The F.B.I.

The Food Bureau Of Investigation Might Have A Problem With This

By Phyllis Lombardi

“Don’t eat the mushrooms.” That was the message Joan Fabian heard last week when she picked up the telephone in her Cutchogue home. It wasn’t even a taped message. Rather, a real live guy’s voice all the way from Indiana. He was calling to tell Joan the mushrooms she’d just purchased in a Riverhead store were quite possibly tainted with E.coli. The computer/card utilized by the store revealed the identity of the “mushroom people” and the store’s management was putting in some phone calls.

Fortunately, Joan’s just fine. And she’s grateful for the store’s vigilance and calls. However, she’d eaten those mystery mushrooms two days before her phone rang.

We’re really into this E.coli big time now. Remember back a few months ago? The lettuce and spinach scare? No phone message then. Just TV and newspaper alerts. Though at that time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched California produce companies for evidence of a crime.

Wow! Move over Homeland Security. And kitchen-keepers of the North Fork? Beware. For once the new FBI (Food Bureau of Investigation) finds its way to Riverhead and points east, I just know we’re gonna have problems.

Start with my kitchen And no sanctimonious smirks because yours might be next. Anyway, at this very moment, I have a couple of pounds of outdated ground turkey on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator. One of two things was supposed to happen – a big meatloaf or put it in the freezer. Trouble is, there’s no room in my freezer. Never is. If the FBI forced its way into my kitchen and saw that ground turkey, I’d be headed for the Southold cooler.

But I’d have company, plenty of it. Southold Town Police Chief Carlisle Cochran would have to put in a call for extra clinker cots to accommodate all the North Fork KP offenders. That’s Kitchen Police, of course.

And my cell mates wouldn’t be just us simple folk. No, there’d be North Fork bankers, real estate execs and business owners in the slammer, too. Their offense? Those little dishes of candy and cookies out on desks all across the North Fork that are so wonderful. “Help yourself,” the signs read. Sure, help yourself to a jelly bean that’s been on a desk for three weeks. It’s been sneezed over, coughed over, handled by people looking for red, not green.

Other North Fork kitchen-offenders? I could give the FBI several names and addresses of those who might keep me company in the Southold cell. But I’m reluctant to do so They wouldn’t invite me to dinner at their home again. So I’ll just reveal first names and their kitchen offenses.

Take Debbie W. in Riverhead. She’s got such a pretty kitchen. All yellows and gold, nice and cheerful. But Debbie’s cat, Beamer, is as much of a guest in that kitchen as I am. He jumps on countertops and appraises the food preparation, sniffing here, pawing there.

I smile wanly, thinking germy thoughts, as Debbie scolds Beamer. Surely the FBI would have better methods. And if those methods exceeded Geneva Convention limits, I wouldn’t mind at all.

Now travel to Orient and visit Doreen M. Her home is a showplace and her kitchen could be a prototype for the new culinary school planned for Riverhead. Doreen has a garden, and a good one, I grudgingly admit. Her peppers are perfectly shaped, her tomatoes bright red. Difficulty is this: Doreen picks those tomatoes or a bit of parsley, and insists I sample them right now. Fresh-picked. Here in her garden.

I confess. I want to check the parsley for worms and wash the darned tomatoes before I eat them, but I don’t. So I’ve probably consumed my share of Orient’s bugs. The FBI will get Doreen. Count on it.

This last food-offender is a guy. Bob V. lives in Greenport’s Peconic Landing and is a carpenter of considerable talent. His power saw whines away in his workshop for hours at a time. Stop by and say hello and Bob will offer a plate of cherries, grapes, or whatever fruit’s in season. Nice guy, Bob, but his fruit is covered with sawdust. “Oh, just brush if off,” he says. “After all, sawdust isn’t dirt.” My husband says that, too. Wonder what the FBI would think.

If the Food Bureau of Investigation does appear in these parts, I certainly hope we get a day’s notice, otherwise, I fear we’ll give them evidence by the North Forkful.