Work Food

In the summer months, a bunch of vinegar-chugging journeymen have the entire icebox wreaking of leaky bottles of Frank’s Red Hot and half-eaten jars of sour pickles. There never seems to be enough of either. Containers of tomatoes, cucumbers, and sometimes pungent garden onions, drowned in a white vinegar bath, sprinkled with salt, pepper, and herbs, are left to ferment in the refrigerator until eaten or forgotten about, the concoction simply referred to as a “salad”. 

I handle the fridge door with c-fold napkins, towels, or nitrile gloves—never my bare hands—reluctantly, neither having wanted to open the fridge initially nor close the door, lest a puff of sour odor slap me in the face. 

A couple times a year, the guys do a cook-up of fried bologna sandwiches: garlic loaf, cut into 1/2” slices, gently sautéed on a skillet, and blanketed with a layer of fiery Amish cheese that is so soft as to nearly liquify on the griddle. These coddled little beauties are then placed on fresh hamburger rolls. If you’re so inclined, you can add a wide ring of sharp white onion that snaps when you bite it. 

The bologna is hot, the pliable patty now undeniably spicy, teeming with the indulgent twang of caramelized forcemeat and garlic. 

But a Christmas potluck, held in our maintenance shop, is special—basically amounting to 2 dozen guys clamoring over piles of meat. 

The Ham 

The dishes tend to be straight to the point: platters of deli cuts like fatty soppressata and tangy rounds of venison summer sausage; orange and yellow squares of Amish pepperjack, Swiss, farm country, and cheddar; crisp-smoked ham, cut from the bone, stacked in heaps of caramelized, pink chunks. There’s also homemade sticks of rich deer sausage, red, meaty, infused with the unmistakable, sweet earthiness of alfalfa honey.

Deli tray 

Corn soufflés are sweet, with added sugar, or sharp with cheddar cheese. Lighter versions contain whipped eggs and are just as tasty. Cheesy potato bakes might be the perfect sides with rich cheese sauce and soft spuds or crisp-baked top layers covered in Lays potato chips. I discovered, the hard way, what happens if you leave cheesy potatoes in the crockpot too long: the contents are pulverized—liquified to a bright yellow gravy, resting beneath an inch of separated, superheated oil. Not good. 

Stanley’s Kielbasa

Someone always makes a trip to Stanley’s meat market down the street, and brings-in heavy links of polish kielbasa, unsmoked, brined and brown-braised, or steamed over fragrant German lager until falling-apart, or slow-cooked in a heap of mild, but tart, kraut. (Stanley’s Market is a relic, still lingering around from when the north end of Toledo was predominantly Polish.)

Meanwhile, the workmen still answer calls, listening to the radios buzz around us, a control room attendant squawking about “units”—jeeps—that need rerouting. 

An electrician sets down his leather pouch on a workbench and immediately grabs a brat bun and goes to town. A stock worker closes-up her storehouse and comes to the shop to make a heaping plate. Bosses sit with union men, salary and hourly, together, munching and feeding until sated. 

After a while, we grow silent. Resting. Enjoying the peaceful blessing of a good meal. Some time goes by. 

Then we start on the desserts.