I Am But A Humble Pierogi, And I Want Alan Dershowitz To Leave Me Out Of His Drama

I am not 'tainted by anti-semitism,' you're just the Joan Crawford of Martha's Vineyard.

Maybe if I hold my shirt like this, they won’t know it’s me and they’ll sell me a pierogi.

It is I, the humble pierogi. Witness me. Witness my delicious dough, my delicate flakiness. Witness me transcending my humble Polish origins. Witness me filling the bellies of European peasants since time immemorial.

Now witness this schmuck, Alan Dershowitz. I am told he is a lawyer, and a law professor, and a legal scholar of some note, an accomplished and learned man. Yet here he is wandering around a Martha’s Vineyard farmers market in a dorky little baseball cap complaining that he loves pierogi, but someone won’t sell him a pierogi, and this is a violation of his civil rights somehow.

Oh yes, this is just like Jim Crow. Black people couldn’t go to a decent school, Alan Dershowitz couldn’t get a decent pierogi, same thing. If that pierogi stand had had a lunch counter, you can be damn sure the Dersh would have had a sit-in at it.

I’m not a fancy lawyer like Dershowitz — I majored in Music History at Sarah Lawrence — but even I know “conservative” is not a protected class. What a friggin’ drama queen.

Funny how when it’s a conservative’s business like Twitter, boycotting it is such a crime that Donald Trump’s Justice Department will investigate advertisers for violating the First Amendment. When it’s a guy opposed to what Israel is doing in Gaza, suddenly boycotting his business is A-OK.

Look, I am tainted by a lot of things. My fruit fillings can be tainted with insecticide. My onion and potato fillings can also be tainted with insecticide. My quark filling is tainted by sick cows, who got sick because the grass they eat is tainted with insecticide.

But antisemitism? Contra Alan Dershowitz, I do not have so much as an antisemitic mushroom tucked between my doughy folds. There are not any bigoted boiled beans held in place by my sumptuous and crimped edges. Because I’m a goddamn pastry and I don’t give a shit.

Alan Dershowitz Suing Martha’s Vineyard Farmer's Market Vendor For Tortious Withholding Of Dumpling

Really, I don’t care if I’m eaten by a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, Catholic, Lutheran, santerian, Scientologist, Mormon, or whatever the members of some isolated tribe that worships the coconut god on a South Pacific island call themselves. I end up in the same place no matter what.

Listen, I get it. Dersh is desperate for some relevance. He’s lonely spending his summers on the Vineyard and not getting invited to any cookouts. He’s tired of people crossing the street to avoid getting a lecture from him about all the ways Donald Trump’s rights have been violated. There’s nothing for him to do but record his podcast and ogle teenagers who keep mistaking him for a blobfish. Buying a delicious pierogi at the farmers market was probably going to be the highlight of August. Then some pierogi salesman went and ruined it for him.

But spare us all the histrionics. It’s so tiresome.

Besides, “The Tainted Pierogi” sounds like a terrible Henry James story:

“Alas, the hour grows late and the fire grows low,” said our host as he swirled the dregs of his port. “But we perhaps have time for one more tale.” He gazed at the painting above the mantle, a windswept landscape of some distant moor. A troubled look lay upon his countenance. It was clear he had a story he wanted to get off his chest.

“Shall I speak to you ...” And here he drew in his breath. “Shall I speak to you of the tainted pierogi?”

I can see Douglas now, there before the fire, one hand holding his port glass, the other plucking from a nearby serving tray an empanada prepared by the house’s chef, a man with a face as inscrutable as his pastry-making skills were exceptional. Douglas turned the empanada this way and that, the glow of firelight dancing on its dull surface.

“A lovely item, the empanada,” Douglas mused. “Simple, elegant, flaky if properly prepared. Stuffed with all measure of exotic meats and spices from the Orient or the jungles of the Amazon. But it lacks the solidity of the pierogi, the Europeanness of it. Even if it is peasant food found mostly in the ovens of heavy-browed old women in poor countryside villages.” He bit into the empanada and tasted whatever foodstuff had caught the chef’s fancy as he planned our menu.

A curious thing happened then: Douglas’s eyes seemed to roll back in his head. He gagged, he stumbled towards the fire, he clawed at his throat. We all rose from our divans and chairs in alarm at his distress. I took a step forward, and Douglas held up a hand to stop me as he spit the chewed remnants of the empanada into the fire.

“Tainted!” cried he. “I should say so! Tainted with the antisemitism of which our fair Israelite hero warned us!” He spat again and reached for his glass of port, which some kind soul had refilled to the brim, and guzzled it like a dockhand quaffing a pint of ale in the lowliest Wapping tavern.

“An Israelite hero?” someone exclaimed. “This story has an Israelite hero? And I suppose his bête noir is of Germanic extraction?”

“Not at all,” said Douglas. “Our hero has no bête noir in this story. Except the liberal fake news media and the Martha’s Vineyard lawman. And the humble but bigoted pierogi maker, of course.”

He drew in his breath — he did that a lot — and began to tell us his story.

Eh, you can all just watch the 10-episode Netflix miniseries. That Mike Flanagan is a genius!

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