HUNGRY GERALD

An oddity. One of HG’s favorite drinks and favorite sweet confections are named for a brutal, hated military (or police) force. The Black and Tans (the brainchild of Winston Churchill, unfortunately) were a force of World War One veterans recruited to aid the Royal Irish Constabulary to fight the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War for Independence (1919-1922). They had a reputation for fierce brutality, much of it directed against the civilian population. Their name came from their khaki uniforms and black headgear. Some 9,000 served in Ireland and more than a third died or left the service. During their underground terrorist war against the British military in pre-Israel Palestine, the Irgun (and other Jewish militants including young HG, an Irgun sympathizer) often referred to British soldiers in Palestine as “Black and Tans.” Given all of that, it does seem a bit strange that HG often ordered a “Black and Tan” (one half Guinness Stout and one half Bass Ale, the perfect accompaniment to oysters). Howard W., HG’s journalistic mentor and an I.R.A. veteran, would often sup with HG on oysters at the Grand Central Oyster Bar. Howard would never say “Black and Tan” (he had killed a number of them) but simply order a bottle of Guinness and a bottle of Bass. As for sweets: In the Bronx youth of HG, the young man’s favorite ice cream parlor was Addie Vallin’s (Gerard Avenue and W. 161st Street). The “Black and Tan” was an ice cream soda. Coffee ice cream, milk, seltzer and a slightly bitter chocolate sauce mixed with chopped pecans. An incomparable ice cream soda.

New York 1953 or 1954. HG was combining two careers: journalist and night club (mostly jazz joints) press agent. HG was press agent for the short lived midtown Clique Club where the late Sammy Benskin, a superb jazz pianist and an HG pal, was headlining with his trio. Sammy called HG and told him to get down to the club the next night when a vocal duo, Jackie and Roy, would be making a guest appearance. You will be blown away, promised Sammy. And, so it came to pass. They did “Mountain Greenery” and it was a revelation. Did their takes on some standards and the tunes became as fresh as a Spring morning. How to describe Jackie’s voice? Champagne bubbles. A mountain stream. Silver. Warm, glowing verbal precision with the earthy hint of her Midwestern accent. No, words aren’t ample, HG was surprised at the couple’s appearance. Jazz performers either wore outlandish clothes (women in super snug “mermaid” gowns) or were drug addled and unkempt. Handsome Roy Kral looked like an Ivy League fashion plate and beautiful Jackie Cain wore tweeds. Yes, tweeds. Not sequins. The two best looking people in the jazz world. (No need to recount their career. The NY Times and LA times had good, accurate obituaries of Jackie this week). Listened to their albums but never saw them again until Fire Island in the 60’s. Jackie and Roy were beach neighbors and HG/BSK formed a close friendship that lasted through Roy’s death in 2002 and Jackie’s death this week. When HG/BSK moved to Montclair, NJ. in the 70’s, Jackie and Roy soon followed (and that’s where Jackie died). So many joyous memories. And, some tragic ones. Their strikingly beautiful daughter, Niki, died in an automobile accident. Jackie and Roy were wonderful to our children. Jackie, who had an ethereal beauty, was a surprisingly robust cook in the Czech/Polish tradition. Our families ate, drank, played and laughed together for many decades. Now, Jackie’s gone. Another bright light from HG’s life has been dimmed. Permit HG to share a memory: Roy once recalled that the first time he accompanied Jackie was at a Chicago night club. Jackie was 18 and fresh out of high school. Roy was reluctant. Didn’t think much of girl singers. She changed his mind. Jackie sang that great Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg song: “Happiness Is Just A Thing Called Joe.” Said Roy: “The place went nuts.” Years later, at an HG birthday dinner, sang the song (unaccompanied) as a birthday treat. HG went nuts.

The time: Early 1950’s. The place: Murphy’s Bar & Grill on 45th Street and Third Avenue (the El roaring overhead). The occasion: A drunken informal observation of HG’s birthday. While HG ate pickled pork knuckles with mustard accompanied by boilermakers (rye whiskey with beer chasers), Dan M., a Daily Mirror rewrite man, sang HG’s birthday present: A full length, heart ending version of “Kevin Barry”. The many verse song told of the martyrdom at the hands of the British of 18-year-old Kevin Barry, medical student and soldier in the Irish Republican Army. Barry met his fate during the Irish War For Independence. He was hung on Nov.1, 1920. The song noted: “A lad of 18 summers, Kevin Barry gave his young life for Ireland and the cause of liberty.” Memorable was Barry’s request of the British: “Shoot me like an Irish soldier. Don’t hang me like a dog.” The British hung him. Dan M., who had a varied repertoire, followed “Kevin Barry” with a rousing rendition of the Yiddish music hall hit, “Romania, Romania” as done in the style of Aaron Lebedeff. Present at the raucous festivities was Howard W., HG’s journalism and life mentor. An I.R.A. gunman during the War For Independence and the subsequent Civil War, Howard W. did not join in the “Kevin Barry” song. He hated all Irish rebel songs and, disillusioned with violence, called his experiences “a catastrophe of blood, treachery and politics.” He despised the Irish-American habitués of Third Avenue bars and their loud Irish patriotism. ‘Whiskey warriors,” said Howard. He figured in an extraordinary incident where, as he boarded the Third Avenue trolley (they used to run under the El), the driver suddenly leaped out of his driver’s seat, abandoned his vehicle and ran away. It seemed that the driver, who had been an informer for the British, recognized Howard as an I.R.A, enforcer. He thought his final moment had come. Howard made no comment about the incident. There was much saloon singing during HG’s journalistic days. Nat O.,a newspaper motorcycle messenger (and a former driver for burglars), was an HG drinking companion. Nat, who was Jewish, had a remarkable Irish tenor voice and a vast array of sentimental Irish sings of the “Mother Machree,” and “Danny Boy” vintage. Whenever Nat raised his voice, he and HG rarely paid for a drink. Unfortunately, after many songs and drinks, Nat would become hostile and evenings ended with fisticuffs. Somehow HG emerged always without injury. HG’s favorite saloon singer was a quasi girlfriend, Alice C. Only in her twenties when HG knew her, Alice (mature for her age), ran away from home at the age of 14 and became a Las Vegas showgirl. This was followed by a career as a singer in Jewish Borscht Belt hotels where she learned a number of schmaltzy, tear jerking melodies. Her next career was as a heavy drinking Broadway press agent (that’s when she and HG became pals). HG, Alice, police reporters, bail bondsmen, loan sharks and Jewish thugs had a late night hangout: Dubiner’s Bar and Restaurant on Stanton Street off Allen on the Lower East Side. The specialties of the house were gefilte fish with hair-raising horseradish, chopped liver with abundant chicken fat and garlicky, room temperature fried fish. HG enjoyed these goodies with lots of vodka. Alice, a determined bourbon drinker, would sing. “Yiddishe Mama” and “Papirosen” were two of her big numbers. She could really milk those songs. HG does not exaggerate: Tears rolled down the cheeks of the tough guys. What happened to Alice? She abandoned her dissolute ways (HG played a small part in that development). Went to medical school. Became a pediatrician. Lived a productive and conventional life in the suburbs with two children and an investment banker husband. Go figure.

HG is often nostalgic about the spicy, fatty, garlicky dishes HG’s Mom constructed during HG’s Bronx boyhood. A particular favorite was kishke (also known as “stuffed derma”). This was a beef intestine (or chicken neck) stuffed with matzo meal, chicken fat (obligatory in much of Mom’s cuisine); garlic, finely chopped onion and a plentiful amount of of salt, black pepper and paprika. This was roasted and served with long cooked brisket and gravy or pan broiled liver and onions. Good? Like Dashiel Hammet’s Maltese Falcon: “It was the stuff dreams were made of.” Kishke often appeared on the menus of the Jewish “Borscht Belt” hotels nestled in New York’s Catskill Mountains. The principal road leading to these resorts was nicknamed “the Derma Road.” “Kishkes” was a Yiddish slang term for stomach or guts. HG recalls fight fans at venues like St. Nicholas Arena and Sunnyside Garden cheering on headhunting Jewish boxers with the immortal phrase: “Hit him in the kishkes!!”

The New Yorker Magazine writer, Adam Gopnik, HG’s favorite essayist, wrote a charming account of his psychoanalysis, “Man Goes to a Doctor” in his collection Through The Children’s Gate. The protagonist of this lightly comic but deeply felt memoir is Gopnik’s late, imperious analyst, a European Freudian of the old school. During an analytic session, Gopnik expresses a desire to visit Venice. The analyst immediately makes a reservation for Gopnik at his favorite Venetian hotel. He then gives Gopnik a list of good Venetian restaurants (all old fashioned and traditional). “Order linguine con vongole (white clam sauce). You will be happy, at last.” Excellent advice. HG has rarely been happier than when eating linguine con vongole. Many decades ago HG/BSK and family would collect clams from the bottom of Long Island’s Great South Bay, a short stroll from HG/BSK’s home perched on a sand dune facing the Atlantic Ocean. HG had a very effective clam shucking instrument and could shuck a few hundred clams in a short time. This meant raw clams on the half shell (with a dash of lemon juice); clams casino (clams dotted with bread crumbs, garlic, parsley, drenched in olive oil, topped with bacon and given a quick broil in the oven) and the main course — BSK’s incomparable linguine con vongole.

Last night, HG made a room temperature Chinese sauce of peanut butter, tea, soya, vinegar, chopped Szechuan preserved vegetables, peanut and sesame oil, chopped garlic, Vietnamese chili garlic, chopped scallions. A lot of ingredients but very simple to prepare. BSK poached and shredded a chicken. Mixed the shredded chicken with the sauce. Surrounded the platter with arugula. HG filled a bowl with room temperature vermicelli mixed with the great peanut sauce and topped it with slivers of cold cucumber. Poured some Gahan India Pale Ale (brewed on Prince Edward Island) and had a great warm weather meal. This brought back memories of cooking teacher/caterer/author Karen Lee and the class where HG and BSK learned to make this dish (and other savory Chinese treats). Many, many decades ago HG and BSK attended Lee’s classes which she held in her small Upper West Side apartment. Ms. Lee was going through some trying times then but her teaching was superb. Clear. Helpful. And the food (which the class ate with gusto) was delicious. HG/BSK’s classmates included the actor Peter Boyle (“Young Frankenstein”, “Joe”, “Taxi Driver”, “Everybody Loves Raymond”) and his wife, Loraine Alterman (she was a reporter for Rolling Stone and John Lennon was the best man at her wedding to Peter); actress Verna Bloom (“Animal House,” “High Plains Drifter”; Stephanie Pierson, the brilliantly witty advertising copywriter, author of many books (“The Brisket Book” is the latest) and long time HG/BSK pal. The class was lively, funny and irreverent. Sadly, Peter Boyle is gone but the remaining cast thrives. Karen Lee’s West Side classes continue but now she’s added a summer session in Amagansett, Long Island. The lady (deservedly) flourishes.

SJ’s teenage Japanese nephew, Taku, whose home is in Tokyo, has been visiting with SJ and family. Taku wanted to see an American baseball game and so it was off to the Yankee Stadium. Things looked grim for the Yanks that day but in the later innings, Ichiro Suzuki, the Japanese star, made an appearance. Ichiro, in the ninth, got a hit. Harassed the opposing pitcher with threats of a stolen base and then scored the winning run for the Yanks. Taku was overjoyed. This pleasure was topped the following day when Taku went fishing in Long Island Sound off New Rochelle. Caught a lot of porgys. (An earlier PEI fishing expedition was disappointing — hefty currents kept the mackerel from biting and not one fish was pulled from the choppy waters). This all brought back memories to HG. One happy year (probably 1939 or 1940), HG went fishing off City Island (HG’s first fishing experience) and caught three fish. HG also went to Yankee Stadium that year to see the Detroit Tigers play the Yanks. HG’s hero, the Jewish home run hitter, Hank Greenberg, starred for Detroit. Hank hit a homer that day. Memorable. This was one of the few days in which HG was disloyal to the Yankees. As part of their community relations program, the Yanks took a Bronx elementary school to a game once a season. HG munched peanuts (free) and gloried in the heroics of the Yanks of that golden age (DiMaggio, Henrich, Gordon Crosetti, Rolfe, Ruffing, Gehrig etc.). In maturity, HG has lost pleasure in watching baseball and has transferred fandom to the NBA.

Yes, that was New York’s Rockaway Beach in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s–The Irish Riviera. The area between Beach 116th Street and 98th Street (the site of the Playland amusement park) was the summer home of hordes of working class Irish-Americans fleeing the steaming streets of New York. The neighborhood was called Irishtown and its center was Beach 102nd Street (Seaside Avenue). This was a street lined with Irish bars.The favorite of teenage HG and his pals and girlfriends was O’Gara’s Sligo House. Spacious, loud, raucous. Beer was 10 cents a glass. Live entertainment. Step dancers, Irish tenors and delightful comics singing satirical songs poking fun at the Irish (HG remembers a song which noted that the Irish were Egyptians long ago and built the Pyramids “because no one but an Irishman could carry all those bricks”). Housing for the Irish consisted of flimsy bungalows and ramshackle boarding houses. Air conditioning was non-existent. There was similar housing in the Edgemere and Arverne neighborhoods which were densely packed with working class Jews from New York. An HG friend who summered in an Edgemere bungalow said he learned the facts of life at an early age because there was no privacy in those surroundings. Said he: “I went to sleep to the sound of lusty, sunburned ladies having orgasms.” As one would suspect, the food sold along the Boardwalk in those proletarian Jewish neighborhoods was superior to anything available in Irishtown. The Jewish boardwalk sold garlicky kosher hot dogs slathered in hot mustard and kraut, knishes, frozen custard, corned beef and pastrami sandwiches and the famed “Takee Cup”. The Irish side consisted of low grade hot dogs (no sauerkraut, only insipid mustard and sickly sweet bottled relish). Gristly burgers on soggy rolls and greasy French fries. That was it. The emphasis was on perfectly chilled and perfectly drawn tap beer. Despite the cliches abut the Irish, HG encountered little drunkenness. Just family guys who liked lots of brew. No gourmands. Of course, Rockaway is now becoming cool. Young Brooklyn hipsters have discovered Rockaway’s ocean joys and creative restaurants have opened. SJ has deejayed vintage reggae music at a number of Rockaway venues. HG’s pal Peter Hellman, the author/journalist/wine expert, has been a Rockaway pioneer for years. A dedicated surfer, Peter subwayed out to Rockaway’s waves for more than a decade before the Williamsburg young adventured into the surf.

Kale seems to be the trendy, green, leafy vegetable of the moment but HG still prefers spinach. HG did not always love spinach. As a little fellow, HG expressed negative opinions regarding spinach. A believer in the nutritional value of the leafy, green wonder food, HG’s cunning Mom would enclose spinach in a mound of buttery, creamy mashed potatoes. She called the dish “buried treasure.” The romantic name — evoking pirates, the Spanish Main and wealth beyond imagination — convinced HG the vegetable was good stuff. These days HG associates spinach with many splendid restaurant dishes. Creamed spinach of sublime quality would accompany a thick cut of savory boiled tongue (plus a boiled potato and fiery English mustard) at Al Cooper’s Restaurant (long closed) in New York’s Garment Center. Creamed spinach was very good at Ben Benson’s Steak House (also closed) in midtown New York. Palm Restaurant (branches all over the country) serves whole leaf spinach sauteed in high-quality Italian olive oil and plenty of garlic with its steaks and hash browns. The Compound, in Santa Fe, flanks its Chicken Schnitzel in parsley caper sauce with some leaves of sautéed spinach. When HG lived in Colorado he lunched daily at 240 Union, the very good restaurant in Lakewood. The chef at the time, Matthew Franklin, would nest broiled or sautéed fish on a mound of spinach. There was always a plentiful amount of mashed potatoes. What made the dish sing was the abundance of melted butter. Cooking at home, HG likes to place a grilled paillard of chicken breast on some spinach cooked with oil, garlic and a tiny bit of nutmeg. A spinach risotto is a comforting dish as is a rice pilaf mixed with spinach. A very simple dish is some good tortelloni or ravioli plus spinach in steaming chicken broth. Popeye was right. Spinach makes muscle. Take that, Bluto!! Wham ! Bam ! Kazam !

HG derived vicarious pleasure watching distinguished son-in-law Profesore Massimo R. devour a giant marrow bone at Prince Edward Island’s Terre Rouge bistro (yes, the generous Ufficiale gave HG a taste). Roasted marrow bones have long been served at old time Paris bistros. HG has relished them with a crusty baguette and a carafe of rough red wine in Left Bank rooms perfumed with Gauloise smoke. For years, the health police managed to have them banished from most American restaurants but, thankfully, marrow bones are making a comeback: In the mid 90s Fergus Henderson, the British chef and cookbook author served a dish at his St. John restaurant in London of roasted marrow bones with parsley and capers that was an immediate trend-setter and was soon replicated at New York restaurants like Prune and Blue Ribbon Bakery; now there is hardly a meat-centric New York menu without marrow bones. In older times, bone marrow found a elegant approach as a specialty of the old Oak Room in New York’s Plaza Hotel: A big scoop of bone marrow adorned braised celery which accompanied tournedos and potatoes soufflé. It was one of HG/BSK’s favorite meals. HG once had a very lusty steak, a pave, topped with almost a half inch of bone marrow at some long defunct bistro near the Place de Clichy. Memorable. Bone marrow is frowned upon by cardiologists because it is pure fat and cholesterol, a big time artery clogger. Wickedly delicious, however.