HUNGRY GERALD

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.

Santa Fe, of course, is landlocked and is world headquarters of green chile, tacos and (mostly terrible) sentimental Native American art plus other Southwestern kitsch items. Nevertheless. You can find some surprising food here. Even more surprising when it involves fish. Witness the sea food stew at the two Bumble Bee taco joints.
For $11.95 you get a stew (really a chowder) of shrimp, scallops, fish and squid. Slivers of vegetables. All in a delectable broth with hints of coconut milk, green chiles and more. Really good and the bowl is bottomless. I’ve yet to finish one and I am a man of capacity.  Accompanied by Bumble Bee’s freshly made tortilla chips you’re set for the day.

Customer: “How’s the brisket?” Waiter: “Too good for you.” Customer: “There’s a fly in my soup” Waiter: “So, how much can he drink?” There are a zillion Jewish waiter jokes.  It’s all in the past.  There are no Jewish waiters (certainly not of the traditional variety….flatfooted, bald, a facial expression that varied between bored and nasty).  Gone with all of those wonderful Manhattan institutions: Lindy’s, Reuben’s, Ratner’s, Rappaports, Tip Toe Inn, Steinberg’s, Moscowitz & Lupowitz….and so many others. Do I miss the restaurants? Indeed I do. Do I miss the waiters?   Not really.  Like many things in life they’re better in retrospect.

The phrase “Jewish Boy” is usually preceded by the adjective “Nice.” Well, in The Bronx of the 30’s and early 40’s Jewish boys weren’t so nice. In fact, we were thieves.Variety stores like Woolworth’s and Kresge’s were big targets. So were fruit and vegetable stores with their street front stands  (Here you had to be wary since they were owned by Italians. In Bronx lore, if you were caught stealing from an Italian or tampering with an Italian maiden, the aggrieved Italian would shoot off your penis. Then he would think about doing something bad to you). Our best scores were at appetizing stores  (There will be an upcoming HG post about this vanished part of New York).  In an inspired PR move, the Maxwell House Coffee Company would distribute Hagadahs  (the Hebrew book of prayer,narrative and song recited and chanted at the Seder, the celebratory Passover ceremonial meal).  Appetizing stores got a plentiful supply. My gang went into action. The best looking of us (usually me, of course)  approached the shopkeeper and asked for Hagadahs  “so we Jewish boys could study before the Seder.”  Overjoyed at this display of piety and Nice Jewish Boyishness, the man went to his storage area to get the books. Out of his sight,  we bad boys filled our pockets with nuts,  chocolates,  and hard candies….even sour pickles straight from the barrel. One of the deftest thieves was my pal, Willie, who later became a NYPD detective and died in a West Side drug bust gun fight.  All good..and bad…things must come to an end.  One Passover season we were recognized.   “Goniffs!! Momsers!! Bestids!! Ahm gunna call the cops!!”     End of my criminal career.  The world lost another Meyer Lansky.

My daughter, Lesley Riva, is the best all around home cook I know. She is a beautiful woman with a glowing complexion and  an exuberant,  very curly head of dark blond hair. Her energy is boundless. And, it has to be. She works in communications for a non-profit Academic Health System…facing all of the crises that hospitals are prone to….writing news releases, speeches, reports…most under very tight details. There’s a beautiful teen-age daughter and an equally beautiful daughter preparing for college (teen-age angst, romances, numerous social and athletic engagements, some distinct food antipathies). There’s a  large garden that needs attention. And, there’s the magnificent, maddening Massimo Riva.
Professor Riva is the Director of Italian Studies at Brown University, a member of many University academic committees, author of a number of scholarly books and a world leader in making Italian culture available through the internet. He is a Vittorio Gassman- look-alike and a former Italian tennis champion. Need I mention, that as an Italian, he takes powerful interest in food and wine ? I used the descriptive “maddening.” An explanation: Massimo often calls, on relatively short notice, and says: “The 11-man Italian delegation from the European Union is at the University and I’ve invited them for dinner. Tonight”…Or it may be a group of Senegalese poets, Hungarian authorities on medieval pornography …or whatever. Lesley is supposed to feed them. She does. And deliciously. So, what do you eat Chez Lesley and en famille? There are always starters like her crab and lobster salads ( I have been accused of gobbling up more than my share of these goodies. The accusations are justified.) There’s often prosciutto, mozzarella, peppers, kalamata olives,very good bread…and more. Then, there’s pasta. of course. Lesley is the lady of scores of improvised sauces….all dependent on whim,  the weather and the market. Yummy. (There’s very good parmigiana, a pepper mill and  chili pepper flakes  to accompany).
Often, she does seafood chowders of Rhode Island clams and mussels; stir fries of scallops; broiled fish with a special glaze. Her chicken sautes and her beef/lamb/pork stews and roasts are Italian, Provencal and sometimes, Jewish (not the pork roast,stupid).
There’s salad, fruit and cheese to end the meal. For HG there’s an abundance of Limoncello. Lesley also does sublime blinis, crepes, fruit crumbles, poppy seed cakes and many, many other tidbits. Back to Maddening Massimo: A liberated Italian male, he does the cleanup and is the unquestioned Maestro of dishwasher stacking and administration. I have had only two food quarrels with my adorable daughter. I believe lemon juice and vinegar are enemies of wine so I try to stay her hand when she makes a salad dressing. Also, one Christmas Lesley slow roasted rutabagas all night as I slept in an adjacent bedroom and I awakened smelling like a tuber. Have I mentioned that this very lovely dynamo is a contributor of witty food writing to the Atlantic Food Channel?  As I said: How does she do it ?