YOU WILL DEVELOP a palate. A palate is a spot on your tongue where you remember. Where you assign words to the textures of taste. Eating becomes a discipline, language-obsessed. You will never simply eat food again. I DON'T KNOW what it is exactly, being a server. It's a job, certainly, but not exclusively. There's a transparency to it, an occupation stripped of the usual ambitions. One doesn't move up or down. One waits. You are a waiter.
您将发展味觉。上颚是你舌头上你记得的地方。您将单词分配给味道的质地。吃饭变成了一门学科，痴迷于语言。你再也不会简单地吃食物了。我不知道它到底是什么，作为一个服务器。当然，这是一份工作，但不仅限于此。它有一种透明度，一种被剥夺了通常野心的职业。一个不会向上或向下移动。一个人等待。你是服务员。

It is fast money-loose, slippery bills that inflate and disappear over the course of an evening. It can be a means, to those with concrete ends and unwavering vision. I grasped most of that easily enough when I was hired at the restaurant at twenty-two.
这是快速的松散、滑溜溜的钞票，在一个晚上的过程中膨胀和消失。对于那些有具体目标和坚定不移的愿景的人来说，它可以是一种手段。当我二十二岁时被餐厅雇用时，我很容易就掌握了其中的大部分内容。

Some of it was a draw: the money, the sense of safety that came from having a place to wait. What I didn't see was that the time had severe brackets around it. Within those brackets nothing else existed. Outside of them, all you could remember was the blur of a momentary madness. Ninety percent of us wouldn't even put it on a resume. We might mention it as a tossed-off reference to our moral rigor, a badge of a certain kind of misery, like enduring
其中一些是吸引人的：钱，有地方等待带来的安全感。我没有看到的是，时间周围有严重的括号。在这些括号内，没有其他任何东西存在。在他们之外，你所能记住的只是短暂的疯狂的模糊。我们百分之九十的人甚至不会把它放在简历上。我们可以把它说成是对我们道德严谨的抛弃，是某种痛苦的徽章，比如忍受

earthquakes, or spending time in the army. It was so finite.
地震，或在军队中度过时光。它是如此有限。

I CAME HERE in a car like everybody else. In a car filled with shit I thought meant something and shortly thereafter tossed on the street: DVDs, soon to be
我和其他人一样开着车来到这里。在一辆装满狗屎的车里，我以为意味着什么，不久之后就被扔在街上：DVD，很快就要了

irrelevant, a box of digital and film cameras for a still-latent
无关紧要，一盒数码相机和胶片相机，用于仍然潜伏

photography talent, a copy of On the Road that I couldn't finish, and a Swedish-modern lamp from Walmart. It was a long, dark drive from a place so small you couldn't find it on a generous map. Does anyone come to New York clean? I'm afraid not. But crossing the Hudson I thought of crossing Lethe, milky river of forgetting. I forgot that I had a mother who drove away before I could open my eyes, and a father who moved invisibly through the rooms of our house. I forgot the parade of people in my life as thin as mesh screens, who couldn't catch whatever it was I wanted to say to them, and I forgot how I drove down dirt roads between desiccated fields, under an oppressive guard of stars, and felt nothing.
摄影天才，一本我无法完成的《在路上》，还有一盏沃尔玛的瑞典现代灯。这是一个漫长而黑暗的车程，距离一个很小的地方，你在一张宽阔的地图上找不到它。有人来纽约干净吗？恐怕不是。但是穿过哈德逊河，我想到了穿越莱特河，一条银河的遗忘。我忘了，我有一个母亲在我睁开眼睛之前就开车走了，还有一个父亲在我们家的房间里无形地走动。我忘记了我生命中像网纱一样薄的人游行，他们听不见我想对他们说什么，我忘记了我是如何在干燥的田野之间的土路上开车的，在星星的压迫下，什么都感觉不到。

Yes, I'd come to escape, but from what? The twin pillars of football and church? The low, faded homes on childless cul-de-sacs? Mornings of the Gazette and boxed doughnuts? The sedated, sentimental middle of it? It didn't matter. I would never know exactly, for my life, like most, moved only imperceptibly and definitively forward.Let's say I was born in late June of 2006 when I came over the George Washington Bridge at seven a.m. with the sun circulating and dawning, the sky full of sharp corners of light, before the exhaust rose, before the heat gridlocked in, windows unrolled, radio turned up to some impossibly hopeful pop song, open, open, open.
是的，我是来逃跑的，但从什么地方来？足球和教堂的两大支柱？没有孩子的死胡同上低矮、褪色的房屋？公报的早晨和盒装甜甜圈？镇静的、多愁善感的中间？没关系。我永远不会确切地知道，因为我的生活和大多数人一样，只是在不知不觉中明确地向前发展。假设我出生在 2006 年 6 月下旬，当时我早上七点穿过乔治华盛顿大桥，太阳在循环和黎明，天空充满了尖锐的光角，在废气上升之前，在热浪被堵住之前，在窗户展开之前，收音机打开一些不可能的充满希望的流行歌曲，打开， 打开，打开。

SOUR: all the puckering citrus juices, the thin-skinned Meyer lemons, knobbed Kaffirs.
酸味：所有起皱的柑橘汁，薄皮的迈耶柠檬，多节的卡菲尔。

Astringent yogurts and vinegars. Lemons resting in pint containers at all the cooks' sides. Chef yelled, This needs acid!, and they eviscerated lemons, leaving the caressing sting of food that's alive.
涩味酸奶和醋。柠檬放在所有厨师一侧的品脱容器中。厨师大喊，这需要酸！，他们把柠檬去内脏，留下活着的食物的爱抚刺痛。

I DIDN'T KNOW about the tollbooths.
我不知道收费站。

“I didn't know,” I said to the tollbooth lady. “Can't I squeeze through this one time?”
“我不知道，”我对收费站的女士说。“我就不能挤一次吗？”

The woman in the booth was as unmoved as an obelisk. The driver in the car behind me started honking, and then the driver behind him, until I wanted to duck under the steering wheel. She directed me to the side where I reversed, turned, and found
摊位上的女人像方尖碑一样一动不动。我身后车上的司机开始按喇叭，然后是他身后的司机，直到我想躲在方向盘下。她把我引到我倒车、转身、找到的那一边

myself facing the direction from which I had just come.
我自己面对着我刚才来的方向。

I pulled off into a maze of industrial streets, each one more misleading than the next. It was irrational but I was terrified of not being able to find an ATM and having to go all the way back. I pulled into a Dunkin' Donuts. I took out twenty dollars and looked at my remaining balance: $146.00. I used the restroom and rinsed off my face. Almost, I said to my strained face in the mirror.
我把车开进了迷宫般的工业街道，每一条都比一条更具误导性。这是不合理的，但我害怕找不到自动取款机，不得不一路回去。我把车开进了邓肯甜甜圈。我拿出二十美元，看了看我剩下的余额：146.00美元。我上了洗手间，冲洗了脸。差不多，我对着镜子里紧张的脸说。

“Can I get a large iced hazelnut coffee?” I asked. The man wheezing behind the counter masticated me with his eyes. “You're back?" He handed me the change. “Excuse me?”
“我能喝一大杯冰榛子咖啡吗？”我问。柜台后面喘息的男人用眼睛盯着我。“你回来了？”他把零钱递给我。“对不起？”

“You were in here yesterday. You got that same coffee.”
“你昨天在这里。你喝的咖啡是一样的。

“No. I. Did. Not." I shook my head for emphasis. I imagined myself getting out of the car yesterday, tomorrow, and every day of my new life, pulling into the Dunkin' Donuts in motherfucking New Jersey, and ordering that coffee. I felt sick. “I didn't,” I said again, still shaking my head.
“不，我做到了。不是。我摇了摇头强调。我想象着自己昨天、明天和新生活的每一天都下车，把车开进他妈的新泽西州的邓肯甜甜圈，然后点了那杯咖啡。我感到恶心。“我没有，”我又说了一遍，仍然摇着头。

"I'm back, it's me," I said to the tollbooth woman, rolling the window down triumphantly. She raised one eyebrow and hooked her thumb into her belt loop. I handed her money like it was nothing. “Can I get in now?”
“我回来了，是我，”我对收费站的女人说，得意洋洋地摇下车窗。她挑了挑眉毛，把拇指勾进了皮带环里。我把钱递给她，好像没什么。“我现在可以进去了吗？”

SALT: your mouth waters itself. Flakes from Brittany, liquescent on contact. Blocks of pink salt from the Himalayas, matte gray clumps from Japan. An endless stream of kosher salt, falling from Chef's hand. Salting the most nuanced of enterprises, the food always requesting more, but the tipping point fatal.
盐：你的口水会流出来。来自布列塔尼的薄片，接触时液化。来自喜马拉雅山的粉红色盐块，来自日本的哑光灰色团块。源源不断的犹太盐，从厨师的手中落下。腌制企业最细致入微，对食物的要求总是更高，但临界点却是致命的。

A FRIEND OF a friend of a friend, his name was Jesse. A spare bedroom for $700 a month. A neighborhood called Williamsburg. The city was in the grips of a tyrannical heat wave, the daily papers headlined with news of people dying in Queens and the outer boroughs where there were blackouts. The cops were passing out bags of ice, an evaporating consolation.
一个朋友的朋友的朋友，他的名字叫杰西。一间备用卧室，每月 700 美元。一个叫威廉斯堡的街区。这座城市正处于暴虐的热浪之中，日报的头条是皇后区和停电的外围行政区人们死亡的消息。警察正在分发冰袋，这是一种蒸发的安慰。

The streets were wide and vacant and I parked my car on Roebling. It was midafternoon, there wasn't enough shade, and every business seemed closed. I walked over to Bedford Avenue to look for signs of life. I saw a coffee shop and thought about asking if they needed a barista. When I looked through the window the kids on laptops were thin lipped, pierced, gaunt, so much older than me. I had promised myself to find work swiftly and unthinkingly-as a waitress, a barista, a whatever- the-fuck-job so I could feel planted. But when I told myself to open the door my hand objected.
街道宽阔而空旷，我把车停在罗布林。当时正值午后，没有足够的树荫，每家店似乎都关门了。我走到贝德福德大道（Bedford Avenue）寻找生命的迹象。我看到一家咖啡店，想问他们是否需要咖啡师。当我透过窗户看时，笔记本电脑上的孩子们嘴唇薄薄，穿孔，憔悴，比我大得多。我答应过自己，要不假思索地迅速找到工作——当服务员、咖啡师，做一份他妈的工作，这样我就能觉得自己被栽种了。但是当我告诉自己开门时，我的手反对了。

The waterfront skyline was plastered with skeletons of high- rises, escalating out of the low buildings. They looked like mistakes that had been rubbed out with an eraser. Creaking above an overgrown, abandoned lot was a rusted-out Mobil gas sign-all around me ambivalent evidence of extinction.
滨水天际线布满了高层建筑的骨架，从低矮的建筑中不断升级。它们看起来像是用橡皮擦擦掉的错误。吱吱作响的杂草丛生的废弃地块上方是一个生锈的美孚汽油标志——我周围到处都是灭绝的矛盾证据。

This new roommate had left the keys at a bar near the apartment. He worked in an office in Midtown during the day and couldn't meet me.
这位新室友把钥匙留在了公寓附近的一家酒吧。他白天在中城的办公室工作，无法见到我。

Clem's was a dark spot on a bright corner, the air conditioner rumbling like a diesel motor. It anointed me with a drip when I walked in, and I stood blinking in the airstream while my eyes adjusted.
克莱姆是一个明亮角落的黑点，空调像柴油发动机一样隆隆作响。当我走进去时，它用一滴水膏抹了我，我站在气流中眨眼，同时我的眼睛调整了一下。

There was a bartender leaning heavily against the back counter with his boots up on the bar in front of him. He wore a patched and studded denim vest with no shirt underneath. Two women sat in front of him in yellow print dresses, twirling straws in big drinks. No one said anything to me.
有一个调酒师重重地靠在后面的柜台上，靴子踩在他面前的吧台上。他穿着一件打补丁和铆钉的牛仔背心，里面没有衬衫。两个穿着黄色印花连衣裙的女人坐在他面前，在大杯饮料中旋转着吸管。没有人对我说什么。

“Keys, keys, keys,” he said when I asked. In addition to his body odor, which hit me in the face on my approach, this man was covered in terrifying-demonic- tattoos. The skin of his ribs seemed glued on. A mustache as defined as pigtails. He pulled out the register, threw it on the bar, and rummaged through the drawer underneath. Stacks of credit cards, foreign change, envelopes, receipts. The bills fluttered against the clamps.
“钥匙，钥匙，钥匙，”当我问他时，他说。除了他的体味，在我接近时打在我的脸上，这个人身上布满了可怕的恶魔纹身。他肋骨的皮肤似乎粘在上面。定义为辫子的胡须。他掏出收银机，把它扔在吧台上，在下面的抽屉里翻找。成堆的信用卡、外币零钱、信封、收据。钞票在夹子上飘动。

“You Jesse's girl?”

“Ha,” one of the women said from down the bar. She pressed her drink onto her forehead and rolled it back and forth. “That was funny."
“哈，”其中一个女人在吧台上说。她把饮料压在额头上，来回滚动。“这很有趣。”

“It's South Second and Roebling," I said.
“这是南二和罗布林，”我说。

“Am I a fucking real estate agent?" He threw a handful of keys with plastic colored tags at me.
“我他妈的是个房地产经纪人吗？”他向我扔了一把带有塑料色标签的钥匙。

“Aw, don't scare her,” the second woman said. They didn't look like sisters exactly, but they were both fleshy, rising out of their halter necklines like figureheads on the prow of a ship. One was blond, the other brunette-and now that I was looking, their dresses were definitely identical. They murmured inside jokes to each other.
“噢，别吓唬她，”第二个女人说。她们看起来并不完全像姐妹，但她们都是肉感十足的，从挂脖领口中升起，就像船头上的傀儡。一个是金发的，另一个是黑发的——现在我看了看，他们的衣服绝对是一样的。他们在里面互相开玩笑。

How am I going to live here? I wondered. Someone is going to have to change, them or me. I found the keys marked 220 Roebling. The bartender ducked down.
我将如何住在这里？我想知道。有人将不得不改变，他们或我。我找到了标有 220 Roebling 的钥匙。酒保蹲下身子。

“Thank you very much, sir," I said to the air.
“非常感谢你，先生，”我对着空气说。

“Oh, no problem, madame," he said, popping up and batting his eyes at me. He opened a can of beer, pushed his mustache up, and ran his tongue around it while looking at me.
“噢，没问题，夫人，”他说，突然出现，用眼睛盯着我。他打开一罐啤酒，把胡子往上推，一边看着我，一边用舌头舔着。

“Okay," I said, backing away. “Well, maybe I'll come in again. For like...a drink.”
“好吧，”我说，退后一步。“好吧，也许我会再来一次。比如...喝一杯。

"I'll be here with bells on,” he said, turning his back on me. His stench lingered.
“我会在这里开着铃铛，”他说，背对着我。他的恶臭挥之不去。

Just before I stepped out into the heat I heard one of the women say, “Oh god,” and then from that bartender: “There goes the fucking neighborhood."
就在我走到炎热的天气之前，我听到一个女人说，“哦，上帝，”然后那个酒保说：“他妈的邻居去了。

SWEET: granular, powdered, brown, slow like honey or molasses. The mouth-coating sugars in milk. Once, when we were wild, sugar intoxicated us, the first narcotic we craved and languished in. We've tamed, refined it, but the juice from a peach still runs like a flash flood.
甜味：颗粒状，粉末状，棕色，像蜂蜜或糖蜜一样缓慢。牛奶中的糖分。有一次，当我们狂野的时候，糖让我们陶醉，这是我们渴望和萎靡不振的第一种麻醉剂。我们已经驯服了它，提炼了它，但桃子的汁液仍然像山洪一样流淌。

I DON'T REMEMBER why I went to that restaurant first.
我不记得为什么我先去了那家餐厅。

I do remember-in perfect detail -that stretch of Sixteenth Street that gave away so little: the
我确实记得——非常详细——第十六街的那段路，它很少透露：

impersonal, midcentury teal of Coffee Shop, the battalion of dumpsters between us and Blue Water Grill, the bodega with two small card tables where they let you drink beer. Always uniformed servers buying Altoids and energy drinks.
没有人情味的，中世纪蓝绿色的咖啡店，我们和Blue Water Grill之间的垃圾箱营，酒窖里有两张小牌桌，可以让你喝啤酒。总是穿着制服的服务员购买 Altoids 和能量饮料。

The alley where the cooks lined up to smoke cigarettes between services, the recesses of the alley where they smoked pot and kicked at the rats tearing through the
厨师们在服务间隙排队抽烟的小巷，他们抽烟和踢老鼠的小巷的凹处

trash. And just beyond our line of vision we could sense the outlines of the scrawny park.
垃圾。在我们的视线之外，我们可以感觉到瘦骨嶙峋的公园的轮廓。

What did the 0wner gaze at when he built it? The future.
0wner在建造它时凝视着什么？未来。

When I got there they told me a lot of stories. Nobody went to
当我到达那里时，他们告诉我很多故事。没有人去

Union Square in the eighties, they said. Only a few of the publishing houses had moved down there. That city has been replaced by another city. The Whole Foods, the Barnes & Noble, the Best Buy- they got stacked right on top of it. In Rome, they dig for a subway and find whole civilizations. With all the artists, the politicians, the tailors, the hairdressers, the
他们说，八十年代的联合广场。只有少数出版社搬到了那里。那个城市已经被另一个城市所取代。The Whole Foods、Barnes & Noble、Best Buy——它们都堆在上面。在罗马，他们挖地铁，找到整个文明。与所有的艺术家、政治家、裁缝、理发师、

bartenders. If you dug right here on Sixteenth Street you'd find us, younger, and all the stale haunts, and all the old bums in the park younger too.
调 酒 师。如果你在第十六街挖，你会发现我们更年轻，还有所有陈旧的出没，公园里的所有老流浪汉也都更年轻。

What did those original servers see when they went to the first interviews in 1985? A tavern, a grill, a bistro? A mess of Italy, France, and some burgeoning American cuisine that nobody really believed in yet? A hodgepodge that shouldn't have worked? When I asked them what they saw, they said he'd built a kind of restaurant that hadn't been there before. They all said that when they walked in, it felt like coming home.
1985 年，当最初的服务器进行第一次采访时，他们看到了什么？小酒馆、烧烤店、小酒馆？意大利、法国和一些新兴的美国美食还没有人真正相信？一个不应该起作用的大杂烩？当我问他们看到了什么时，他们说他建造了一种以前从未去过的餐厅。他们都说，当他们走进去时，感觉就像回家一样。

BITTER: always a bit
苦涩：总是有点

unanticipated. Coffee, chocolate, rosemary, citrus rinds, wine. Once, when we were wild, it told us about poison. The mouth still hesitates at each new encounter. We urge it forward, say, Adapt. Now, enjoy it.
意料之外。咖啡、巧克力、迷迭香、柑橘皮、葡萄酒。有一次，当我们狂野的时候，它告诉我们关于毒药的事情。每次新的相遇，嘴巴仍然犹豫不决。我们敦促它向前发展，比如说，适应。现在，尽情享受吧。

I SMILED too much. At the end of the interview the corners of my mouth ached like stakes in a tent. I wore a black sundress and a pilled cardigan, which was the most conservative and professional thing I owned. I had a handful of resumes folded up in my purse, and my loose plan-if that's even the right word for the hesitant brand of instinct I forced myself to follow with a sense of doom-was to walk into restaurants until I got hired.
我笑得太多了。采访结束时，我的嘴角像帐篷里的木桩一样疼痛。我穿了一件黑色吊带裙和一件起球的开衫，这是我拥有的最保守、最专业的东西。我的钱包里叠了几份简历，我松散的计划——如果这能用这个词来形容我带着一种厄运感强迫自己遵循的犹豫不决的本能的话——就是走进餐馆，直到我被录用。