Has the Ocean Lost it's Way

How do you like your spaghetti?  Drowning in sauce?  Do you butter your noodles?  Do you like them thick or thin? Do you add meat, mushrooms, onion, garlic.  How about tomatoes.  Do you cook down your tomato paste or maybe you use jarred sauce or whole canned, perhaps fresh.  Are herbs your thing, the aroma of basil and oregano?  The best pasta for me, is every kind.  I don't think there is a style I don't like.  Al dente preferred but an overcooked noodle in some beefy ragu would not put me off. Even diner spaghetti gives me joy.  Noodles simply dressed with olive oil and sauteed garlic, or thin, swimming in a broth, these are all gifts from the gods.

Speaking of gifts, a new occupant has taken over the old Smoke Joint, Peaches spot around the corner.  A colorful sign lead me to believe finally, someone with an easy, relaxed vibe and delicious food has come to save us.  The Island Shack, sounds promising, but it looks as though they are very proud of their curried goat, meaning it's a little out of the price range for a fun take out option.  I will await their lunch offerings, which will undoubtedly come because like it or not, you must bend a bit on these crazy prices if you want to welcome your neighbors for more than a special occasion.  Maybe it's so good, they deserve every penny.  This is one of the major changes in New York, the immigrant food options that were once abundant and unbelievably cheap, have been replaced with high-priced dine-in joints, not so much servicing the neighborhood but inviting outsiders to travel to, and experience the area, like a tourist attraction.  This is another way that New York is like the ocean, in that you can never feel at ease or home, you are only where you are out of sheer luck of the draw.  A big wave could come any minute and wash you away.  Time you've spent surviving buys you nothing.  Everything has a value, except you.  As a tenant in a neighborhood, you are nothing but a grain of sand on the beach. 

Then, lo and behold, a week later, a $12 lunch special. There is a God.