HUNGRY GERALD

There is only one way to cook a steak. Any other method is meat massacre and a waste of an expensive hunk of meat. Heat (until really hot) a black, cast iron frying pan. Before heating, cover the bottom with a thin layer of coarse (kosher) salt. Sear both sides of the sirloin or rib steak (you surely wouldn’t be cooking a wimpy, tasteless filet mignon).
After searing, turn the heat to medium and cook for five to seven minutes (just on one side..no more turning).  Timing depends on whether you like the meat bleu (a bit raw and bloody) or saignant (rare). HG is tolerant.  Have it your way.   Cut into the meat and take a peek. Obviously, if you peruse HG you don’t eat “well done” steak. HG likes his steak Florentine style: A splash of olive oil and some finely chopped raw garlic. Continue the Tuscan theme with a side of Goya’s white navy beans (once more, with olive oil and garlic). This is the perfect meal and ..because of the plentiful garlic..you won’t have to share it with Count Dracula.

Bathgate Avenue. East Bronx. Circa 1935. This was a loud, ramshackle street of pushcarts and shops dispensing a huge variety of food, fruit and vegetables at astonishingly low prices (even for 1935). The prices were why my Mom, with HG at her side, was there. The quality was good. But, wariness was necessary. Sharp dealing abounded. Lots of things were sold live..chickens, ducks and turkeys; lobster tanks and trays of wriggling crabs at the Italian-patronized fish store and a big fish tank with lively fish at the Jewish fish emporium. There was lots of blood. From the butcher shops and especially from the chicken store. My Mom bought her chicken live after much careful selection. The chicken guy slit the bird’s throat (much blood on his already bloody apron). Then the chicken was handed off to the chicken plucker (known as “the flicker”). Plucking the chicken cost about 2 cents, I recall, and in those Depression days many housewives did their own plucking to save that sum. The chicken guy usually eviscerated the chicken. My Mom did her own because she rendered chicken fat (a staple of the HG diet) and did many wondrous things with chicken innards. A chicken “flicker” was not held in high regard. A bad boy was admonished: “You’ll grow up to be a chicken flicker!!” Trade on Bathgate Avenue was conducted in very loud, tones of Yiddish, Italian and heavily-accented English. Deportment could be termed in-your-face. Okay. Let’s segue to Mom at the fish tank. She points to a fish. That’s my guy. Crafty fish man turns his back to Mom, obscuring the tank, lowers his net. The fish is on the cutting block. Before the knife descends, Mom screams (and I mean screams): “THIS FISH IS DEAD!!!”
I look.  Damn, that’s one dead fish.  The fish man looks at my Mom and says,benevolently: “Ehr shluhft.” Translation: He’s sleeping.  Of course, he was replaced with a wide-awake guy and the incident was recorded permanently in family lore. Two morals: (One) Watch out!! (Two) If you screw up, have a funny excuse.

My friend Andre of long ago was a lovable, irritating, manic gourmand, libertine and madman. He taught me a very valuable lesson. We Fire Island pot heads were looking, with distaste, at a large jumble of pots, pans and dishes following a very long, weed and alcohol infused dinner. Andre said: “This what you have to do about dirty dishes. Count to ten. Jump to your feet. Deep breath. Summon up every bit of your energy. And, attack..really attack..those dishes.” That’s what he did. Dishes, etc. were done in a flash. Have followed this technique many times. It works. Try it.

Flying into New York’s LaGuardia Airport on my birthday, Novenber 9, 1965. The time: 5:27 PM. Suddenly, LaGuardia went dark. In fact, lights were out all over New York. Our pilot said, alarmingly, “This looks like the work of a saboteur.” Much circling. A lot of fear. Finally, we were informed that lights were on at Newark Airport (due to the efficiency of Public Service Electric & Gas). Landed safely at 7:30. Sigh of relief. Telephoned Beautiful Sharon. Said I was safe and would try to be home as soon as possible for our big time, much planned birthday dinner. Tough battle for a cab to Manhattan. Finally, six of us piled into a cab, paid the driver 25 dollars each and were off on an eerie drive to the pitch black city. Arrived at my 79th/Riverside Drive home. Walked up 12 flights to our huge (blessedly rent controlled apartment). And, what had Beautiful Sharon prepared for the birthday boy? (All cooked, arranged, prepared by candle light..fortunately, the oven and range were powered by gas.) A smidgen of beluga caviar with still cold Polish vodka from the freezer. Lobster Americaine (poached lobster in a pungent, buttery, much reduced tomato sauce). Steak and kidney pie. Two bottles of Pommard. Chocolates and cognac for dessert (the ice cream cake had melted). One word sums it up: Wow! Later, walked my standard bred poodle, Peaches, on the rooftop. Gazed at black New York buildings (there was moonlight, however) and decided I had made a very fortunate marriage. Haven’t changed my mind in 45 years.

If you want to laugh and to think and to glory in good writing just go to the right of HG’s words and log into Bob Judd’s blog. I see Bob every ten years or so. If absence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder you can see why I admire him excessively.  Bob’s a poet, a novelist (he’s kind of the Dick Francis of auto racing). He’s been a top flight advertising copy writer and executive (creative director of the Ford account in Europe for J. Walter Thompson before the huge agency was absorbed by the Brits). He’s lived in many places, usually accompanied by attractive women. When Bob was living in London (in a modernist house by the great architect Erno Goldfinger) he prepared a most memorable meal. Simplicity itself. He poached a side of fresh salmon in a court boullion. He boiled some little potatoes. He did a sauce of butter, lemon and capers. Then…a stroke of Juddian genius. He poached some heads of fennel in chicken stock and at least a pound and a half of butter. Voluptuous, to say the very least. It was all preceded by, accompanied and followed by a great deal of alcohol. Sheer delight.  Then a walk-it-off saunter through the autumnal majesty of Hampstead Heath (where The General met his violent end in John Le’Carre’s “Smiley’s People”).  Gentle reader, the headline of this appreciation of Bob Judd–the man, the cuisine, the blog–may seem a bit puzzling. Well, Bob is a big guy and a former tackle on the Williams College football team. The nickname of these violent scholars (possibly the silliest in grid history): The Ephmen.

The English they are a funny race. Example: They like to eat a substance called mushy peas. Feh. Even the name is revolting. They also like jellied eels. Feh.  Feh. HG is an eel lover  (Japanese unagi;  smoked eel as Henri Soule used to prepare it with a cloud of horseradish infused whipped cream).  But, jellied eels ?  Once more, even the name is disgusting.  But, what can you expect from folks who get a kinky sex charge from spanking ?  The late Kenneth Tynan, the wonderful English drama critic, essayist and wit was a spanking devotee. So….all of this from the people who won the Battle of Britain and gave us actors and actresses who make great Academy Award acceptance speeches.  Go figure.

Potato chips.  Mints (or anything with a mint flavor including vile mint ice cream).  All fast food but most of all unspeakable Arby’s and disgusting Taco Bell.  Soft pretzels.  Yogurt ice cream.  Well done scrambled eggs.  All additions to raw oysters and clams (and that means: lemon, mignonette, red sauce, Tabasco…the bivalves should be consumed au naturel or the briny, sea essence is destroyed).

Brains. Kidneys. Hearts. Lungs (prepared as lungen stew in the Eastern European style). Steaks that are raw in the middle. Mexican menudo (tripe). Calf’s liver broiled rare. Duck gizzards. Chicken fat.

We had a nice family custom when my kids were young. Once a year Daddy HG would take Lesley and Jeremy, individually, to Manhattan for a day of treats…the treats to be determined by them. This was known as Treat Day. Pizza, movies, a trip to F.A.O. Schwartz (or Bloomingdale’s as they grew older) were all part of it. But, the last treat of the day was always the same: A hot fudge sundae at the soda fountain in Rumpelmayer’s, the very eccentric restaurant/cafe in the St. Moritz Hotel. One would be guilty of serious understatement if the sundae was described as delicious, or scrumptious, or super-yummy. It was much more than that. Sublime. Possibly touched by the hand of The Big Guy In The Sky. First of all, everything was made in-house. Ice cream (impossibly rich and creamy). Hot fudge (chocolate served quite warm, of course, and hitting the middle note between sweet and bitter). Whipped cream (just thick enough). Chopped nuts (optional).  Lagniappe: The sundae was served with an additional pitcher of hot fudge so there was no danger of running out of the divine substance.  Treat Day and Rumpelmayer’s are all part of the past.  I fear that if I asked the no longer youngsters what they would want for Treat Day now it might involve private school and college tuition plus advanced electronic devices.

Best dishes: The mixed grill at the beautiful Connaught Restaurant in the gracious and lovely London hotel. Lamb chop. Kidney. Sausage. Tiny filet mignon. Grilled tomato and mushroom. Garnished with watercress. Accompanied by Bearnaise sauce, hot English mustard and a basket of ethereal pommes souffle. Downtown Brooklyn at long gone Gage & Tollner’s. Buttery sauteed clam bellies and shad, shad roe, bacon, cole slaw, tartar sauce, crisp straw potatoes. New York’s deceased Christ Cella on East 44th. Rare sirloin steak and roquefort salad. Paris. Le Dome

n Montparnasse. The incomparable Dover sole meuniere with feather light potato pancakes. Butter drenched, lemony. Vancouver, British Columbia. Anything on the menu at Vij’s, the Indian fusion restaurant. But, most of all, the lamp popsicles. Tiny lamp chops cut off the rack and served in a unique..rich but light..fenugreek cream sauce. Best total meal: Paris, of course. Le Stella, the brasserie in the staid 16th. Oysters. Bulots (sea snails) with mayonnaise. Rack of lamb with haricot verts and pomme frites. St. Marcellin cheese. Accompanying wines: Muscadet, Morgon.  Ile flottante for dessert and Vielle Prune as a digestif.