by Helene Stapinski
My husband and I have a drinking problem.
It’s not your typical “drinking too much” problem. It has to do with something most people don’t think twice about when consuming their beverages. Particularly their alcoholic beverages. But with us, it’s a real problem. An issue, I would say.
The problem is ice.
Wendell, my husband, loves ice. He loves to make ice and is obsessed with having buckets of his homemade ice available at all times. Until I married him, I never even thought about ice. It was one of those things, like air or water, which was always just there, sort of, on the periphery. Something I took for granted and didn’t care much about. He likes to say I am ice challenged. But I like to think I’m simply normal. He, I think, is the one with the problem.
Like all drinking problems, this one originates with our families. Wendell is from an upper middle class family of WASPs, the kind who have a civilized cocktail in the parlor at 6 before dinner – a neatly shaken gin martini perhaps, with an olive and the thinnest chards of ice floating on top. Or they’ll have a scotch on the rocks. Or vodka on the rocks. Whatever it is, it’s usually on the rocks.
My family never really had any alcohol in the house, which is not to say we were a family of teetotalers. Hardly. We lived above a tavern, so my father’s “parlor” was downstairs at the Majestic, where he sat after work at 5 o’clock each night with his buddies, guzzling a beer and a shot in a tiny glass. Maybe two or three. No ice.
He arrived home for dinner at 6 lightly toasted. Whenever we had company, or whenever my mother was feeling especially wild, she pulled out the jug of screw-cap Manischewicz wine that my uncle got for free from working at the local Manischewicz factory in Jersey City. It was red and sweet and awful and served at room temperature, as red wine should be – although this stuff was barely wine. More like fortified grape juice.
Whenever anyone asked for ice, my mother would take it from the freezer and place it in a bowl and put it, uncovered, on the kitchen table. There was no ice bucket. Twenty minutes later, we had a big bowl of cold water.
It wasn’t until I was a grown up and traveled to the village that my mother’s family came from in Italy that I learned why my family was ice challenged. There was no ice in Southern Italy. You were lucky to even have water.
When I was a kid, if one of us wanted a sip of that Manischewicz wine from the table, the grownups allowed it. “Why not?” they would say. “All the children drink wine in Italy.” But the only reason the children drank wine was that it was safer than the water. There was no water. No clean water anyway.
Hence, no ice.
Wendell’s family, on the other hand, are descendants from the Mayflower pioneers and have had centuries here in America to develop their fondness for the finer things in life – especially ice. His father likes to tell the story about how he and Wendell’s mom had a party once and – horror of horrors – ran out of ice a half hour in. The man has lived in fear of running out of ice ever since. I wouldn’t be surprised if he discussed this with his therapist. (In my family there was no ice, and of course, no therapist).
Whenever we’re planning a party, my husband calls me every few hours to remind me to empty the ice trays into the ice holder in the freezer and then implores me to MAKE MORE ICE! I say okay, then get distracted and forget, because ice is not a priority for me. It is not a way of life.
“Why can’t we just get bags of ice from the supermarket before the party?” I ask, shrugging.
He shakes his head at me and acts as if I’m a heretic. “It’s not the same,” he says. “You need to make your own.”
Whenever we go out for drinks, he orders an extra glass on the side midway through, filled with fresh, new ice cubes to fill his drink with. It’s one of those weird little marriage ticks that I have accepted and find charming now.
Because I love him so much, I bought Wendell special ice trays on e-bay last year for our wedding anniversary. They’re the old fashioned kind, the metal ones that your wet fingers will fuse to if you don’t dry them well enough. The kind you have to pull up on with the metal lever to get the ice loose. The cubes are big and impressive and sit in my Friday evening cocktail, the one I have at 6 o’clock in the parlor.
Helene Stapinski is the author of the bestselling memoir Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History, and Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, with Music. She has written articles for The New York Times, New York magazine, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure and Salon. Find out more about Helene at http://www.randomhouse.com
