Worlds of Taste
Food in the world of Francesca Lia Block
Part Three :: Weetzie Bat
(Francesca Lia Block, 1989)
(these page numbers are from the Dangerous Angels edition, published 1998)
The one that started it all.
Though this isn't the first FLB book I read, it is the one that got me hooked. The descriptions of (and just using) food are delectable, and everything is just kind of delightful. And it's pretty much constant. Every page has food. This post will probably be dangerously close to copyright infringement because there's food on like every page! I'm surprised this wasn't the first post I ever wrote.
One of the things I love about it is that a good amount of the food is healthy food. At some point in her life, Weetzie becomes a vegetarian, but throughout her life, she doesn't eat crazy terrible food. There are hamburgers and ice cream and lots of wine and champagne, but there's also sushi and veggies and avocado sandwiches. I mean...yum, people!
I felt the the text here should be bright and bubbly, like Weetzie. If only I could make it bubbly...
"...[you could buy] the wildest, cheapest cheese and bean and hot dog and pastrami burritos at Oki Dogs; that the waitresses wore skates at the Jetson-style Tiny Naylor's; that there was a fountain that turned soda-pop colors... and all-night potato knishes at Cantors..." [3]
"They drank beers or bright-colored canned Club drinks in Jerry and told each other how cool they were." [5]
"After the shows, sweaty and shaky, they went to Oki Dogs for a burrito." [5]
"...they... had strawberry sundaes with marshmallow topping at Schwab's, or went to the beach. ...got tan and ate cheese-and-avocado sandwiches on whole-wheat bread and slept on the beach." [5]
"...a sweet, powdery old lady who baked tiny, white, sugar-coated pastries for them..." [6]
"...they gave him pizza pie for dinner instead of that weird meat Weetzie's mom, Brandy-Lynn, tried to dish out..." [6]
"Dirk poured rum from the little bottle he kept in his jacket pocket into the Cokes." [7]
"They went to Canter's for bagels, which comforted Weetzie because she had teethed on Canter's bagels when she was a baby. While they ate, a cart of pickles wheeled by..." [10]
"Weetzie's dad ordered two turkey platters with mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce. The white-haired waitress served them canned fruit cocktail, sugar-glazed rolls, and pink sherbet before the turkey came. They had apple pie afterward.
'Does your mother ever feed you?" Weetzie's dad asked between the fruit and the rolls." [12]
"They drank tequila sunrises and bathed in gin." [14]
"...took her to the delis for pastrami sandwiches and Cel-Ray tonic, bought her hot pretzels on the street." [15]
"...they had to walk up nine flights in the dark carrying the lox and bagels and cream cheese and bonbons..." [16]
"...Weetzie and Dirk brought Grandma Fifi tomatoes from the Fairfax market and prune pastries from Canter's." [17]
"...when Dirk came up and offered to buy him a beer." [22]
"They had barbecues and ate hamburgers and watermelon." [23]
"They all lived together and wore red and ate plantain and black beans, or wonton soup and fortune cookies... They took her to the Kingston 12 to hear reggae music and drink Red Stripe Jamaican beer..." [25]
"'Coffee, black,' he said. It was a Sunday morning at Duke's." [26]
"...pulled a bottle of pink champagne out of his trench coat." [28]
"A kiss about apple pie a la mode with the vanilla creaminess melting in the pie heat. A kiss about chocolate when you haven't eaten chocolate in a year.... trailing pink clouds when you drive down the Strip sizzling with champagne...." [29]
"...in the land of skating hamburgers and flying toupees and Jah-Love blonde Indians." [30]
"They had enough to go to Noshi for sushi whenever they wanted (which was a lot because Weetzie was addicted to the hamachi, which only cost $1.50 an order). They also ate guacamole tostadas at El Coyote... putting the toppings of guacamole, canned vegetables, Thousand Island dressing, and cheese into the corn tortillas that were served between two plates too keep them warm." [33]
"...and were eating canned smoked oysters and drinking red wine from real glasses..." [33]
"His eyes looked like glasses of gin."
"Weetzie felt as if she were turning into steam and milk and honey." [36]
"At Noshi, they ordered hamachi, anago, maguro, ebi, tako, kappa maki, and Kirin beer. They were buzzing from the beer and from the burning neon-green wasabe and the pink ginger and from the massive protein doze of sushi." [36]
"She felt like... an Easter basket of pastel chocolate-malt eggs and solid-milk-chocolate bunnies, and yellow daffodils and dollhouse-sized jelly-bean eggs." [38]
"...bitterness was like a liqueur burning in her throat and dripping down slowly into her heart." [41]
"...Weetzie brought him more aspirin and vitamin C, and made him drink grapefruit juice and herb tea..." [45]
"...and being terrorized by Cherokee, and eating up all of Duck's Fig Newtons..." [50]
"They drove around in the T-bird eating ice cream and filming." [53]
"...they went to Chinatown and ate squid and broccoli and hot-and-sour soup. Then they wandered through the angled streets that smelled meaty and peppery." [55]
"...on the way home, he bought cannolis in Little Italy for all of them." [55]
"Charlie took them out for Italian food and French food and Jewish deli and lobster. He bought them strawberries and whipped cream... among the peachy marble columns..." [56]
"Now they were in Sylvia's, eating eggs and grits and biscuits and sweet potato pie.
'I'm okay,' Charlie said. He was on his third cup of coffee and hadn't touched his breakfast." [56]
"We have pancakes at Duke's, and dinners at the Tick Tock Tea Room." [57]
"...and have a Schwab's and have a hamburger and a milkshake for dinner, and I'd swivel around on the barstool reading Wonder Woman comics..." [60]
"She kissed him and packed bags and picnic baskets and thermoses and Spiderman lunch pails full of bagels, string cheese, chocolate-chip cookies, milk, apples, and carrot sticks." [64]
"He stopped at McDonald's but kept thinking of the cows and ordered a Filet o' Fish and a milkshake." [65]
"...he smelled the cold, bread baking, gasoline." [65]
"...looking at the faces of the men eating ice cream as if it would ease some pain." [66]
"Everyone looked drunk under the old Coca-Cola signs in the rooms that smelled of meat, onions, and sawdust. ... how they had held hands the whole time they ate their hamburgers..." [66]
"They stopped for all-you-can-eat pea soup..." [68]
"...they would take a trip to Mexico and drink tequila and lie in the sun..." [68]
"That night, they all ate linguini and clam sauce that My Secret Agent Lover Man made, and they drank wine and lit the candles." [69]
Related posts: Worlds of Taste
{1} Echo & {2} The Hanged Man
First, let the past go. This is important. It can't hurt you any more, don't let it humiliate you. It is nothing. Those memories are unimportant. It's okay to let it go. To forget.
Posts
