Even though it has been three weeks since my birthday weekend, I am still so pleased that it was, indeed, a birthday to wipe away all memories of the dreadful ones of years past. I enjoyed every minute at the Gramercy Park hotel, even when the room hadn't been cleaned at 4:30 in the afternoon and there were light bulbs missing because this led to a scene straight out of the Marx Brothers' Night at the Opera when what seemed like hundreds of people filled their tiny stateroom. I had six workers in the room and the bathroom and we were all just giggling with the absurdity of the situation. I loved sitting in Gramercy Park. I loved Maiolino, the restaurant in the Gramercy Park hotel where I had Italian breakfast, brunch, and lunch (not on the same day. I loved seeing Please Give and Solitary Man. I loved going to the Redhead and having incredible homemade potato chips with brown butter onion dip, a one-eyed Caesar (Caesar salad with a brioche topped with a perfectly fried egg), and duck andouille gumbo, all under the aegis of Gregg Nelson, possibly the nicest person in the New York area. I loved seeing Cristina and Frank at the Mandarin Oriental and enjoying the glorious view and key lime cosmos. I loved being on the first row for La Cage aux Folles and seeing Douglas Hodge give one of the best performances that I have ever seen. All of this would have been a fabulous gift to unwrap, but I had more experiences, all in restaurants, that made the weekend one to remember for a long time.
LA TOCQUEVILLE ROMANCE UP CLOSE:
Dear friends had recommended La Tocqueville, just off Union Square and I was anxious to give it a try, so I sauntered over there after seeing Please Give. As the Zagat guide says, it is a jewel box of a restaurant and reminded me of how I had pictured all NYC restaurants when I was growing up. It is spacious and comfortable with an extremely high ceiling and muted colors complemented by beautiful moldings. The food was lovely--a vegetable salad with marvelous ingredients right from the Union Square greenmarket and a perfectly poached lobster with celery root puree and a lovely little flan. All very tasteful and relaxing. I am feeling very cosseted. But, at a table about six feet away are an older man and a younger woman. I roll my eyes at the cliche of it. He is short, but appears handsome, and wearing a suit (very unusual). She is completely overdressed like something out of a Carol Burnett parody of New York and has the worst overbite that I have ever seen. It is so pronounced that I keep running my tongue over my teeth to make sure that my teeth are stil alinged. Yet, she seems to think that she is a combination of Ivana Trump and Cameron Diaz. The other patrons are casually dressed and speak in calm, if enthusiastic tones. I try very hard not to hear every word being said, but as the evening wears on and diners depart, I have no choice. The lady asks the man to describe every woman he has "known" in the capacity that he has known her. Gentle Jesus, I cry to myself, don't go there. But, there he goes, enumerating what he has "loved" about his other "women". Then, he talks about why he loves his wife and why he will never leave her. I am starting to get annoyed, but I decide to sit back and watch this unfold. It is like some kind of two-character play for which I would pay $90. The gentleman then used the word "mistress" to describe his guest--the horror, the faux tears, the recriminations. I wouldn't leave for anything. Then, he asked her about the men she had loved. It was all I could do not to shush her as she proceeded to dish for more than 20 minutes about the one man to whom she had been engaged growing more and more unappealing as she described the falling apart of their relationship. During this tirade, the man never stopped sitting straight up, but his entire body language became more and more withdrawn which, of course, that poor fool never noted. There were so many facets that fascinated me--why they never acknowledged me, as close I was sitting; the wistfulness emanating from each of them as they completely missed each other; and, as I departed, the fact that this was one unattractive man as his face and body resembled that of Rumpelstiltkin and a woman who was desperately trying to look 35 even though she was probably 50. As I strolled back to the Gramercy Park hotel, I savored my Family of Oneness and made mental notes on how not to talk if and when I find myself in such a situation.
A MODERN BIRTHDAY
Lunch at the Modern barroom seemed like the perfect place to while away a couple of hours. And, indeed, the white gazpacho, the housemade sausage, the himachi sashimi, the adult Kit Kat (chocolate dacquoise) were all fabulous. But, even better, I chatted with the most lovely couple of a certain age next to me who were from Columbia, SC. They had met after their first spouses passed away and friends insisted on introducing them. They were utterly happy and so comfortable in their conversation that I teasingly told them that I could not believe that they were married. They had been together about seven years. The gentleman offered to buy me a glass of champagne and the three of us had the most delightful time comparing living in NYC to living in the South, the mercurial nature of falling in love, etc. As we dished and chatted, a family of four across the aisle was eyeing us-an elderly lady, two middle-aged fellows, and a young woman in her 20s. One of the men yelled over, "it's our grandmother's birthday and she is 95!" Said lady got up and came over to the table and we marveled at the serendipity of meeting on our birthdays. Turns out the group was from Charlotte--the elderly lady, her gay son, his partner, and her niece. I said--"you are just like your own TV show". We were all screaming with laughter and everyone else wished that they were sitting close to us. We all agreed that we would love to spend the afternoon yukking it up, but we had places to go--weddings for the couple from Columbia, the Twyla Tharp show for the family from Charlotte followed by dinner at Cafe Boulud (God, that 95 year old had more energy than I did! ), and Think Pink salon for mani/pedi with my darling Meme.
EMP
On Friday, my beloved K journeyed in from Rhinebeck to join me at Eleven Madison Park. For Christmas, Aunt Louise had given me an envelope with ten ten dollar bills in it and said for me to take someone to lunch at someplace special. So, I asked K if she could go with me to EMP to use that money. K was delighted and said that she would subsidize the rest. It was the meal of a lifetime in so many ways. Of course, we went crazy over the roasted chicken for two, the very best chicken I have ever tasted. We savored our tuna tartare and our gnocchi and our other treats. We didn't talk that much--we had already had our usual heart to heart chat while we strolled through Gramercy Park. From time to time, K's eyes filled with tears. It was a truly magical lunch because, best of all, K met nearly every member of my EMP dining family who presented themselves at our table like courtiers. And, as K put it, "I shall never forget the sight of Chef Humm making a beeline for OUR table". She was quite taken with him (the latest James Beard award winner) and his easy charm and down to earth attitude. Afterwards, we strolled back to the hotel where we could only loll in a state of suspended happiness and recount every morsel we had eaten and every lovely person we had seen. K's parting remark--"EMP is truly a bubble of delight in this crazy world and no wonder you cherish it so much because everything else just falls away".
I returned for my birthday dinner and had a marvelous meal and yukked it up with the folks who have become so very dear to me. My dear friends, the Rs, whom I met through EMP, made sure that I had a glass of champagne sent over. Interestingly, I can't say that the dinner was any better or different than the usual meal there, but I think that is a wonderful thing. Although the captain did bring me my very own bottle of Woodford Reserve for after-dinner imbibing. I was there until 1:30 AM, so it was quite an evening. I savored my conversations with each of my EMP family-each so devoted to good food and wonderful living, but so different from each other and with whom I have an unique fondness for each one. Just like a family!
Here is the menu:
Santa Barbara sea urchin/custard with Sterling Royal Caviar, Green Apple and Shellfish Ragout
Ice Cream Lollipop--carrot and kasha and presented in a silver bowl filled with green grass from which you pluck the lollipop
Spring Pea chilled soup with buttermilk snow and Bayonne ham crisp
Peekytoe crab sald with pickled Daikon radish, crustacean mayonnaise, and spring flowers
Arctic Char seared with Oregon morels, garden peas, and pearl onions
Milk Fed Veal blanquette with spring vegetables, tarragon, and crayfish
Artisanal cheeses
"Soda Pop", a concoction of tangerine, grapefruit, pomelo, lemon and pop rocks
Milk and Chocolate variations of flavor and texture (this is one of the few weak links that I have ever tasted at EMP)
What a relief to have such a weekend and what a joy to re-live it with you!
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