That’s a question HG often puts to himself. HG is referring to drinking habits in the 50s and for most of the 60s. In those halcyon days, HG lunched daily in Manhattan restaurants with journalists, pals or HG’s public relations clients. Typical lunch at the Blue Ribbon, very good German restaurant on W. 45th (convenient for journalists from Times, Herald-Tribune, Newsweek and Business Week): Two dry martinis with Rollmops Appetizer (Bismarck herring rolled around a dill pickle); steak tartare or bratwurst or Kassler Rippchen (smoked pork chop) washed down with two large, dark beers. Cognac and a cup of black coffee to finish. At Russian Tea Room, HG drank chilled vodka throughout a lunch of Eggplant Oriental, Borscht with Pirozhki (flaky meat pastries) or Siberian Pelmeni (tiny Russian ravioli in a rich chicken consomme infused with generous quantities of chopped dill, sour cream and strong mustard). Wine, of course, accompanied the food at Sardi’s, Four Seasons, Gino’s. Patsy’s, Charles, Christ Cella, etc. But, two martinis always jump started the lunch. After lunch, an energetic HG was back at work. Focused. Productive. HG was not alone. Men (and women) drank cocktails at lunch — Martinis, Manhattans or Whiskey Sours. How could we function with so much lunchtime booze? We did. And, it was fun.
HG was shopping at Whole Foods a few days ago when hunger pangs struck. Big time. Since HG was at the fish counter he rummaged about the adjacent soup bar. HG inspected the New England Clam Chowder. Thought the amount of potatoes overwhelmed the clams. Lobster Bisque. Too much cream. Cioppino. Tired fish in tomato soup. Shrimp and Crab Etouffee. Hmm…This looks promising. Green. Herbaceous. Lots of shredded crab and chunks of shrimp. Evidence of a blond roux and creole spice. Worth a try. HG was blown away. Just a big, tasty portion of N’Awlins right there in the wholly homogenized Whole Foods. If you fancy making some etouffee at home check Paula Deen’s recipe. Buttery Southern soul.
Gone from the streets of the ever more trendy Lower East Side of Manhattan are the choppers. Permit HG to explain. HG does nor refer to people with cleavers. The “ch” in HG’s “choppers” is pronounced with a guttural, Yiddish “ch” as in “challah.” In Yiddish the word chop means “grab.” And, that’s what a chopper did. He grabbed you. When little HG accompanied his father on various Lower East Side errands, choppers were stationed outside of men’s clothing stores on East Broadway and Division Streets. They would grab the arm of HG’s father and try to drag him into a store. Meanwhile they offered a sales pitch in heavily accented English: “Come inside. Bargains. The finest materials. Beautiful suits, coats. Latest styles. Take a look. Prices you won’t believe. No harm in looking.” The chopper had a grip like an iron vise. It took real strength (possessed by HG’s father) to extricate oneself from a dedicated chopper.
All of this took place many, many decades ago in a simpler New York. Now geniuses like Wylie Dufresne turn out imaginative food in chic Lower East Side restaurants. Nary a knish or “chopper’ in sight.
SJ here. Allow me to make a brief interjection. True, the Lower East Side has transformed into a hipster playground of trendy bars, cafes, etc. But, like a ghost sign that bleeds through faded paint jobs, elements of the old Lower East Side are still with us. Orchard Street, while gussied up beyond recognition, still houses of number of old clothing stores and, surprise, surprise, an honest to god chopper. Yes, I was recently stopped in my tracks — the grip was that strong — by a middle aged Hasid who said, “Young man, you look like a fellow who could use a nice suit. We have suits, so good, so cheap, come inside…” A relic of the old days, the chopper still has the stuff…And when it comes to knishes!!! We have the best still in operation!!! Yes Yonah Schimmel Knishes is open right on Houston Street and serving up a delicious Knish — get the Kasha!!!
When BSK was a young actress in New York studying theater with the late greats Lloyd Richards, Lee Strasberg (remember him as Hyman Roth in “Godfather Two”?) and Mike Gazzo (Also in “Godfather Two” as Frank Pentangelli) BSK was particularly adept at “improv” — those acting exercises that are unscripted, spur-of-the-moment improvisations based around general themes or situations. Eventually, BSK left acting behind and had later careers as a photographer, political strategist and government relations expert. Currently, BSK is busily engaged as a potter and painter, turning out extraordinary work in a spacious studio. No matter the career changes, BSK has retained her talent for improvisation. Witness dinner last night. HG and BSK found themselves hungry (surprise, surprise!) and, somehow, the day had gone by with no menu plans and no food shopping. No worries. BSK rummaged in the refrigerator and out came zucchini and some last bits of bacon and pancetta. There was also a heel of goat cheese enriched with jalapeno peppers. Sous chef HG diced garlic. Into a hot pan of olive oil it went with lots of sliced zucchini. BSK sizzled the bacon and pancetta until crisp. Water was put up to boil for pasta (fusili). BSK dashed out to her herb garden for a big bunch of parsley. This was chopped with some kumato (juicy, always ripe brown tomatoes from Mexico). When the zucchini and garlic had softened, the drained pasta went into the pan with the goat cheese (and a bit of pasta water). This created a slightly creamy sauce (with heat from the peppers). BSK stirred in the crispy bacon and pancetta bits. Topped it with the parsley/kumato mix. Green salad and a bottle of Sicilian Nero d’Avolo red wine. Perfect meal. Another starring improv performance from BSK
After HG’s late afternoon exercise ritual of varied stretches and 45 minutes of swimming in the lap pool, HG tries to mitigate the health benefits he has accrued by diving into a large glass of vodka on the rocks. HG is not a believer in the high priced vodkas. Just hype and advertising. However, HG does enhance his proletarian vodka. Sometimes HG adds a dash of Angostura Bitters or Peychaud Bitters or Fee Brothers West Indian Orange Bitters. (A dash of Peychaud also enhances a mediocre brandy). When HG wants a taller beverage, HG mixes vodka with a bit of Campari, Aperol or St. Germain. (HG does not fancy vodka and tonic). Curiously, vodka was never present in the Belorussian/Jewish immigrant home of HG’s youth. Like many Jewish immigrants of the early 1900’s, HG’s Dad fancied rye whiskey, namely Park & Tilford (pronounced “Pok un Tilfeh”), the favorite tipple in Lower East Side bars. When HG was a journalist in the early 1950’s, HG continued the Park & Tilford tradition at the Mirror Bar on New York’s E. 45th Street. Three shots of P & T for one buck. The house bought the fourth. A nice cocktail interlude.
HG has noticed that some serious chefs are playing around with marshmallows, trying to create what could be called, laughingly, “gourmet” marshmallows. A waste of time. HG has always despised these little fluff balls of cloying sweetness. As a lad, HG allowed others to roast marshmallows over night time fires on Rockaway Beach. HG nibbled a Mr. Goodbar.
In a bow to mid-America, HG’s Mom sometimes abandoned East European cuisine and baked mashed sweet potatoes mixed with canned crushed pineapple and topped with marshmallows. Horrible.
The only pleasure HG ever derived from marshmallows occurred, in of all places, a 42nd Street porn shop. HG and his pal, the comedy writer, Peter M.. finished their naughty browse and Peter M. approached the manager. Peter M. looked furtive. In a quavering whisper, laden with perverse guilt, he inquired: “Do you have anything with marshmallows?” The sleazy manager thought for a moment and said: “No.”
Jaime “Jimmy” Rodriguez, Jr. made Puerto Rican food hip, and for a while, made West Fordham Road in The Bronx a dining destination for everyone from President Clinton to Derek Jeter to Fidel Castro. Jimmy’s Bronx Cafe opened in 1993 on the site of a former auto dealership, a short cab ride from Yankee Stadium. It was a smash. Derek Jeter had his birthday party at Jimmy’s and it was a hangout for Yankees and visiting teams. Jimmy hosted a dinner there for Fidel Castro in 1995 (there were 500 in attendance and Jimmy got a lot of criticism from Cuban emigres). Jimmy’s was vast. The food (specially the seafood) was wonderful. Great music (Tito Puente headed one of the bands). Fiery dancing. Everybody cool in the worlds of sports, show biz and politics visited Jimmy’s and Jimmy Rodriguez was honored by New York’s top business and civic organizations.
Jimmy expanded with a branch in Harlem, one on E. 57th Street in Manhattan and a sea food place on City Island in The Bronx. At their height, the Rodriguez restaurants were grossing $10,000,000 a year. The woes of over-expansion soon kicked in however and by 2004 they were all gone.
Bronx born Rodriguez (1963) got his start by joining his father selling seafood from the trunk of their car parked near an entrance to the Major Deegan Expressway. They made a chowder from the leftover seafood, added some Puerto Rican dishes and opened a stand on a Fordham Road corner which was followed by a 50-seat storefront joint, Marisco del Caribe. That operated for about 10 years before the ambitious young man opened Jimmy’s Bronx Cafe.
Well, Jimmy is back. There are four Jimmy’s restaurants now operating in the New York area (or are they?…given Jimmy’s volatility, be wise and call first). The restaurants are the two Don Coqui locations in Astoria and New Rochelle (both run by Jimmy’s daughters, Jaleene and Jewelle); the two Sofritos on E. 57th in Manhattan and in White Plains and Sazon on Reade Street in downtown Manhattan. Creole cooking and Jimmy Rodriguez — Olé!
“Shrimpers and rice are very nice. Hold tight. Hold tight. Hold tight. Hold tight. Foo-doo-racka-sacka. I want some seafood Mama.” Yes, the inimitable Fats Waller sang the great Sidney Bechet masterpiece, “Hold Tight (Want Some Seafaood Mama) with brio. There are plenty of great food related songs because, well food and music go together like chicken and rice.
HG’s late, beloved father had a favorite performer on the Yiddish vaudeville and musical stage: Aaron Lebedoff (sometimes spelled “Lebedeff”). He was famous for his rendition of “Roumania, Roumania.” In this bravura piece, Aaron extolls the virtues of mamaliga (a Roumanian version of polenta), karnezelach (cigar shaped hamburgers containing abundant chopped onion and garlic) and Roumanian wine. The singer describes Roumania as “ah lahnd a zeeseh, ah shayneh” (a sweet and beautiful land). Forgotten is the fact that this “sweet” land was the site of the terrible Kishinev pogroms in which scores of Jews were murdered.
HG has always been bemused by the fact that once Jews arrived in the United States (The Goldeneh Medina) they looked back on the blood soaked Old Country with misty eyed nostalgia. “Odessa Mama,” “Beltz, Mein Shtetele Beltz,” are just two of scores of immigrant songs celebrating various Old County cities and villages. Even HG’s normally clear eyed father could go on at length about the splendor of Odessa ice cream and the physical beauty of the Belarus countryside.
When HG accompanied his father to the Lower East Side to purchase little HG’s winter wardrobe of corduroy knickers and a heavy tweed mackinaw they often lunched at restaurants that advertised “Roumanian Broilings” in Yiddish and English signs. HG was (and is) very fond of the karnezelach and chicken fat fried potatoes he devoured there. Inevitably, the restaurant sound track had Lebedoff singing his signature song. There were many Roumanian restaurants on the Lower East Side. Only the schmaltz soaked Sammy’s survives. You can hear Lebedoff singing “Roumania, Roumania” on YouTube. Helluva performer. Helluva song.
SJ here. Last week a photograph of mine of a Chesapeake Bay Oyster topped with a slice of hard boiled egg caused HG such a wave of food envy that he was prompted to write a post about it (see An HG Sin: Food Envy) Well, as much as I love HG, I love to fan the embers of his Food Envy into a roaring fire. Soo….let me tell you a little about that oyster…
Last week, myself, my wife — the aptly named Exquisite Maiko — and our son decided to forsake our beloved NYC for a weekend in Baltimore. The drive down took only about 3 hours and along the way we stopped in Wilmington, Delaware at the Charcoal Pit for absolutely great hamburgers and milkshakes.
The Charcoal Pit is a Road Food classic — been there since the 1950s and still as popular as ever. Places like this often become parodies of themselves, existing in the squinty light of nostalgia — but the Pit avoids that trap by neither seeming cutesy nor precious and instead just serving up good, well made classic food at very reasonable prices.
The last time I had been in Baltimore I went to Obryckis in Fells Point for crabs. They were dumped right on the table onto butcher’s paper, and hammer in hand I demolished a number of these wonderful crustaceans steamed in a heady black-pepper seasoning. I was excited to return and excited for Exquisite Maiko to taste such a regional specialty. Alas, Obryckis has closed (note to all restaurants who close and have websites: MAKE BEING CLOSED THE FOCUS OF YOUR WEBSITE!!!) so we had to find an alternative. Now, not being from Baltimore and not really knowing a lot about the city, it can be hard separating out the tourist crap from something both authentic and authentically good. So, reading between the lines of numerous blog postings and Best Of Baltimore lists, we decided on a spot called Canton Dockside who seemed to be the spot for year-round crabs. Well, we got there and guess what…NO CRABS! Why? Because Canton Dockside gets their crabs in the off-season from Louisiana and this being Mardi Gras week all the Louisiana Crabbers were either too drunk to ship crabs or they wanted to keep all crabs within the state for Mardi Gras. Either way, we were thwarted but soothed ourselves with great broiled crab cakes (light on the mayonnaise and breadcrumbs), plump shrimps steamed with Old Bay Seasoning and a rather horrifying pretzel like thing smeared in cheese and crab dip (the less said about that last dish, the better!).
I also made a new friend in the Baltimore beer known as National Bohemian Beer or Natty Boh.
Extremely cold and extremely yummy!
The next day, we woke up early to take in some real touristy stuff (Huge Aquarium! Dolphin Show!) and get hungry in preparation for my focus — The covered markets of Baltimore. Since 1763, Baltimore has maintained a group of municipally owned covered markets that serve specific neighborhoods. There are seven markets remaining in Baltimore and the largest is the Lexington Market located right in the heart of Down Town. I had heard tell of some serious food happening at this Lexington Market so off we went. Well…I absolutely fell in love. Lexington market is an urban institution — while tourists like myself might pass through, the market is unadorned, gritty and absolutely true to itself.
This is the spot for discount groceries, cheap cell phone plans, butchers that specialize in the rough bits (chitterlings, hog maws, ham hocks, pig ears, fat back and more), fish mongers and stall upon stall of prepared foods — many of which hawk the fact that they accept CDC vouchers and food stamps. So what were in these stalls? Well, oddly, the majority seem to have been taken over by Chinese and Koreans who are serving up a mixture of cheap Chinese and soul food staples — beef and broccoli alongside stewed chicken and dumplings not to mention the happy guy I saw munching away on a scoop-full of pork fried rice accompanied by a bowl of Chitterlings doused with hot sauce.
There is no pretensions of regional food-ways purity here at the Lexington. Its cheap and good? Yes! Lots of fried chicken spots with a heavy focus on the livers, backs and gizzards — not something you see at KFC! Many sandwich spots selling (I think) Baltimore produced smoked meats — courtesy of its Polish and German immigrants. And, fruit salad — big containers of very fresh and very cheap fruit salad. Interestingly, I noticed that you could use your food stamps to buy fruit salad, fruit smoothies and groceries, but not a lot of the heavier prepared foods — I am imagining that this was a bid by the Health Department to influence healthier eating standards. And all the way in back — pretty much a separate enclave all to itself is Faidley’s Seafood.
Faidley’s is a working seafood market hawking the rather impressive bounty of the Chesapeake Bay and other southern water-ways, but they also have a raw bar and a simple lunch counter serving up hot foods. Well, I sidled up to the raw bar — packed with working people simply gorging on oysters and clams and plastic cups of Natty Boh — and ordered myself a half dozen “Prime” oysters. The oyster man was astonishing; as fast and precise a shucker as I have ever witnessed even while keeping up a running commentary as to whether or not (based on his emotional speech at her funeral) Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston ever had sex (Yes! we raw bar denizens agreed). I was asked, as the plate of fat, shimmery bivalves appeared before me, if I wanted an egg with my oysters. An egg? Madness!!! Nope. Just hit me with some lemon and a touch of hot sauce and I am good. Well I slurped those six down and they were cold, briny, firm with a touch of cucumber snap that I just love. Ahhh…The joy of a good oyster. Well, as I let out a sated breath I glanced at my neighbor, who was there with his girl, drinking beers and preparing his oysters with a slice of hard-boiled egg!!! Yes! He had a hard-boiled egg slicer and was layering the egg slices on top of his oysters with horseradish and hot sauce. This guy looked like a serious Baltimorean, so I had to ask if the egg was the Baltimore style? Oh yes he said. So, I had to give it a shot — six more with a boiled egg. Well, they brought them over, I peeled the egg, used the slicer and got to work. My new friend guided me — “You got the horse radish first, then you got to hit it with the black pepper…yeah that’s it, don’t be scared of the black pepper! Then squeeze that lemon right on top and lay that egg right right up on there. Yeah! Hit it with the hot sauce now!” — and then I was ready.
Wow! Oh boy was this a good thing. Somehow, the smoothness of a boiled egg blends with the brine of the oyster and the bite of hose-radish to create something unique that doesn’t distract from the very oysterness of the experience. While I probably won’t be putting hard-boiled eggs on my beloved Prince Edward Island oysters, the whole experience, the specificity of the place, the very real connections that you can make with strangers when you express interest in a local specialty put a giant smile on my face and made those oysters amongst the most special I have ever eaten. Exquisite Maiko (very pregnant at this point and simmering with jealousy that she could not eat an oyster) took in some crab cakes from the counter and pronounced them unbeatable.
Faidley's Crab Cake
So, if you ever find yourself in Baltimore, ignore the Yelp and Google and Yahoo reviews that describe the Lexington Market as being scary and sketchy and filled with drug addicts and homeless people and march your way in and have a chilled Chesapeake Bay oyster topped with hard boiled egg on me. Thank me later and tell HG about it as soon as you can!
It occurs to HG that HG possesses an intrinsically noble nature. However, even saintly HG is susceptible to a sin: Food envy. Yes, HG is wildly covetous of other people’s food adventures and experiences — HG’s own children and even his grandchildren are not immune from the focus of HG’s envious thoughts.
Two examples: SJ recently sent HG photos of succulent Chesapeake Bay oysters topped with slices of hard boiled egg that SJ ate at Baltimore’s Lexington Market. SJ said they were delicious. Oh, the injustice! HG has visited Baltimore many times and thought he sampled all of its crab and oyster delicacies but this dish eluded him. While drowning in bitter reflections about SJ and oysters, HG received a communication from Gifted Daughter Lesley R. who was weekending with her daughter SR in Paris. The duo were dining at a modest bistro, Le Comptoir Marguery, and Lesley R. reported that SR ate “the biggest Ile Flottante you ever saw.” Fury and envy, regrettably, filled HG’s being. Another injustice. Ile Flottante is HG’s favorite dessert, enjoyed many times at Stella and Le Vaudeville, two delightful Paris brasseries. Oddly, it is a desert item rarely seen on American menus. An Ile Flottante (floating island) is a simple affair: a meringue of softly whipped egg whites floating atop creme anglaise (cream custard) and decorated with a drizzle of caramelized sugar. The dessert (aslo known as “oeufs a la neige” or “eggs in snow”) is sublime. It is both light and sumptuous, the perfect conclusion to a meal. Of course, HG loves his children and grandchildren. But…..
