HUNGRY GERALD

Today was chilly in Santa Fe. Brought me back to my childhood and two cold weather street food treats we little guys enjoyed. Sweets and Mickeys. A sweet was a hot,baked sweet potato. They were sold every day by an old man who pushed a black metal coal burning stove through the streets of The Bronx. The sweet came with a rather generous hunk of butter and the treat cost 2 cents. The mickey was even cheaper. It was an Idaho potato stolen from the stand of a local greengrocer. We roasted them in a wood fire in an empty lot. This was classified as very bad behavior by our all-knowing mothers. Our clothes would be sniffed when we came home for dinner and if there was the odor of wood smoke about us we were in for punishment. In my home that mean a lot of shouting. Punishment was more physical for my little Irish and Italian buddies.

§ One Response to Sweets and Mickeys

• Peter Hellman says:

  December 1, 2010 at 2:00 pm

  Moments before reading your remembrance of Sweets Past, I munched down a few wedges of the very special heirloom sweet potatoes that were on sale last week at our new Whole Foods on Columbus Ave at 97th St–an Upper West Side spot that was always quite sterile. The new buildings on both sides of the street aren’t much less sterile, but they do give us good stuff like the WF.
  Anyway, I first microwave and then roast these sweet potato wedges–some plain, some with a scrape of brown sugar, and a few even with cumin. This is winter food–makes no sense in hot weather. And so virtuous for lack of fat…

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