Last night Mom and I went to two very different eating places: An organic restaurant and a street fair. And even though these places are very different, each one made me think about the other one in a new way, which is why I am writing one review for both.
The first place we went to is called Organix and it is an organic and vegan restaurant, which is kind of like going to the doctor for dinner. On the sign outside, under the name Organix, are the words “Helping the Earth Grow” which makes no sense because the Earth is not getting any bigger, which is something I learned a long time ago and I’m nine.
When they give you the menu at Organix, they also give you a little booklet called The Organix Bible, which I guess is named after the real Bible, which is the story of Jesus Christ and God. The Organix Bible has a few pages and, while Mom pretended to read it, I actually did read it.
The Organix Bible was just kind of bragging about how great Organix was by saying things like, “At Organix, we offset our light footprint in Mother Earth’s beautiful skin by composting all organic material.” And I thought that maybe it was a good thing to recycle, but saying things like “Mother Earth’s beautiful skin” seemed kind of stupid and like it was written by a weird child.
Mom pretended like she was happy with the food, even though it was all disgusting raw vegetables, and acted like she normally eats this way because when the waiter asked if everything was good, Mom smiled and said, “Yes, I love the dressing, what is it?” And the guy said “Aloe” and then Mom said, “I thought so! That’s normally what we eat at home.” And the guy said, “Yeah, it really soothes your digestive tract and warms the Lumen.” But I could tell Mom didn’t know what he was talking about because she said, “And I think I recently read something about cancer.” And the guy just kind of nodded because there was no real way to respond to what Mom said.
When the guy asked if we wanted dessert, Mom lied and said, “I’d love to see a menu.” The guy said there was no dessert menu but that, “Tonight’s dessert is apples.” That made me and Mom laugh a little bit and Mom said, “Just apples?” And the guy explained that the apples were special and from the other side of the country. And he seemed so proud of his apples that I felt bad for laughing but Mom didn’t feel bad and she kept laughing as she said, “We’ll just take the check.” I guess I feel bad for people more quickly than Mom does and that is one difference I’ve noticed about us.
The first thing Mom said when we left Organix was: “Somebody bring me a hamburger!” But I didn’t know who she was talking to and I’m not allowed to go food shopping alone.
As we were walking back to the car, we passed the San Genarro Street Fair, which Mom said is “a party that Italian people have outside every year so the city can clean up their mess.” The food smelled so good though, especially after being in Organix, which smelled like a bathroom that just got cleaned. When I asked Mom if we could get something to eat from the street fair, she said that all the food is disgusting. I said that the food at Organix was disgusting too and Mom agreed but said at least the food at Organix wouldn’t kill us like the San Genarro food.
I asked Mom for zeppoles, which are fried balls of dough with powdered sugar. Zeppoles are the kind of food that is really good while you’re eating it but that makes you feel disgusting right after. I guess that’s why the San Gennaro festival can only happen once a year.
Mom said no to the zeppoles but said, “I think we’ve earned a cannoli.” I asked her how we “earned” it and she said, “After ingesting Aloe, I deserve a side of beef and a birthday cake.” It’s weird how Mom thinks that eating something you don’t like is the same thing as hard work.
In our search for a cannoli, we passed four cannoli stands and each one had a different sign:
The sign on the first cannoli stand said, THE CITY’S BEST CANNOLI.
The sign on the second cannoli stand said, OLDEST CANNOLI RECIPE.
The sign on the third cannoli stand said, WORLD’S BEST CANNOLI!!!
The fourth cannoli stand did not have any sign. It just had a glass window to show the cannolis, which looked like all the other cannolis.
Mom said, in a low and serious voice, “Okay, Mister. Which one should we get?” like it was an important test. I said that I thought they were probably all the same and that it didn’t matter, but Mom said we had to find the best one.
Since there was no way to figure out which cannoli was the best, we had to use the signs to tell us which one to get. I thought very hard about this. And I started thinking that each sign maybe attracts a different kind of person and maybe you could actually tell a little about a person from the cannoli that they choose. For example, maybe someone who really likes New York would get a cannoli from the stand that says, NEW YORK’S BEST CANNOLI and maybe someone who was old or a chef would get one from the stand that says, OLDEST CANNOLI RECIPE!
But I decided that I wanted to get a cannoli from the stand with no sign because I was thinking that, by not having a sign, the stand was not trying to prove anything to me and I liked them the most. And, in a way, the thing I didn’t like about Organix was the same thing I didn’t like about the signs: The more they told me how great they were and how much they were helping the Earth, the less I wanted to believe it.
I said, “I want to get a cannoli from the stand with no sign,” but Mom marched up to the WORLD’S BEST!!! stand and got two cannolis. When I asked her why she chose the WORLD’S BEST!!! stand, she said, “It’s the world’s best cannoli! That means there can’t be any better cannoli. In the world! Think about it!”
But I did think about it. And I think that Mom was wrong. Just because someone says something doesn’t mean it’s true. And I think that the more someone says something, the less it’s probably going to be true. That’s why I’m giving Organix 147 out of 2000 stars and the San Gennaro Street Fair WORLD’S BEST CANNOLI!!! stand 162 out of 2000 stars.