Where's My Lamb?

Friday at the New Athen's Market.

Feb 08, 2025

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I can hardly see the woman behind the cookie display atop the pastry case in the Greek market. It’s only 11 a.m. and she’s already in a dither.

With a thick, sing-song accent she scream into the phone, “where are you?”

Anyone who has had a mother and was, at some point an errant teenager, recognizes the tone in the woman’s voice. Doesn’t matter how sweet your mother was or if she never yelled. Giving birth bestowed on her an inflection that allowed her to immediately convey outrage, disbelief, shame, and abject disappointment. The woman on the phone is giving quite a fine demonstration of this phenomenon. I feel bad for the person on the other end of the line.

She smiles at me when she finally comes into full view. Petite, in a pink jacket with a rumpled silk flower on the label; once naturally blond hair haphazardly pinned back from her pale face, pink lipstick, a slash of eyeliner. The sweet personification of fading frazzled glamour.

She says to me, “what can I get you, honey?”

“Feta.”

“What kind?”

There are ten different ones listed on the board suspended above the case that’s crammed with different barrels of milky water. Beat’s me I think, scanning the list.

She screams, “how long you going to be?”

I don’t know! Maybe Peloponissos?

“WHERE?” Oh, wonderful, she’s speaking to the unlucky person on the opposite end of the line.

A man’s voice comes through, “Staten Island.”

“WHERE?”

“Clover Avenue,”

“Take Hylan Boulevard,” she says, meaning the road that runs along side the Expressway. It’s rarely faster but worth a try. “What time you think?”

She looks at me. I say Pelopoinissos. She opens the case, grabs a sharp knife. “I have to tell the boss what time you’re here.” She stabs a block of cheese.

“By noon,” he says.

“I’ll tell the boss.” She hangs up and reverts to sweetness as she wraps up my cheese.

“He has to cook three lambs by tomorrow.”

I sympathize with her. Three lambs are a lot. I also would like some spanakopita and the big triangle thingie on the baking sheet above it.

The phone rings. It’s the boss. “He says noon. Maybe a little before or after. I told him. It’ll be fine. Of course I called him.” She covers the phone with her free hand. “He’s not happy,” she mouths to me and shakes her head.

She hangs up and, while carefully taking the last two squares of spanakopita from the baking sheet, gives me a piece of advice. “You never call the shop owner. He’s useless. You call the truck driver. He says he’s in Staten Island, he’s in Staten Island. Not still in New Jersey. We need three lambs. He gives us three lambs.”

The driver also knows he better be at the shop by noon because the owner will be here to begin grilling the lamb. This is what the shop is known for: the large grill out on the sidewalk beside which the owner will sit all day and night until his three lambs, coated in salt, pepper, rosemary and mint, are perfect. Taken from the spit, they’ll be carved up for different customers who reserved the meat a week before. Maybe there will be enough left over for those lucky few who know to line up Saturday night. There may be some available on Sunday morning after church but that would be a miracle.

I have another photo showing the lamb’s head on but even I thought that was a little too much.

We meet at the cash register where I unload everything else in my basket. It’s amazing how much the tiny store manages to pack on their floor to ceiling shelves and its seven coolers. It’s amazing how much has landed in my basket, a good half of which I have no idea what to do with. But then I have Nancy Harmon Jenkins’ incredible book, The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook so I’ll be alright.

The woman carefully packs up my cloth bag made of some kind of nylon that claims to be strong. She lifts it up a bit. “Heavy.”

“I’m strong,” I say.

“Women. We’re all strong,” she laughs and I do, too. “Men they say are strong but not like women.” She flexes her arm muscles to demonstrate and now we’re joined in a hystrical sorority of two. The poor man waiting behind me in line doesn’t seem to know what to do with us.

“Call tomorrow. Maybe there will be one lamb left over,” she says as she gives me the store’s card. I heave the bag’s strap onto my shoulder and turn to leave.

One more stop….

I pass a corner bodega in the next block. They have buckets of flowers spilling out from a protective curtain of heavy plastic. A dozen tulips are only $6.

The Hispanic man before me at the counter is just finishing up. “Thanks, man,” he says as the owner gives him his change. “You be safe.”

“Trying.”

“We all are,” he says.

And finally…..

I thought you might enjoy this article that appeared in The New York Times a few weeks ago.