Thursday, February 03, 2005

From a Post Card

Steve Johnson loved ketchup. "I love that rich tomato flavor," he once said. We had been discussing the double-LP Peter Gabriel Plays Live. Steve would spread ketchup on toast. "Why not?" he replied when I called him on it. "It's the jelly of the tomato family."

Steve used to keep ketchup packets in the pocket of his waistcoat. He called it his packet pocket. "In case I get an itch for a tomato shot," was his explanation. "It's that pick-me-up that gets me through the day."

Others disagreed.

"That's pointless," Tim H. told me, about fifteen years ago, when confronted with Steve's penchant for tomato shots. Steve would tear open the ketchup packet and squirt its contents into his mouth, an act that Tim found mildly revolting.

Tim would take "salt hits" before exams from little Morton's packets he would pick up at Hardee's.

John T. preferred tartar sauce.

What did Jay K. prefer? "Mayonnaise. In packet form. Preferably Duke's. I cannot abide Hellmann's," he told the Post and Courier.

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