At 13 years of age HG was a busy little guy. Following after- school punchball or association football, HG would cruise Kingsbridge Road in the Bronx and help the shopping women. “Carry your bundle, Lady?” said endearing HG and this meant trudging, while heavily laden with shopping bags, up five stories of an apartment house for a nickel or dime tip. A parental allowance was beneath HG’s dignity. HG had to hustle in order to indulge in HG’s Saturday afternoon aesthetic and culinary treat. This was the double feature at the tiny Ascot Theater on the Grand Concourse. HG would pick up some chunks of dry, garlic salami (“a nickel a shtickel”) at the Tower Delicatessen plus two sour dill pickles at a neighboring “appetizing” store (these pickles were plucked fresh from a barrel). Armed with food and a pack of war-time Rameses cigarettes (yes, HG was a smoker even then, a habit he cultivated for some 50 years), HG lounged (and nibbled and smoked) in a balcony seat and succumbed to the joys of European cinema. The Ascot played only art films, mostly French and Russian (and the occasional American film like John Ford’s The Informer.) HG was enthralled by the French “noir” movies starring Jean Gabin (Port of Shadows, La Bete Humaine). Gabin was HG’s favorite movie hero and HG was gratified to learn that Gabin, during World War Two, left a brief Hollywood career (and a blazing romance with Marlene Dietrich) to join the Free French army and fight with the Allies in North Africa. He won the Medaille Militaire and Croix de Guerre and was part of the first contingent to enter liberated Paris. HG’s two favorite films that he watched at the Ascot were Le Grande Illusion (directed by Jean Renoir and starring Gabin) and aforementioned The Informer (starring Victor McLaglen playing “Gypo Nolan.”). HG still recalls Gypo’s last words in the film: “Frankie, your mother forgives me!!”
Years later the Ascot stopped showing art films and devolved into a house of pornography which did not last for long. At last glance the glamorous Ascot was subdivided into a variety of retail spaces while retaining vestiges of its lovely terra cotta facade. In 1988 the writer Avery Corman wrote a nice piece about this stretch of Grand Concourse for the New York Times. It is still relevant today.
HG grew up in the Depression era-Bronx. A Jewish-Italian-Irish population. Noisy. Rambunctious. Sporadically violent. HG’s family was immigrant Jewish. The language of HG’s parents was heavily accented English plus Yiddish, patches of Russian and Polish. The family atmosphere was emotionally intense and very noisy. Voices were always raised in order to give communication the proper emphasis. Suffice it to say that it was (despite its many wonderful and much missed qualities) a claustrophobic and insular world. HG’s knowledge of the greater American world was gained from the Andy Hardy movies (Mickey Rooney, Lewis Stone, Kay Holden, Ann Rutherford); the Jack Armstrong-All American Boy serial on radio (sponsored by Wheaties-Breakfast of Champions) and the mystery solving books starring the Hardy Boys. Of the three fictions, HG found greatest comfort in the alternative universe presented by Andy Hardy. Andy lived in a one-family home on a tree lined street in a small town. Not in a stuffy, big city apartment. Andy’s Mother and Father spoke to each other courteously. Andy called his Father: “Sir.” The home atmosphere was quiet, serene. Yes, Andy was sometimes guilty of naughtiness (very minor league, in HG’s opinion). When that happened there was no screaming or hitting. Instead, Andy’s father, Judge Hardy, said, in a low, stern voice: “See me in my study, young man.” Study. What a magic, resonant word. It carried connotations of great civilization that was sorely lacking in HG’s Bronx world. HG vowed that there would be a study in HG’s future. And, so it would come to pass. HG is writing these very words in HG’s study in HG’s quiet and serene New Mexico home. Damn. HG is living in a movie.
Read with interest the New York Times interview with HG’s favorite writer of fiction, Philip Roth. It seems Roth has had his say. No more books, no more arduous attention to the brutal task of writing. Sad news for serious readers. (And, why hasn’t Roth been awarded the Nobel? This is an injustice). The last time HG saw Roth it was breakfast time at Barney Greengrass, the venerable smoked fish emporium on Manhattan’s upper west side. Roth looked gloomy. The lox-bagel-cream cheese and coffee combo he was eating didn’t seem to lift his spirits. HG mused that the author was probably thinking that one more day of word wrestling lay before him. These varied Rothian thoughts lead HG back to long ago memories of Sunday-Breakfast-In-The-Bronx-With-Mom-And-Pop. (HG uses caps because this traditional breakfast was always an epic feast). No matter where HG had spent Saturday night, or from what bed HG had arisen, young bachelor HG always called Mom early Sunday to discuss breakfast (yes, the meal began at about 10:30 or 11 so these days it would be called brunch). HG visited the “appetizing” store on Kingsbridge Road and procured Nova Scotia smoked salmon, sable, pickled herring, a robust smoked whitefish, Greek olives, sour kosher dill pickles, potato salad and cole slaw. On that same morning Pop was off to the bakery for bagels, bialys, onion rolls, Jewish rye bread and Stuhmer’s pumpernickel. The table was set with plenty of sweet butter, Daitch cream cheese and sliced tomatoes and onions. Lots of coffee plus a bottle of cognac (both HG and Pop liked to “correct,” as Italians put it, their coffee with shots of brandy. The smoked fish delights lead into a big platter of softly scrambled eggs with fried onions and mushrooms. Danish pastry for dessert. HG worked all of this off in Central Park. Rough touch football. Ah, youth, you magic time.
The great food writer, Waverley Root, once defined cuisines by the oil or fat they used in cooking — lard in Germany; butter in Paris, northern France, northern Italy; olive oil in the Provence, southern Italy and most countries bordering the Mediterranean. In the Belmont neighborhood of The Bronx where HG spent his very early childhood, there was a cooking divide between the predominantly Italian population and the Jewish minority. Olive oil, of course, was an Italian staple. HG’s Jewish Mom never used it. Chicken fat was used for cooking and often covered bread rather than butter. HG’s Mom also used a strange substance called Nyafat for frying. Nyafat was pareve — that is it was approved by rabbinical authorities for frying both meat and dairy products. Don’t know why HG’s Mom used it since she was not strict about observing Jewish dietary laws. She used Crisco or Spry for frying sometimes but usually relied on bubbling chicken fat. Butter was used for frying blintzes.
There was also a shopping divide in the neighborhood. HG’s Mom shopped on busy, noisy Bathgate Avenue for chicken, fish, fruit and vegetables. Bathgate Avenue was known for Jewish merchants, bargains and strenuous haggling. Bathgate Avenue is no longer a low end retail venue. It is now a city-subsidized industrial “park.” Italian women shopped on Arthur Avenue and Arthur Avenue (thank you, culinary gods) has remained unchanged over the years and is still one of New York’s best shopping areas for Italian food. Interestingly, one of the great stores on Arthur Ave for Italian food stuffs is a Jewish Shop (marked with a beautiful mosaic of a Star of David) called Teitl Brothers which has been there since 1915. Arthur Avenue butcher shops (with rabbits, whole lambs and piglets hanging in the windows) always fascinated little HG when HG’s Mom made one of her infrequent visits to the Avenue (she fancied the bread and pignolia cookies found there). The only other cultural interchange recalled by HG was HG’s Father swapping his home made cherry brandy (Vishniak) for a neighbor’s home made red wine. Belmont has remained an Italian (and newly Albanian neighborhood), proud of its ethnicity, culture and cuisine. Every weekend, nostalgic Italians from the suburbs (as well as every type of New Yorker and suburbanite) visit Belmont and Arthur Avenue to get a taste of what The Bronx used to be. And, on Arthur Avenue that taste is redolent of olive oil, tomatoes and garlic.
While waiting to hear President Obama’s DNC speech, HG began to think about history. HG realized that he is now old enough to have a visceral link to the Civil War. The Memorial Day (usually called “Decoration Day”) parade on the Grand Concourse in The Bronx was a dramatic and memorable occasion. HG’s famiy watched the parade from a vantage point on W. 164th Street. Marching bands. Flags. World War One Veterans. A few Spanish-American War vets. Then, a true dramatic moment, one that drew loud cheers and applause from the crowd. A convertible auto drove by slowly. In the back seat (with a nurse) were two very, very frail old men. Civil War veterans (Union army, it is presumed). They waved. Feebly. Six-year-old HG was thrilled. After the parade, HG’s family went to a favored delicatessen on Mt. Eden Avenue for pastrami sandwiches and garlicky hot dogs doused in sharp mustard. Inevitably, that food has become linked in HG’s mind to that special occasion; and it was those memories that re-surfaced during the closing night of the convention. Many hopeful (and ominous) thoughts.[/caption]
HG grew up in The Bronx of the 1930’s and 40’s. The Bronx was, and still is, a borough of neighborhoods, each a little village with its own landmarks and legends. The family unit dominated these neighborhoods making the streets safe because neighbors, family and friends were always watching, alert to any danger or strange occurrence. Little HG spent most of his waking hours on the street — a street filled with his contemporaries — boys armed with pink “spaldeens” and eager to play punchball and stickball and stoop ball and box ball and “association” football. These were afternoon activities. Night games were ring-o-leevio, hide-and-seek, johnny-on-the pony, kick-the-can. It was a world of small shops, fruit wagons (pulled by horses), street food sold by the desperate vendors trying to get by during the Great Depression. There were street singers who bellowed sentimental songs and were rewarded by nickels and dimes tossed from apartment windows. Few cars, but silence did not reign on Bronx streets. The knife and scissor sharpener made his presence known by shouting as did the man who bought old clothes for pennies and the various junk collectors. For HG, the happiest sound was the noise of the Bungalow Bar and Good Humor. Frozen treats for a nickel (Bungalow Bar) and a dime (Good Humor). The best evocation of those days can be found in World’s Fair, the remarkable novel by E.L. Doctorow.
Chaika (later Anglicized to “Ida”) Kopkind Freeman, HG’s Mom, was born (late 1880’s, precise date vague) in the tiny town of Plestyanitz in present day Belorussia. When she was a little girl, a traveling circus came to town. The star was a black African. You had to pay extra to see him and for an additional tiny sum you could rub the man’s arm to prove the ebony color wasn’t painted on. Mom arrived in the United States in the early 1900s. She and her female roommate would often leave their tenement for a stroll on The Bowery, then a lively entertainment center. “What a country!!,” Mom would marvel,” Here there’s no charge for looking at black people.”
Many years later, Mom lived in The Bronx with husband and three children. The energetic woman cooked, cleaned, mended, washed and, blessed with nimble fingers, made shirts, scarves and dresses. During the last stage of the Great Depression (around 1938), African-American women from Harlem would line up on major Bronx streets in middle class neighborhoods and be hired for a day’s domestic work. Their pay was very modest and angry leftist newspaper columnists derided it as “Bronx Slavery”. At some point, HG’s older brother persuaded Mom to hire a woman for a day so she could have some rare leisure time. Mom was a Socialist and an early union member. She had friends who died in the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Suffice it to say, she was very uncomfortable with the idea of hiring a house-keeper (even for a day). Before the cleaning woman began her work, Mom cleaned house. “You want a stranger to think we live in a dirty house?” Mom didn’t quite get the idea. Filled with guilt, she made the bemused African-American woman a sumptuous lunch. Tuna salad and salmon salad. Lots of fresh vegetables and bread. A big fruit cup for dessert. “Bronx Slavery” ended as the war boosted the economy. That was Mom’s last experiment with having a servant or “help.” To little HG’s distress, when heavy cleaning was necessary Mom called on HG. Left HG with a lifelong aversion to domestic labor of any kind.
Just say the word — Nedick’s — and you’ll get a nostalgic sigh from old New Yorkers (or ex-New Yorkers like HG). Nedick’s was a New York fast food chain that served hot dogs on toasted, buttered rolls. HG would top these superior tube steaks with Nedick’s special mustard relish and wash them down with an ice cold orange drink. Two dogs and a drink — 30 cents — a true recession buster. HG’s favorite Nedick’s location was at 161st Street and Jerome Avenue in The Bronx. Very convenient for a bite after a baseball or football game at Yankee Stadium or a sandlot football game at adjacent McCombs Field (HG was a star halfback on the Barnhills, a rough and ready sandlot team).
Nedick’s is part of HG’s unconscious. Nedick’s was the sponsor of New York Knick broadcasts and when a Knick scored, announcer Marty Glickman would intone: “Good — like Nedick’s!!” A few days ago, HG watched New York Knick Carmelo Anthony light up the scoreboard. At a particularly exciting moment, HG found himself shouting at the TV in the voice of Glickman: “Good — like Nedick’s!!” Marty Glickman has passed on. Nedick’s is gone. Efforts to revive the chain have failed. The old Yankee Stadium is gone, replaced by a shiny new model. HG and the Knicks remain. Functional but flawed.
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!
HG just learned (though it has been widely reported) that New York’s Eleven Madison Park, the renowned four star restaurant, is serving an “egg cream” at the conclusion of dinner (just before dessert). The restaurant’s “egg cream” is composed of vanilla-malt syrup, organic milk, olive oil, sea salt and seltzer.
This concoction would receive a shocked “Gevalt!!!!” from my late mom. Like HG, she was a classicist and abhorred “creative” food aberrations. There is only one way, HG’s way, to make a proper New York egg cream (Younger readers: An egg cream contains neither egg nor cream). HG learned egg cream construction as a soda jerk at Bonder’s Candy Store in The Bronx in the 1940’s. The Bronx had many demanding egg cream experts and it was acknowledged in the Kingsbridge neighborhood that the Bonder/HG egg cream had scaled the heights and rested upon the pinnacle. Here’s how HG did it: Fox’s U-Bet Chocolate syrup at the bottom of the glass. Then milk. Here’s the vital part. The milk had to be semi frozen or mixed with finely crushed ice. The milk and syrup would occupy half the glass. The seltzer was sprayed slowly against the interior of the glass. Then a quick burst at the end. A stir with a long soda spoon. The result: A glorious chocolate drink with a dense, creamy head of foam. Many a housewife interrupted her shopping for an HG egg cream accompanied by a crisp, salty pretzel. The egg cream was one of the four popular fountain beverages HG dispensed: The 2-cents plain (a simple, unadorned glass of seltzer); the five cent chocolate soda (chocolate syrup and seltzer); the ten cent egg cream; the 25-cent chocolate malted (made with two scoops of ice cream, milk and malt powder). Simple treats for a simpler time.
[/caption]
