This is not a part of the "Hellhole That Is August" series...

I grew up in the Bronx's east side.

Here, maybe this will help a little. See the picture? See the buildings on the right hand side, right over the school bus? Now see the brown building and the little row of pink-ish ones? I lived in the first of the pinkish ones, lowest on the hill, right beside the brown one.

My brother and I would walk to the bottom of the hill, round the corner on Carpenter Ave. and head over to school and back again. Everyday, on the way home from school, we would pass the same street cart, right at the corner of the mechanics shop, across the street from Our Lady of Mercy Hospital.

The smells coming from that vendor's cart were mouthwatering. It was the typical New York street cart with the umbrella casting a shadow over the man, the aluminum cart with wheels and compartments that stored boiled hot dogs and the condiments. But it wasn't the hot dogs we were tempted by. It was the smell of grilling onions and peppers. The cart vendor sold kebabs.

We'd walk by and I'd eye him slyly to see where that smell came from and what it was. I heard someone ask for a "kebab" and saw the vendor pick up a skewer with onions and peppers and meat on it, dripping with juices. Now, we were brought up on a diet of Filipino goodness full of soy sauce and salt and hot rice. We also knew french fries and hamburgers well. We often had mom's style of shish kebab, which was basically, marinated pork cubes, skewered and grilled. But we never had onions and peppers mixed into it, and certainly not beef or whatever that meat was...

So, one day, my brother and I discussed the possibilities of perhaps sampling this cuisine and decided to buy just one, to share, along with two cokes. We pooled our money, walked cautiously toward the vendor, pointed to one of the sticks and the cokes. He extracted a kebab from the pile, rolled it in some foil, handed that and the cans to me.

I can't remember how much it was. But I do remember the disappointment of bland, tough, meat and undercooked onions and peppers.

From then on, we were cured. Never again would we fall for those smells. We did buy an occasional boiled hot dog (I hate boiled hot dogs) and soda. We went back to chips and soda or just whatever was waiting for us at home.

I have, since then, created my own shish kabobs, cubes of marinated steaks, skewered along with peppers, onions and sweet cherry tomatoes. Served on a plate of rice pilaf makes it perfect.

At least the sodas were always cold.

Me.