The Bushel ‘n Peck

This morning, the wedding over, my family left Concord, where we’d been staying.  Some of us headed to the airport, others out to Worcester for a final visit with my sister.  She took us to a locally famous deli, the Bushel ‘n Peck, where we bought sandwiches and said our good-byes.  My parents and younger sister’s family were headed back to Pennsylvania.  My husband and I were headed for the Berkshires, to kill a day or two before flying back to Chicago via Albany.

The deli was crowded, though its appearance was modest, on the verge of dumpy.  There were nine in our party. Counter staff took our orders abstractedly, without writing down a thing.  Customers came and went.  Sandwiches began appearing, were as quickly claimed.  Despite our efforts to convey to the cashier what we’d ordered, it never came right, and I’m pretty sure we ended up underpaying.  But we got the food, and it was yummy.

‘The bomb.’  A delicious wrap made with prosciutto, seafood salad, and cheese.

I had a seafood wrap called ‘The bomb.’  As sandwiches go, it was a beauty.

The bomb was misnamed, because it went down easy.  It was filled with fresh seafood salad, prosciutto ham, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and mild cheese.  Everything about it was perfect—perfectly prepared and assembled, tightly wrapped, and every ingredient noticeably cold—a quality I look for when eating in a deli.

Photograph of Teddy Kennedy and Edward McCormack, Jr. with local businessmen; a handwritten note conveys the shock of JFK’s assassination.

On our way out, we noticed some vintage photographs on the walls.  We were deep in Kennedy territory.  This one memorialized the assassination of JFK.  A young Teddy Kennedy shakes hands with local businessmen, their sentiments telegraphed in a handwritten ‘Why?’  Meanwhile, Kennedy’s onetime rival, Edward McCormack, Jr, the nephew of a powerful speaker of the US House, stands by.  A poster of Audrey Hepburn in the background caught my eye.  Back then, too, she was idolized. . . . By now, of course, everyone in the picture has gone to their graves.