Clams: A Love Story

Photograph A basic, unfussy delicacy, animated by fat and warmth. Credit Gentl and Hyers for The New York Times. Sustenance beautician: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop beautician: Amy Wilson.

I met a man from Long Island — at a bar, by shot, a year after I moved to New York — and immediately I enjoyed him. We strolled from the bar to a 24-hour burger joint in the East Village and got flame broiled cheddar sandwiches and French fries and drank awful room-temperature espresso and talked for quite a long time, until the point when an outsider came over and inquired as to whether we might want him to administer our wedding, in that spot, in the congregation of Veselka, at this sticky table by the lavatory.

By then it was light outside. I'd known the man for nine hours, and I was fueled by a motor of immaculate excitement. I said beyond any doubt, why not, yes. Our server feigned exacerbation however consented to be the observer as we spread an informal report with ketchup. Not long after, I discovered that the man I'd cafe hitched had worked for a long time opening mollusks and shellfish in bars, and it had abandoned him with a quiet, cleareyed appreciation. What I mean is, he didn't get worked up when he discussed, dislike a few people I knew. What's more, he didn't demand that I attempt one specific assortment, developed off one remote island, with only a squirt of lemon, obviously, in light of the fact that much else would be ill bred to the shellfish.