Girl walks into a diner on a rainy day

I had something today that so fit the bill, that was so simple, so right. But before I tell you about it, I have to “set the table”— provide the back story for why this unassuming snack was so welcome. Today was the day of the Biblical flooding in New York City, the trailing Ophelia rains that went on and on and on. Reason enough for me to feel cranky, but add a cracked tooth and impending dental visit into the soupy grey mix. The #1 train was suspended due to flooding, and I took a crowded M104 bus down to my dentist on 85th street, all the while listening to an automated voice saying “please close the door” “please close the door,” ad nauseum and overlaid with aggravated human voices: “Step away from the door, would you?” “C’mon,  man! we can’t move until you move.”  The bus chugged down Broadway. “Please close the door. “ Please close the door.” Rat-a-tat-tat like the rain. Tempers were flaring when I nudged my way out.

"She’s a gagger!”

When the hygienist put the baby-blue X-ray bib over me, I felt like a small jittery dog calmed by a thunder vest. He then proceeded to jam a hard plastic rectangle the size of a Social Tea biscuit into my mouth. After several unsuccessful tries during which I thought I would vomit and indignant tears sprang to my eyes, he went out in the hallway and called loudly “She’s a gagger!” Why is it that dental hygienists come up with such insulting epithets for their patients? “Nurse Nancy,” the nightmare hygienist from my childhood, called me “saliva kid,” an unsavory moniker if ever there was one.

 A happy tongue

That torture over, my tongue kept feeling for the sharp edge of the cracked tooth, an apt metaphor for my psyche, which is always feeling for disappointments, slights, the jagged edges of life even in the midst of bounty. Dr. Wolf bounded in, a gangly blond-haired dentist who looks like he is 17 but who is competent and kind. “Let’s make your tongue happy!” he squealed as he quickly sand blasted the surface and put in some temporary dental caulking to prep for the tooth’s coronation some three weeks hence.

Placating the body

Once outside in the grey, incessant rain I got a craving I have after every medical procedure, but particularly after having a colonoscopy, when I feel gutted, literally. Cracked teeth are minor if expensive bodily indignities, but I’ll take my comfort where I can find it, which is a diner matzoh ball soup. Diners have become ridiculously expensive lately—a BLT will run you $15.95 or more. The bowl of matzoh ball soup at City Diner cost $6.95 but was worth every drop. An otherwise bland dish, matzoh ball soup* satisfies by being redolent of chicken fat or schmaltz. Now it’s highly unlikely for a diner to use chicken fat instead of some industrial shortening, but I’m calling it schmaltz, because there was a savory oomph to each bite of the two fist-sized matzoh balls and even to the clear yellow broth.

City Diner is perhaps one of the last good, old-fashioned diners on the Upper West Side. The padded booths are capacious, and the art deco decor so pleasing. My sister Carol had a theory that bad typeface could be a restaurant’s downfall, and The City Diner has a sleek, attractive marquee signs outside and in. Wet hair hanging down each side of my face like curtains, I eagerly spooned up my soup, noting, with dismay, that soup dribbled down my chin with each bite. With my matted hair, rumpled and tatty grey rain coat and a mounting pile of saltine wrappers in front of me, I did not complement the sleek, attractive diner design! Now add soup dribbles to the picture, and this is my only quibble: soup spoons need to be rounded (or deep like the porcelain spoons in Chinese restaurants) to catch every delicious drop.

*I’m distinguishing matzoh ball soup from chicken soup WITH matzoh balls. My brother makes the latter for every Jewish holiday meal, and they are divine; his light, fluffy matzoh balls soak up the flavor of dill, of chicken and vegetables.

City Diner
2441 Broadway (btw 91st and 92nd Sts)
in The Cornwall
212-877-2720