Cook Without a Kitchen: Mango with Cayenne

Friday Afternoon when Anna and I returned to the city via the Long Island Railroad, arriving in Penn Station, I felt like a country bumpkin visiting New York for the first time, look at all these people! Hoards of them moving down the long corridor crissing and crossing like a slow and steady stampede. I pointed my body in the direction of the subway, eyes glazed over and joined the rush. Why did we leave Fire Island again?

It always amazes me how many people come to visit the city in July and August because all of us New Yorkers are just trying to get out. Oh, your parents in Connecticut will be gone for the weekend and we can use the neighbors pool? I'm there. Your friend has a shack in the Catskills with a functioning sprinkler? Bathing suit packed. A job offer to make a hundred bucks for a week of work in Poughkipsee? Who needs money? We are all just leap frogs, hopping from one green lily pad to the next until September rolls around.

Yesterday I had to run errands all over the city and my final stop was SoHo. Coming up out of the dutch oven that was the Prince Street subway station was like arriving at a sold out Justin Bieber concert taking place in an even larger Dutch Oven, a sea of candy colored teenagers and their parents clogging up the street moving at a zombie pace, flipping their hair around and screaming in a dehydrated stupor. I wanted to scream back, why are you here?!!! Go home and come back in September! You cannot be having fun! As I elbowed my way through the crowd I once again wondered, why had I come back from Fire Island? Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a little cart of sunshine. Two women, skillfully peeling and slicing mangos, packaging them in zip lock bags and chilling them on ice, a bottle of lime juice and cayenne pepper tucked nearby. Two please!

Finally at home, Chris and I slurped down the sweet sticky mango in silence. There are some things worth staying in New York for.