my recipe. It's mayonnaise based." She looked at the root vegetables in the cart. "How'd your mother fix these?"
"Boiled," Steve answered. He pointed out the potatoes, the cabbage, the turnips, the carrots and the parsnips … "Boiled, boiled, boiled, boiled and boiled."
"Well, you did say you boiled everything," Leslie admitted.
"After boiling, sometimes she mashed the potatoes and turnips," Steve offered, not wanting her to think his mother was a slacker.
Something else caught Steve's eye. "Ooh, peas!"
Leslie handed him a bag so he could shovel in handfuls of green pods. She sighed. "I've never shelled fresh peas," she admitted. "My mom hated that job and as soon as Birdseye invented frozen vegetables, she was all over it."
"Birdseye? Frozen?" Steve asked.
"I'll show you when we get to that aisle," Leslie promised. "Now, pick out something you've never had before or something you didn't have often."
Steve set off like a man on a mission and returned with a branch studded with brussels sprouts and bag of bright oranges.
"Oranges were a special treat," Steve said.
He had picked up a few, but Leslie told him to get the big bag, which made him grin like a kid.
"And this looked interesting," Steve added, holding up the branch. "They look like little cabbages."
"They are related," Leslie answered and told him what they were called.
While he was collecting his treasures, Leslie had picked up three of the ugliest items in the produce section: a brown root vegetable, a fuzzy brown egg-shaped thing (fruit?) and a pear-shaped thing with black pebbly skin.
"Are those good?" he asked doubtfully.
"I like them," Leslie answered. "This is jicama. It's a root like turnips. Peel off the brown and it's white and crisp inside. I like it sliced in salads. This is a kiwi fruit. I think it's actually a berry. It came to the U.S. from New Zealand and got its name, I suppose, because it's brown and fuzzy like the kiwi bird. Inside it's green with tiny black seeds." She touched the black pear thing. "This is an avocado, sometimes called an alligator pear. It's the state fruit of California, though you eat it more like a vegetable. You find it in salads and Mexican food and just about anything called 'California style.'"
"Mexican food?" Steve was interested. "Never had it."
"It was mostly found in the West and Southwest, where we had lots of Mexican influence," Leslie said. "It took awhile to migrate East. Even in the 1980s, I had a hard time finding decent Mexican food in New York. Now the U.S. is a true melting pot. You can find most cuisines wherever you go, particularly in New York."
They had almost filled a cart with produce, so Leslie had Steve grab another one. While he was doing that, she picked out apples and bananas, then several vine-ripened tomatoes from two different displays.
"Aren't those the same?" Steve asked about the tomatoes.
"One is regular, one is organic, which is supposed to mean it's grown without chemicals. I want to see if you can tell the difference," Leslie said.
As they moved toward the meat and dairy department, Leslie talked about "organic" and "natural" and how some definitions were legal and some weren't. She also pointed out the packaged precut vegetables and bags of lettuce and cabbage. "That's what I usually buy when I want to make coleslaw. I prefer to spend a little more and save the chopping time. But right now I have a Super Soldier chopping machine to do the work for me."
Steve chuckled. "Onions don't bother me much anymore," he volunteered.
"You are a treasure!" Leslie said.
A/N: Six chapters and Steve hasn't even spent one full day in the 21st century!
And just as I finished editing this, the Dodgers won the Western Division!