HUNGRY GERALD

Last weekend, HG nephew Paul Freeman and wife Vicki celebrated the marriage of their youngest daughter, Staci, to Jack Spangler. The festivities were epic. Made coronations and state dinners look a bit shabby. The site was the St. Regis Hotel in the stylish Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta. Paul, a daring and successful real estate developer, built (and sold) the luxurious hotel (site of one of Atlanta’s best restaurants). Floors of condominiums (also developed by Paul) top the hotel. Paul and Vicki occupy the entire 25th floor. The apartment is a virtual European palazzo. with glorious views of the entire city. (Superlatives don’t come close to describing the space, wine storage, comfort and luxury). And, they have the advantages of the hotel’s pool and spa. Plus room service, HG presumes. Atlanta’s airport is huge. However, due to Paul’s planning, HG/BSK’s arrival was flawless as HG/BSK were whisked to the wedding rehearsal dinner hosted by the Spangler family. Site was a brewery and some 100 guests feasted on down-home barbecue, macaroni and cheese, etc. HG/BSK slept peacefully in a royally appointed guest bedroom in the Paul/Vicki palazzo. Pleasant coffee and yogurt breakfast. Then off to an hour of cycling and weight exercise in the hotel fitness center. Among the pre-wedding activities: Makeup professional enhanced the faces of the female wedding guests; family photos; signing of traditional Jewish documents outlining the responsibilities of the marital couple. The wedding itself was a spectacle. Magnificent floral arrangements. Beautifully decorated “chupah” (the arch that houses the exchange of vows and Rabbinical invocations). Given the ecumenical nature of the event, a Priest also participated. Staci, of course, looked beautiful. Jack, a handsome young man, was properly serious. Most moving moment: Paul wiping away tears of emotion as he walked Staci to the “chupah.” HG was provided with a vodka on the rocks since the wedding took place at HG’s usual cocktail hour. Following the ceremonies, folks descended upon a buffet of sushi and sashimi. Waitpersons dispensed very good beluga caviar. The beverage, naturally, was champagne. Then, into the ballroom for dinner, music and dancing. Once more, the flowers and lights were dazzling. Dinner was served from a buffet and the choices were happy ones. Sea bass. Vegetarian. Cold seafood. Lobster. Prime rib. HG drank much white wine and relished the cold seafood. Went back for seconds (and thirds) for oysters, shrimp and crab claws. HG’s dream dinner. Many joyous moments for HG/BSK. Happy reunions with HG’s niece, Melanie, and husband, Rick; HG niece Laurie, and husband, Bob; HG cousin, Freeman Shore. Plus grand-nephew, Adam Freeman and family. Adam has turned into a successful businessman with a loving family. A real “mensch.” Also enjoyed chatting with Lianne, P. and V.’s eldest daughter, and her male companion. No, HG wasn’t the oldest person in the room. That was Millie West, 100, Vicki’s Mom. Tablemates included HG daughter, Victoria Freeman, and husband, Marc Meyer (the renowned New York restaurateurs approved the cuisine); HG’s Boston nephew, Jonathan Katz (a successful real estate owner/manager), wife, Barbara, and children, Nicola and Alexander. Barbara is a particular favorite of HG/BSK (and the Riva family of Rhode Island). Barbara is svelte, ageless. Her taste is flawless. Always dressed, with restraint, in designer fashion. What makes her both lovable and annoying is the fact that she can consume a lot of food and not gain an ounce. To the delight and bemusement of the dinner group, Barbara secured from the buffet an 18-inch rib bone which she gnawed happily “It’s the best part,” she said. The music rocked. Back up singers (and dancers) were lovely and talented. Wedding guests danced with abandon. The traditional hora (to Hava Nagilah) was spirited. To sum up: A wonderful spirited and spiritual event, planned, orchestrated and choreographed with great attention to detail by Paul and Vicki. (the party extended into the next day with a delicious brunch). A costly affair, yes, but it was much more than that. It exemplified Paul and Vicki’s generosity and hospitality; their love of family; their commitment to Jewish life in the United States and Israel; their belief in marriage. And, of course, they value friendship. So, thank you, Paul and Vicki. HG/BSK send you our love and appreciation.

An ornament of Rhode Island is the Bristol Oyster Bar in the beautiful, historic town of Bristol (home of the oldest Fourth of July Parade). It occupies an old bank building and its 4 to 6PM “buck a shuck” event is a joy for oyster lovers. Very hungry HG/BSK and brainy and beautiful granddaughter Arianna R. arrived to feast. HG ordered 42 oysters from Rhody bays and sea shores. Plus, six littleneck clams. Wow. The bivavles were chilled nicely, shucked expertly and full of briny oceanic flavor. These were the best American late spring/early summer oysters HG ever tasted. Prince Edward Island oysters (which HG/BSK will devour when they arrive at their oceanfront paradise next week) are harvested in northern climes and are delicious in all seasons. Clams, of course, are year-rounders and Rhody clams are the best. Drank a nice bottle of Muscadet. Went on to pork belly confit (splendid!!) with pickled vegetables and waffle potato crisps. Feta cheese and tomato mixed salad. Desserts were bread pudding and cheesecake, Both very good. HG/BSK drank a glass of favorite merlot: The Velvet Devil from Washington State. Hey, life’s good.

No Rhode Island visit by HG is complete without a meal at Chonquing House, the very good Szechuan restaurant. HG/BSK began eating at Chonquing when it was located in a bleak retail strip in Seekonk, MA. HG loved the food (BSK was restrained in her enthusiasm). HG always worried about Chonquing’s future because the restaurant was inevitably empty. Sometime last year, Chonquing moved into a larger and more elaborate space on Wickenden Street (the location of a number of restaurants) in Providence. HG/BSK and the R. family dined there last year. Food was excellent. Customers sparse. Once more, HG was anxious. Decided to eat there en famille last night. Learned (happily) that the restaurant was still in business. Reservation was 7:30. Restaurant was jammed, boiling with happy customers. And, more kept pouring in. Seated at a nice round table, the group sipped good Rhode Island IPA and shared a dish of wontons in hot chile oil. And, that was it for one hour. Obviously, the kitchen was overwhelmed. When the food arrived it was sensational. Sliced fish in wine sauce. Cumin lamb. Ma Po Tofu. Family Style Tofu. String beans with pickled vegetables. Spicy fried chicken. Eggplant in garlic sauce. There may have been more, but HG didn’t take notes. Happy time. Keep those woks sizzling, Chonquing.

Tony’s Seafood in Seekonk, Ma. (just over the border from Rhody) is one of the great seafood retailers. Sparkling fresh fish, shellfish and crustaceans. Fine prepared sauces and salads. In addition, there is a carefully curated selection of wines, pastas and condiments. The owners are a Sicilian fisherman family that arrived in Rhode Island in the 1900s. The retail store opened in 1947 followed by a thriving wholesale operation. Family owned. Family operated. Service is warm, friendly and informative. For the last days, BSK and gifted daughter Lesley R. have been building meals around Tony’s sea scallops. They are big. Super fresh and juicy. (HG has posted about their use in a savory chowder). Besides the chowder, HG/BSK and the R. family have enjoyed sauteed scallops atop fresh greens and accompanied by creamy polenta. Also, in a pasta enriched by fish stock, onions, garlic and herbs. Yes, HG/BSK can obtain tasty scallops harvested off the Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia shores. And, in Santa Fe, Whole Foods carries tasty (super, super expensive) sea scallops. But, none of these bivalves compares to Tony’s wonders.

HG/BSK are very fond of sea scallops. Of course, nothing quite compares to Nantucket Island bay scallops Their season is brief and they lose a lot of flavor when they leave the Island. Freezing turns their delicate flesh into little balls of cotton. Best eaten raw, minutes after they are pulled out of the bay. HG/BSK get misty-eyed when HG/BSK recall their residence on Nantucket. Caretaker/friend Al K. was an expert scalloper (family had been on Nantucket for many, many generations). Carrying a big bucket of bay scallops harvested minutes before, he invited HG/BSK to an outdoor feast. Armed with glasses of chilled white wine, HG/BSK ate dozens of the raw, sweet morsels. Al shucked. HG/BSK ate. Bivalve heaven. HG/BSK also reached celestial climes at the Riverside, RI, home of the R. family, night before battling traffic jams on the way to granddaughter Sofia R.’s Columbia graduation in New York. It seems that Rhode Island not only has the best clams and squid, but the biggest, juiciest, most flavorful sea scallops HG/BSK ever tasted. Gifted daughter Lesley R. exalted these sea wonders in a chowder (no milk or cream) of fish stock and clam juice flavored with garlic, saffron and many herbs. Added a bit of cod. Cooking perfection. The meal concluded with a cheese platter. HG was enthralled by the ripe robiola and a blue cheese (gorgonzola ?). HG added a bit of sweet to HG’s cheese assortment. Armenian preserved pumpkin in syrup (a gift of an R. friend/neighbor). Superb climax.

Destination: Lewisburg, Pa. (Site of a federal prison and nearby Bucknell University, the late Philip Roth’s alma mater). Hunger seized HG on the road. Not much dining available. Settled for Burger King. Don’t scoff. The burgers are the usual crap. However, the fish sandwiches are a treat. Real fish (not “fish product”) crisply fried. No grease. Bun is layered with lettuce, tomatoes, pickle chips and an adequate tartar sauce. No, not as great as the haddock sandwiches at Rick’s Fish and Chips in St. Peters, Prince Edward Island. but, quite tasty. Stayed at an upscale Holiday Inn. BSK worked out in the fitness center and followed with BSK’S usual super hot shower. HG swam many laps in the warm indoor pool and soothed HG’s mature muscles in a hot tub. HG/BSK took their raging appetites to the Reba and Pancho Restaurant. Shared a “Skinny Pizza.” Super crisp and topped with a quality mix of mozzarella and tomatoes. BSK followed this with gently sauteed haddock served over a salad of Canellini beans and fried Calamari. It was knit together with a sauce of mint, parsley, olive oil and butter. BSK pronounced the dish inventive and delicious. On PEI, fresh haddock will get this treatment. Can hardly wait. HG dined on a juicy crab cake floating on spicy chile broth enriched by a julienne of garden vegetables. Drank Spanish Rioja. Back at Holiday Inn, HG completed a perfect day by sipping bourbon and watching the Warriors snatch a victory in the NBA playoffs after falling far behind.

Yes, HG/BSK (plus Toby, The Wonder Dog), are on the road again (thanks, Willie). Destination: Prince Edward Island and HG/BSK’s ocean front paradise. But, first HG/BSK will stop at Providence, the base for HG/BSK’s New York/Atlanta festivities (you will learn more in coming days). First-day lunch was a Subway wrap consumed in the car. Messy. Never again. Hate eating in the car. Food dribbles on HG’s clothing. Dinner was at Kwan’s Kitchen in Quail Springs, an Oklahoma City burb. Was great on the last visit. Now it’s uneven. Had super-sized pork pot stickers. Flavorless. Peking duck. Excellent thin pancakes to wrap the meat which, alas, was quite dry. BSK liked a platter of fried string beans with gently fried rectangles of potato.HG thought it so-so. The bonanza (at least for HG ) of the evening, was a platter of shrimp dim sum. Shu mai. Shrimp balls. Other fried and steamed shrimp delights. Best dim sum ever (and HG has consumed much New York, Brooklyn and Flushing dim sum). Sadly, BSK is allergic to shrimp (and other crustaceans) so BSK could only observe HG’s pleasure, Did that with customary grace.

Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker Magazine is the best essayist in America. He is the author of many illuminating books (his book on his family’s days in Paris is HG’s favorite) and contributes to the musical theater as a lyricist and librettist. His latest New Yorker essay is titled “The Takeback.” Using a positive review of a new book by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow,” Gopnik analyzes the failure of Reconstruction after the Civil War to provide true black citizenship. Gopnik refers to the late, great African-American intellectual and historian, W.E.B. Du Bois, who said the interests of poor southerners were ideological and tribal rather than economic. Du Bois noted that poor southern whites “would rather have low wages than see colored labor with a decent wage” and “every advance of the Negro is a threat to their white racial prerogatives.” Gopnik writes “It is the same sort of formula of feeling that makes today’s ‘white working class’ angrier at the thought that Obamacare might be subsidizing shiftless people of color than receptive to the advantages of having medical coverage for itself. Du Bois called it a ‘psychological wage,’ but this is to give a Marxist-sounding name to a non-Marxist phenomenon: ethnic resentment and clan consciousness are more powerful than economic class. It reflects the permanent truth that all people, including poor people, follow their values, however perverted, rather than their interests, however plain.” HG believes this is the American dilemma that makes a Trump possible.

Vodka was a significant part of HG’s Belorussian heritage. HG’s late, beloved father, Hershele Zvi Freimann, grew up in the small town of Smulovich. HG’s late, beloved mother, Chyka Kopkind, grew up in the “shtetl” of Plestyanitz. Smulovich was more urban. Tragically, the Jews in these places were murdered by the Nazis. (HG had a very aged cousin who survived and was the subject of a documentary some dozen years ago filmed by HG’s cousins from Paris and Madrid). The Freimann family was modestly prosperous. They owned a flour mill and a vodka distillery. Plus a tiny glove factory. This was destroyed in a pogrom after the Russia-Japan War. Local Russian officials claimed Jews were to blame for Russia’s humiliating defeat. The angered, mostly drunken, peasants spared the mill and the distillery. After all, flour and vodka were essential to life. Gloves were a luxury item. On horseback, HG’s father (nicknamed “Grisha”) delivered vodka to the local taverns. He used a two-horse wagon to transport wheat, flour, and potatoes. After “Grisha” and his brother, Fykel, migrated to the United States their brothers who remained in Belorussia asked “Grisha” and Fykel (in 1910) to relinquish their ownership in the mill and distillery. They were glad to comply. All members (spare one) of the Belorussian family (and the properties) were destroyed by the Nazis. Curiously, “Grisha” and his family never drank vodka either in Belorussia or the United States. They associated the spirit with drunken (and periodically murderous) peasants. The Freimann drink was brandy–cherry (vishniak) or plum (slivovitz). Potent stuff that was drunk at dinner with cups of black tea from the samovar. Wine was unheard of (except at the Passover seder). HG has had a long love affair with vodka. It’s HG’s drink with caviar, smoked fish, boiled potato with schmaltz herring and sour cream. “Grisha” always had his potato and salty herring with beer and a shot of rye whiskey. HG drinks beer only as a chaser. For some years, HG drank vodka on the rocks as a pre-dinner cocktail. Unfortunately, there was a tendency to overindulge. This led to some harsh words from BSK, the person who had to pick up HG when HG fell to the floor. The result: No vodka for HG for the last two and 1/2 months. Doesn’t miss it. Rosé wine. White wine with a dash of Aperol. Icy Negroni (tiny bit of bourbon, sweet vermouth, Campari, orange bitters). These have replaced vodka. BSK smiles.

On the way back to HG/BSK’s Santa Fe County home there was a stop at the Carmine Lonardo’s Italian Delicatessen in Denver (Florida and Wadsworth). The house-made Italian fennel sausages were widely touted. Bought sausage, head cheese, Genoa salami, pancetta, pasta. How did they rate? HG is a big fan of head cheese, jambon persille, and similar charcuterie. This was the best head cheese HG ever tasted. Been having it as an appetizer with a dollop of Dijon mustard. The salami was excellent. The pancetta was very rustic. A bit chewy. The much-heralded sausages? HG didn’t taste any fennel. Sausage didn’t seem to have the juiciness of a New York Italian sausage. Will give them another try before passing judgment.