HUNGRY GERALD

What have we lost? Style. A sense of occasion. HG refers to the fact that few persons dress formally for a restaurant dinner these days. HG is not talking about black tie. We don’t live in Downton Abbey. But, appropriate dining-out clothes for HG does mean a jacket for men. Women, given their natural virtues and virtuoso abilities in scarf administration, can get away with much more informality. When HG was younger, everyone dressed up to go to a restaurant or the theater. Women even had “cocktail dresses” and “restaurant suits” (They also had girdles but that’s another story). Looking stylish added a festive quality to many activities. With baby boomers in the 60s rejecting the formalities of their elders, the road was paved for today’s young hipster style of plaid shirts, jeans and beards. Overall the wholesale embracing of casual style seems to HG, depressing and conformist. HG agrees with Woody Allen’s statement: “Eating at home is just eating. Eating in a restaurant is a party”. So. Listen to HG: Make the world a better place and dress to dine out.

Yes, you’ve got to get to Mr. G’s stand in the Santa Fe Farmers Market early. Dawdle, and it’s too late. Eager buyers line up as soon as it’s open and greedily snap up all of Gary Gunderson’s incomparable organic produce. Multiple varieties of lettuce. The best frisee. Arugula. Scallions. Escarole. Radishes. Carrots. And, more. Much more. Gary and his lovely wife, Natasha, are HG/BSK’s neighbors and as HG enjoys a leisurely breakfast HG often spies Gary and Natasha (plus some farmhands) busily tending their meticulously organized farm. Always nice to lounge as others work hard. Recently, HG had some health tests and the geezer seems to be in reasonable shape (knock wood). Daughter Lesley R. claims that BSK’s insistence that HG eat plenty of fresh vegetables is making a difference. So, thanks Gary and Natasha. Your good stuff (plus plenty of extra virgin Sicilian oil) is a deposit in the bank of good health.

HG/BSK will have the happy experience of family Christmas this year at the Providence home of Gifted Daughter Lesley R. and husband, Profesore/Dottore/ Ufficiale Massimo R. HG will whine and wheedle as HG tries to persuade the family to dine at Lucky Garden, a Chinese restaurant in North Providence. It’s a shlep but well worth it because Lucky Garden, located in a rather bleak neighborhood, is one of the best Chinese restaurants in the United States. The menu is quite daring offering some tripe dishes, chicken feet, sea cucumber and other esoterica. However, the restaurant pleases our large family group with mainstream delicacies like whole steamed flounder, Chinese greens with garlic, dumplings, congee, etc. Looking forward to dining there has caused HG to muse on memorable food HG has consumed in unlikely locales. There was a shack on the Rhode Island bike bath between Providence and Bristol that lives in HG’s memory (the shack, alas, disappeared a few years ago). HG would set off on a bike jaunt to work off some of Lesley R’s generous cuisine. But, at a midway point, appetite would conquer and HG would pause at the shack for an enormous bowl of linguini con vongole. Clams, garlic, good olive oil, clam broth, red pepper, al dente pasta—all perfectly balanced and beyond abundant. Returned from the bike ride pounds heavier. Another unlikely place for superb dining is Big Timber, Montana. The restaurant in the old Grand Hotel serves a rack of lamb that is incomparable. Natural, hormone free meat cooked perfectly and served with grace. And, you can drink great wine with the rack. Very imaginative and well priced wine list. It was here that HG/BSK were introduced to the robust wines of Walla Walla, Washington. An HG/BSK family legend concerns a meal the duo and young SJ and Lesley R. consumed many years ago in Phoenix. A Friday night and every restaurant in town was jammed with waiting times up to two hours. Famished from hours of swimming and tennis under the Arizona sun, the family stopped at a very unpromising Chinese restaurant, the Golden Pagoda. A sad menu of chow mein and other horrors. HG summoned the manager and said: “We are from New York. We love real Chinese food. Forget the menu. Just cook us a meal you would enjoy eating with your family.” Magic words. The meal that followed was extraordinary. Lives in our collective memories.

HG is a fan of The New York Times obituaries. Reads them (online) every day. Yes, there’s a bit of gloating involved. “Yes,” says HG in an internal monologue, “you (subject of the obit) may have accumulated honors, wealth, fame, etc., but you are very, very dead. And, HG, is very, very alive.”

HG is also a romantic (witness HG’s half-century of marriage to much loved BSK). HG’s belief in romance and HG’s ghoulish interest in obituaries were combined in one obit (paid notice) that appeared in a recent Sunday print copy of the Times. The subject of the obituary, a woman, met her husband (they were married 65 years) when she was 18. While courting he wrote to her with an invitation to the theater. She replied: “Pleasure was my first sensation (upon receipt of the letter). Let us hope the evening does not lead us into any serious indiscretion. Your more than willing, Victoria.” HG adores that reply. Charming, graceful–and sexy.

HG/BSK’s home is set in a historic farming neighborhood bordering a Native American reservation. No garbage pickup. This means a trip to the dump every Sunday. Fortunately, the dump is nearby and is set in a beautiful area of high desert and rolling hills. Makes dumping garbage an aesthetic (almost) treat. HG times the chore as to enjoy a post-dump lunch at El Parasol, the plain spoken, friendly, soulful restaurant dispensing New Mexican treats at its highway location in Pojoaque. Sunday lunch at El Parasol is a treat. The room is jammed with happy Hispanic families, at least three generations at a table. Love for children and respect for elders reverberates. Lots of laughter as kids dig into big bowls of French fries drenched in green chile sauce and melted cheese. The older folk are knocking off immense burritos, enchiladas, tacos, quesadillas plus brimming bowls of menudo, posole and arroz con pollo. Diets? Health food? Cholesterol? As they say in HG’s native Noo Yawk: Fuhgeddaboutit!! There’s no alcohol at El Parasol. The strongest drink is iced tea. So the joy and merriment is solely fueled by family and food. HG worked off lunch with a long swim in HG/BSK’s sun drenched indoor lap pool. Then, off to Santa Fe to see Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” a very dark movie for a very dark time in the USA. Liked the movie but was annoyed at Allen’s portrayal of ordinary working people. As is inevitable in Allen movies,they come across as crude Neanderthals. A far cry from the working people, New Mexican and otherwise, that HG knows and admires.

HG is just too angry today to write about food and the wonderful life HG shares with BSK and their loving family. It seems to HG that a cabal of racist pigs, protected by gerrymandering, are in the process of destroying our democracy. The Tea Party hides under the cloak of “old fashioned conservatism.” A distinguished Emory University political scientist has used a variety of research disciplines to analyze the last Presidential election. Looking at Tea Party supporters, he found “racial resentment and dislike of Obama” overrode every other factor including church attendance and party identification. “These results clearly show that the rise of the Tea Party movement was the direct result of the growing racial and ideological polarization of the American electorate. The Tea Party drew its support very disproportionately from Republican identifiers who were white, conservative, and very upset about the presence of a black man in the White House –a black man whose supporters looked very different from themselves.” Well, these voters and their representatives now control Washington. The Civil War goes on. Let there be no compromise with these swine.

Marcella Hazan died last week at her Florida home. She was 89. Remarkable woman. She changed the way America thought about, cooked and ate Italian food. When Marcella began her American career a number of decades ago, Parmesan cheese came in cans (and it wasn’t really Parmesan) and American Italian cooking was based on spaghetti (even the word pasta was alien) and meatballs plus hefty cream, garlic and tomato sauces. Italian restaurants were described as “red sauce” joints. Through her cookbooks, cooking classes and cooking demonstrations, Marcella opened up the eyes of America to the reality and vibrancy of true Italian food: simple, fresh, healthy, ingredient-driven and, most of all, delicious. HG/BSK have relied upon Marcella’s recipes for pork roast braised in milk; vitello tonnato; pureed chickpea soup; Bolognese ragu; mushroom pasta sauce (Marcella’s recipe takes supermarket, bland mushrooms and invests them with torrents of earthy flavor)–and much more. Some 30 years ago, HG/BSK conducted a public relations campaign for one of Marcella’s books. In connection with this, HG/BSK visited Marcella and her husband, Victor, in their Venice apartment. It was a marvelous space with a beautiful kitchen tucked under ancient wooden beams and windows that looked upon scenic vistas of La Serenissima. The terrace contained a magnificent barbecue. HG/BSK accompanied Marcella on a shopping tour of the markets beneath the Rialto Bridge. She selected the freshest fish and crustaceans; vegetables, fruit, cheese, bread and charcuterie. Back in the apartment, Marcella created a meal that was simple — but, like all wonderful food, complex in that simplicity. The centerpiece was a zuppa di pesce, the best fish stew HG/BSK ever tasted (or will ever taste). BSK took scores of photos. As a person, Marcella was talented, imperious and not very likeable. For instance, she was without a shred of sympathy when she learned that BSK was allergic to shrimp; and was furious that she had to eliminate them from her fish stew. The dining group drank a very good Pinot Grigio during the meal (husband Victor was a noted wine writer) but Marcella stuck to her pre-dinner beverage (Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey) much to Victor’s annoyance. The next day she was on better behavior at a business lunch in the nearby industrial city of Mestre. HG has a vivid memory of the tender poached baby octopi devoured at that meal. Alas, the public relations campaign (for a variety of complicated reasons) did not turn out well and HG/BSK’s business relations with the Hazans ended abruptly. Though HG/BSK did not have a happy personal relationship with Marcella, HG/BSK admired her. Marcella was a brilliant woman. She had great honesty and integrity and did not believe in cooking shortcuts. BSK recalls a visit to Marcella and Victor’s Manhattan apartment. Marcella presented BSK with a tomato and an old fashioned vegetable peeler and suggested BSK peel the tomato. Peel a tomato? BSK had never done such a thing. Marcella was exasperated but, with painstaking care, she demonstrated how to swivel the peeler so as to remove the skin and not harm the fruit. Marcella did not pander or attempt to become a loveable television “personality.” She loved Italy and its culture and brought that passion to America’s kitchens and tables. While stern, Marcella was not rigid. She told BSK: “A recipe is not carved in stone. It is a suggestion. Use it and make it your own.”

A few weeks ago, HG discoursed on the subject of wit (lots of funny around but little wit) and gave some pithy (if familiar) examples. Here are two more, utterances, both by English writers. W. Somerset Maugham, who lived to be very old, was honored at a dinner celebrating one of his numerous birthdays. Maugham, like King George VI, was a lifelong stammerer. At this dinner, he arose to respond to praise.”There are consolations in growing old,” he said. Then, to the discomfort of the audience, he began to stammer for a number of minutes. When the stammer ended, he said: “I’ve been trying to think of one.” Brought down the house. At a significant literary dinner in London, distinguished writers were each assigned a topic and asked to speak on it. The topic given to George Bernard Shaw was “Sex.” Shaw arose. Bowed to his audience and said: “It gives me great pleasure.” Then he sat down. Five words. Best speech of the night.

Denver was the place and the HG/BSK New Mexico home was the destination. This meant a six hour drive in the crystal clear sunshine of the West. HG/BSK have done this trip many times and have created certain traditions. A few miles north of Trinidad, Colorado (on I-25) is a sign announcing the Ludlow Massacre Memorial constructed by the United Mine Workers union. Yes, there was a massacre in Ludlow, Colorado, where between 19 to 25 striking coal miners (including women and children) were murdered in 1914 by the Colorado National Guard, coal company police and strike breaking thugs/scabs. When HG (former member of the Newspaper Guild) and BSK (former member of Actors Equity) see the Ludlow sign the duo raise their clenched fists and shout: “Solidarity, Brothers and Sisters.” Once a labor union member, always a member. Some more Ludlow information: There was violent revenge by labor unions after the massacre. Mine property was attacked throughout the United States. It is estimated that between 90 to 200 lives were lost around the US making the national coal miner’s strike the deadliest in American history. The Rockefeller family owned the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, largest of the mining companies involved in the Ludlow strike. Public outrage was aimed at the Rockefellers. Some observers believe the ambitious Rockefeller philanthropies were an attempt to cleanse the family name. HG/BSK stopped at a salubrious rest stop near Trinidad to devour jumbo-sized, tasty Whole Foods sandwiches. HG/BSK mused that the Trinidad area is known these days, not for its proximity to a labor landmark, but for the fact that Trinidad was for a time a center of trans-sexual surgery. The Ludlow Massacre site was declared a National Monument in 2009.

Smooth, pleasant flight from LaGuardia to Denver on Southwest Airlines. Picked up the HG/BSK car and were off to Applejack, the giant liquor and wine shop (biggest volume in the USA) in Wheat Ridge. After paying inflated prices (because of high Canadian taxes) for plonk during the last three months on Prince Edward Island, it was a delight to revel in Applejack’s bargain prices for superior wines. HG was off to the Walla Walla, Washington section for the lush House wine and Steak House Wine bottled by Charles Smith. Yes, Walla Walla is a funny name but you will only smile with pleasure not derision when you drink the robust reds from the town and its environs. HG also picked up some nice reds from Peter Lehmann, HG’s favorite Australian vintner. BSK was in charge of whites and she filled her cart with sauvignon blancs from New Zealand’s Marlboro region and pinot grigios from Italy’s Friuli and Venezie regions. The excursion sharpened HG/BSK’s appetites and the duo stopped at the Hillstone Restaurant in Cherry Creek. Hillstone is a chain restaurant, a very professional, upscale and delicious chain restaurant. Modest prices for a menu of pure comfort food. Not reaching for the gourmet stars but providing very tasty and approachable dishes. One big surprise, however — HG/BSK reveled in a Kampuchi roll that would have been worthy of a sushi master. Constructed of yellowtail, chopped spicy tuna, avocado and topiko, it was a revelation. The restaurant is beautifully designed, decorated with superior art and the service is worthy of a Michelin-starred establishment. Good night’s sleep at a Marriott where (after watching some football) HG and BSK remarked upon the ability of big American chain hotels to provide clean rooms, good TV, comfortable beds and showers that have plentiful hot water and great water pressure at affordable prices. In Europe one would only find those services at the most expensive hotels. Notch one up for the U.S.A..