HUNGRY GERALD

The Italian-American Federal Hill neighborhood of Providence has long been famous for Italian restaurants (mediocre, in HG’s opinion) and food shops (many good ones but Venda is the show stopper). And, given the nature of its population and the American fascination with fictionalized accounts of organized crime, Federal Hill has been featured in a number of movies and TV dramas. But, if you visit Providence (a wonderful, liveable city full of art, culture, intellect and political corruption) be sure to pick up great Italian food at The Italian Corner in East Providence. Superb Italian sausages and other charcuterie. Splendid cheese including an enticing and fragrant white truffle cheese. Fresh pasta (the papardelle is extraordinary). Big variety of dried pasta, olive oil, condiments, sauces, etc. There are about eight dining tables and you can order a gigantic sandwich of the best ingredients. The establishment does a fixed menu dinner every Saturday (it’s booked six months in advance). As the Michelin guide says about an outstanding restaurant in the French countryside, The Italian Corner is “Worth a Special Detour.”

Some 60 years ago, HG was a New York journalist. There was a pleasant custom at International News Service/International News Photos (where HG was employed). Jewish journalists would volunteer to replace their non-Jewish colleagues on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so the non-Jews could enjoy these holidays with their family. And, that’s why HG worked at the news desk on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Where to have dinner? HG’s favorite dining places were closed. The shot-and-beer-chaser bars were open but populated by maudlin or surly drunks. HG’s workplace was on E. 45th, just east of Third Avenue ( at the time, the El was still rumbling overhead). Nearby Lexington Avenue had a Bickford’s Restaurant on the northeast corner of 45th and a Horn and Hardart Automat on the southeast. So, Christmas Eve HG dined (with good appetite) at Bickford’s. The special of turkey with all the fixings (and extra gravy upon HG’s request) was tasty. Dessert was pumpkin pie a la mode and HG “corrected” his coffee with cognac from HG’s concealed flask. Christmas Day found HG at the Automat. Three hot casseroles were lined up before HG (plucked from the Automat’s windowed wall of savories): Beef Pie, Macaroni and Cheese, Baked Beans (topped with a strip of bacon). Coconut custard pie for dessert. “Corrected” coffee. Well meaning friends expressed concern that these meals might prove depressing. They were not. Yes, HG’s fellow diners were not a jolly group. But, the lonely folk were quiet and unobtrusive, allowing HG the peace in which to read a bundle of newspapers while sipping brandy-laced coffee.

Al Goldstein, the eccentric publisher of Screw magazine and pioneer of hard core, “non socially redeeming” porn is dead. At one point in his very checkered career (according to the Times obit) he was a “greeter” at the 2nd Avenue Delicatessen in New York. Only met Al once (when he was a deranged teenager) but his father, Sammy, was a pal. Sammy, a news photographer at International News Photos, loved to eat. (so did Al, who once weighed 350 pounds). When HG was a photo editor at INP, HG and Sammy (a pastrami addict), shared many meals at the 2nd Avenue Deli and Katz’s. (The duo also overate at Ratner’s, Sammy’s, Dubiner’s,Rappaport’s and other Lower East Side eateries). Sammy was a very good boxing photographer. HG has a vivid memory of Sammy at Madison Square Garden (then on 8th Avenue) ringside putting down his Speed Graphic between rounds to munch on (you guessed it) a pastrami on rye.

New York’s Gramercy Park has always been a jewel — and during the Christmas season, it is an especially glamorous jewel. The elegant private park (just south of E.23rd Street and Lexington Avenue) blooms with discreet holiday decorations and the backdrop of turn-of-the century buildings gives the whole neighborhood just the right, magical touch of old New York. During the holiday season HG/BSK would often stroll around the perimeter of the park honing their appetites for dinner at Paul & Jimmy’s Italian Restaurant on Irving Place. (They would pause for a moment to admire the opulent Ben Sonnenberg mansion on the southeast corner of Irving Place and the Park). Happily, Paul & Jimmy’s menu featured great traditional dishes: Mozzarella in Carozza, Clams Oreganata, Stuffed Mushrooms, Chicken Scarpariello, Shrimp Fra Diavola, etc. All of the pasta primi were outstanding and, to HG/BSK’s joy, so was the seafood. Whiting in Brodetto and Striped Bass with Vinegar and Garlic were memorable. Yes, there’s still a Paul & Jimmy’s Italian Restaurant in the immediate area; however, it is but a shadow of the original.

When HG/BSK lived (with famille) in their spacious rent controlled paradise on New York’s W. 79th Street, HG would escape from the Christmas holiday jingles and saccharine melodies by visiting a stronghold of traditional Jewishness: Paramount Dairy Restaurant on W. 72nd. The stroll on Broadway during the Upper West Side’s pre-gentrification days was always interesting. HG passed culinary landmarks like Daitch Dairy, Babka Bakery, Izmir Pizza, Gitlitz Delicatessen, Citarella Fish Monger. Fellow strollers included junkies, female sex workers, muggers, burglars, crazy ladies talking to themselves, sad eyed refugees from the Nazi terror; and, the usual crowd of West Side intellectuals, artists, writers and bohemians. On almost every block, HG would pause for a chat with a friend or acquaintance. Once in the Paramount, HG was seated at a table adorned with a huge bowl of breadstuffs — each the best of its kind: rye and pumpernickel bread, bialys, pletzels, challah. A dozen pats of unsalted butter. No Christmas decorations. No Chanukah decorations (not even a minor league menorah). Very refreshing. HG would order warm gefilte fish (a note to the uninitiated–this is a fresh water fish dumpling, a Jewish quenelle). This was served in a bowl of fish broth with a boiled potato and carrot. Accompanied by blazing horse radish. HG would dip thick slices of challah in the fish broth. Very comforting. This was followed by kasha varnishkes with mushroom gravy (HG recently wrote about this dish). Many cups of coffee and overindulgence in buttered bialys and pletzels. Refreshed and Judaized, HG was then ready for another onslaught of Bing Crosby and “Silent Night.”

The Russian Tea Room on New York’s W. 57th Street (next door to Carnegie Hall) celebrated Christmas every day. The owner, the delightful Sidney Kaye, decided he liked the way Christmas decorations enhanced the restaurant so they never came down. Red and green forever. It was just one of the restaurant’s eccentricities like the forgetful old female waitpersons (many had been ballerinas in pre-revolution Russia) and the ever changing hat check girls (Madonna was one). During the Christmas season it was HG/BSK’s dinner choice after a movie at one of the nearby art cinemas. Their meal was always the same: Eggplant Orientale (the RTR’s version of baba ghanoush). Karsky Shashlik (succulent lamb kebabs) with rice pilaf. Raspberry Kissel (a raspberry compote topped with whipped cream). A bottle of Pommard or Pomerol (affordable then). HG knocked off some chilled vodka with the eggplant and cognac with coffee. BSK was more abstemious. If the weather was very cold or appetites had a sharp edge, HG/BSK preceded the meal with bowls of steaming dark red borscht decorated with a dollop of sour cream and accompanied by flaky piroshki (meat filled pastries). As a special treat, HG/BSK would take their kids to RTR for a Christmas holiday brunch (with SJ decked out in one of RTR’s loaned — and invariably over-sized — sport jackets) of butter drenched blini with red caviar and sour cream. Gifted Daughter Lesley R. pays tribute to this memory every Christmas Eve by making superior blini which the family tops with red caviar or smoked fish. Not to be outdone,on Christmas Day morning SJ makes very superior potato latkes (a modest nod to Chanukah) which get similar delicious treatment. Holiday feasting at its best.

The Oak Room of New York’s Plaza Hotel was a wonderful place for winter holiday dining. A dignified room with, of course, dark oak paneling and chandeliers that cast a flattering light. Discreet Christmas decorations. Very attractive, elegantly attired clientele. (The debonair movie star Cary Grant was once at a table adjoining HG/BSK’s. Happily, he looked and sounded just like Cary Grant). HG/BSK always had one meal. A super-dry Martini for HG and a white wine spritzer for BSK. Smoked salmon with lightly toasted, thin slices of rye bread, capers, lemon, olive oil, black ground pepper. This was followed by tournedos of beef with souffle potatoes and braised celery topped with beef marrow. Chocolate pots de creme for dessert. Cognac and coffee. Thus fortified, it was off into the crisp night to behold the magic of the light-and-icicle festooned Plaza fountain. New York at its best.

The very best restaurant in the world during the Christmas holiday season was the long gone (opened in 1882 and closed in 1986) temple of German gastronomy, Luchow’s on New York’s East 14th Street. An interior of dark oak, smoked glass and crystal. Every inch was festooned with colorful decorations and pine wreaths. Noisy and jolly. A German oompah band playing the songs of the season. HG/BSK’s kids loved it and, restraining intense excitement, displayed excellent restaurant manners. The food? Ah, the food. For the kids there were grilled bratwurst with home fried potatoes. BSK usually had a starter of smoked salmon and a main of crisp skinned roast duck with red cabbage and a buttery potato puree. For HG there was a triple header: Rollmops (pickled herring rolled around dill pickle); pfefferlinge (ragout of wild mushrooms in a peppery sour cream sauce); schlemmerschnitte (steak tartare topped with abundant beluga caviar). For dessert: Baked Alaska flamed in brandy. (Once a waiter set his apron on fire while setting the desert alight and the tension before the flames were put out only added to the exhilaration of the dinner). The kids drank Shirley Temples. BSK had appropriate white and red wine. HG had (much, much) robust dark beer. Joy was unrestrained.

Pleasant dinner last night. Divided the cooking duties. HG fried potatoes and cooked bratwurst (simmered in beer for 15 minutes and then grilled to a brown crisp). BSK made sublime sauerkraut. Drained Bubbie’s kraut and cooked it with onions, apples, olive oil and a bit of chicken stock. Subtle, non-acidic flavors. So. Kraut and spuds were first rate. Brats were okay. Just okay. Plenty of pungent Polish mustard and Bubbie’s Bread and Butter pickles plus Shiner Bock Beer (“The Pride of Shiner, Texas”) helped the cause, but just barely. It made HG muse: “Where are the brats of yesteryear?” For years one could get inexpensive, succulent platters of brats-kraut-home fries in scores of German restaurants throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Luchow’s, Blue Ribbon, The Heidelberg and Volk’s were the leaders of the pack and HG quaffed much beer at these Teutonic shrines of hearty eating. Other than The Heidelberg (opened in 1936) they are all gone, alas. Of course New York, being New York, still offers authentic German Food — and the great Yorkville butcher Schaller & Weber sells some of the finest brats around — but the golden age of cheap and delicious NY German restaurants is over.

Some hearty dishes, traditional in New York City diners and “coffee shops” of HG’s youth, seem to have disappeared or exist so far from the pubic’s imagination, that they might as well have been taken off the menu. These include: Liver and onions plus bacon (with a side of French fries or mashed potatoes). Pot roast with a pool of dark brown gravy. Corned beef and cabbage (plus boiled potatoes). Boiled knockwurst with sauerkraut. Hot turkey sandwich (sliced turkey on white bread slathered with lots of giblet gravy plus a scoop of cranberry sauce). Hot roast beef sandwich (like turkey but with brown gravy, a side of mashed potatoes and pallid string beans). These were all cheap, filling dishes. Young HG, not a fastidious fresser, found them delicious.