HUNGRY GERALD

HG loves (not neccesarily in order): Italian food, HG’s brilliant son-in-law, Profesore MR; HG’s beautiful and accomplished (half Italian and bilingual) granddaughters, Ms.A and Ms. S. Add to the list of HG’s Italian loves: Fra’ Mani and O Gelato.

Based in Berkeley, California, Fra’ Mani makes superb, handcrafted Italian cured meats, sausages and salami. HG tasted Fra’ Mani’s Salume Rossa yesterday. This is a cooked salami with origins in Bologna that tastes a bit like a cross between mortadella and cured salami with all of the virtues of both.

I also discovered that Whole Foods (in Santa Fe) stocks O Gelato products and happily purchased the mind-blowing O Gelato Salted Butter Caramel. OG is a tiny, Mom and Pop operation in Sante Fe, with one little shop in a mall. But, to gelato lovers its products are worshiped with religious fervor. Glad that a big operation like Whole Foods has discovered this very local company and is giving it a showcase.

HG and BSK spent two delightful weeks in Buenos Aires last year. The November visit coincided with BA’s early, warm summer. Nice, bi-level rental apartment in a chic building (across the street from the beautiful Museum of Modern Art) with a big, heated swimming pool. HG and BSK had a daily morning and pre-dinner swim.

BA is just beautiful. Majestic boulevards, Lush jacaranda and other foliage everywhere. Charming old neighborhoods that haven’t been gentrified out of character. An abundance of bistros, boutiques, outdoor cafes. Some very interesting galleries and art museums. There are weekend street markets with some bargains and an abundance of street bands. Music and song of much vitality and personality. BA is world HQ for Tango…to dance or to watch. Tango dancers come in all ages and all sizes and all look sexy.

The exchange rate favors the US dollar so everything is amazingly cheap. Example: Fabulous steak dinner with a bottle of Malbec is $10-15. BA is carnivore heaven. Argentine grass fed beef is tasty and tender with real beefy goodness. And, everyone in Buenos Aires, man, woman, and child, devours tons of it. There is lots of imported Spanish ham in the food shops so HG and BSK sampled the best at ludicrously low prices. Besides red meat, BA folks feast on ice cream. Ice cream (as well as cake, bread, pastry, etc.) is often smothered in dolce de leche, the addictive caramel topping. One would think that a population that exists on red, meat, ice cream and dolce de leche (also pizza, which is another BA obsession) would be a fat population. Not so. Best looking folks HG and BSK ever people-watched. There’s a secret, but nobody’s telling. How sweet it is!

HG and BSK lunched today at Shibumi Ramenya in downtown Santa Fe (Johnson and Chapelle, to be precise). Perfection in every detail — decor (Japanese rustic); service (suave); food (sophisticated but earthy). There’s spicy pork gyoza, some creative Japanese vegetable tapas (burdock root, black seaweed, sesame spinach and bunapi mushroom). And, there’s the little bistro’s raison d’etre: Ramen with four distinct broth styles: Tonkotsu ramen with roasted korobuta pork; Torigara with roasted chicken; Kaisen with shrimp and Yasai with vegetables. HG and BSK had the Tonkotsu Ramen and it had flavors in depth — a powerful and multi-layered broth, perfect noodles (excelling in both spring and smooth mouth feel) and roasted pork slices that seemed a marriage between belly and loin. The cutlery, spoons with long wooden handles and a capacious bowl married aesthetics with function. Prices are moderate. The cash policy (no credit cards) helps keep it that way. The proprietor is Eric Stapelman. He also owns Trattoria Nostrani, an adjacent Italian restaurant. Nostrani’s menu is superb and HG/BSK will be dining there soon and posting a report.

Stapelman has the reputation of not tolerating disrespect for his food, personnel, or restaurant. And, he won’t have perfumed folk. Good. HG’s kind of guy. All of my favorite restaurant men (Henri Soule at Pavillon in New York or Sidney Kaye at Russian Tea Room, also in New York, behaved that way). Viva Stapelman, Don’t change.

SJ reminded me that Shibumi by Trevanian (a one name author) is the title of one of our favorite good/bad novels (“Godfather” tops that category). The protagonist of “Shibumi” is a assassin/stud named Nicolai Hel (he can kill in a hundred ways including a method using the edge of a playing card). So powerful is his sexual magnetism that he and his beautiful girl friend achieve simultaneous orgasm simply by looking at each other in an intense manner. Commented SJ: “Wow. What would happen if they actually did it?”

Enjoy more conventional (but intense) pleasures at Stapelman’s “Shibumi.”

If you are fortunate enough to find yourself in Brooklyn zoom over to Atlantic Avenue, the broad thoroughfare that is the dividing line between Brooklyn Heights (with its wonderful port promenade facing the towers of downtown Manhattan) and Cobble Hill. Atlantic has very good middle eastern groceries. HG suggests you stock up on pita, olives and other good things. It is HG’s source for halvah, that wonderful confection of ground sesame seeds (tahini) and sugar. Best of all, Atlantic is New York headquarters for za’atar and HG buys this marvelous spice blend in bulk. There are many types of za’atar but basically it’s a blend of sumac, roasted sesame seeds and lots of dried green herbs (oregano, thyme, marjoram, etc,). Magic. Mix it with olive oil as a sublime dip for pita or bread. Or, warm pita, douse it with olive oil and dust it with za’atar. Good dry rub for lamb. Dust potatoes and cauliflower with it. An HG favorite: a bowl of Greek yogurt with some pureed garlic and za’atar. Many sources will mail order za’atar such as Dean & Deluca. Don’t live without it.

Last Christmas, thoughtful SJ gifted HG with a big sack of Bazzini pistachios, Big, plump, fresh, not too heavily salted nuts. Indeed, Bazzini reigns over the pistachio kingdom.

HG has always loved pistachios. As a wee lad, he would purchase them at the famed candy and ice cream emporium, J.S. Krum, which was located on The Bronx’s Grand Concourse (and Promenade). HG loves all pistachio-studded Turkish and Greek desserts. HG loves mortadella, the Italian forcemeat that is dotted with pistachios (the best mortadella is found in Bologna, a city of hearty cuisine). A bowl of pistachios, fruit, cheese, red wine (or port) makes a nice dinner finale. Curiously, HG has never encountered good pistachio ice cream. It usually tastes like green food coloring and sub-par vanilla. It’s a puzzle, because it should be good, as good at least as Butter Pecan or Vanilla Swiss Almond and it just isn’t. So, get to work, ice cream R & D guys. The world needs superior pistachio ice cream.

Permit HG to expand your vocabulary. “Shmuchtzeh” is a Yiddish word. It means a big, wet exuberant kiss. And, that is what HG sends those wonderful San Francisco folk who create the BUBBIES brand of pickles and sauerkraut. Through some alchemy they have put old-time Bronx flavor in a jar. You will find BUBBIES at Whole Foods and most other supermarkets. No, HG is not the brand’s press agent but when something is really tasty, generous HG wants to share.

Say the word “eels” and you will usually get a grimace of disgust. The words “slithery” and “slimy” are often used in connection with eels. They got very bad PR in the movie The Tin Drum where there is a graphic scene of an eel fisherman landing his catch using a rotten, decapitated horse’s head as bait. As any press agent would tell you: when trying to appeal to the public, avoid slithering out of the mouth of a dead horse.

Nevertheless. HG states, with conviction, eels are delicious. HG has posted on the splendor of unagi as well as posting a lyrical memory about the smoked eel at the late Henri Soule’s Pavillon Restaurant. HG also has vivid memories of Matelote d’Anguille (eel and red wine stew). It was a staple at cheap, French bistros on New York’s midtown (on the west side).

Londoners, for many years, were passionate about consuming eels. East London, in particular, had scores of eel-and-pie restaurants. They served stewed eels, jellied eels and eel pie with mashed potatoes. All were served with “liquor”….a parsley sauce often spiced with chilies and vinegar. HG always looked askance at jellied eels until he realized that they were similar to gefilte fish which is properly served with an abundance of jelly, which is simply the jellied stock in which the fish is cooked. Alas, there aren’t many eel-and-pie shops left in London (there used to be 130). The most extraordinary, in terms of its ornate 1910 decor is F. Cooke’s. Find this noble establishment at 44 Kingsland High Street, Dalston, London E8. Blimey!!

HG is very fond of unagi (Japanese fresh water eel). It is always available, cooked and glazed, at the Whole Foods fish counter. HG likes it as an appetizer. Some slices with wasabi and sliced scallion. Chilled sake. Very civilized way to start a meal. HG also likes it atop a bowl of slightly vinegared rice. And, of course, in all the creative dishes a serious chef turns out at a good Sushi restaurant. In Japan, there are many restaurants that serve nothing but unagi — including the 160 year old Nodaiwa in Azabu where SJ was treated to an Unagi meal by the Eel Prince (whose family has been running Nodaiwa for 6 generations).

HG’s lovely Japanese daughter-in-law, Maiko, was saddened last year by the passing of her grandfather. He ate unagi every day. He lived to be 102.