|
|
| Back to the Table of Contents |
Town & Country
|
| For Elizabeth |
by Gustav Ericson
|
“The Dutch painters were
stay-at-home people, hence their originality.” Constable
“Glittering crowds and shimmering clouds in canyons of steel, they’re
making me feel I’m home.” From “Autumn in New York”, Billie Holiday
“Yummo.” Rachel Ray
|
Just
after dawn last week, an enigmatic gardener comrade brought over a huge
bouquet of yellow and white roses. She also offered a carefully wrapped
and dampened herb bouquet- all early morning, freshly snipped aroma-
wispy, languorous dill, heady metallic cilantro and supremely chic
tarragon. (You might notice how
perfectly tarragon goes on Mahónthat nuanced raw cow milk cheese
from Menorca. The Phoenicians taught the Menorcans to make
Mahón. We appreciate the generosity and idiosyncrasies of the
Phoenicians- think indigo, think saffron. Try the Mahón the
ancient way, with a drizzle of olive oil, a few grains of black pepper,
and tarragon leaves). “My favorites. Are they yours?” They are.
This is a woman as comfortable in her buddies’ villas in Monaco as she
is hilling her potatoes over here. I am, as ever, intrigued with her
and her heirloom roses and snipped herbs, her Teutonic sang-froid, her
deep appreciation of every season of every year. She loves summer best,
I know, and particularly a summer as cool but lush as this one, as her
roses have bloomed prodigiously- and twice. I prefer the briskness and
bluster to come, with its warm little rooms and long-braised suppers,
but dig the fleeting beauty of hot weather more each year- the
heavy-headed hydrangeas bent to the ground with their weight; the
murmur and tinkle and Duke Ellington wafting from the patio of the
Adelphi; voluptuous white cream drifting then swirling into deep umber
iced coffee; the smell of fish grilled over rosemary lingering into the
next gauzy morning.
Those three are the herbs of summer, before the cilantro becomes
coriander, before it’s time for thyme. Certainly not yet time for my
stalwart sage, or-yes- the few figs on my new fig trees. (My customers make my heart happier each
summer, too, with such gifts of figs trees and flowers.) Out in
the country there is an ease and calm, luxe et calme, even as the
ripening pears arc their branches and a few green apples fall sullenly
to the dewy lawn. A guest gets up before dawn for yoga in the back yard
and to listen to the myriad birds as they awaken. I make crème
caramel and blueberries for breakfast. It was a cold and dank summer,
earlier, with no cicadas or tree frogs ‘til well into August. But they
make up for it now, a thick oratorio swathing the house all night ‘til
the birds take over around dawn. Here, the big drenching storms leave
the back porch and the little stone patio littered with elm leaves and
moth wings. But the little herb garden shakes itself off from the
torrents of the night and the sage and lavender spring back even
headier, infinitely resolute. You might notice summer’s bounty in our
wonderful produce department-more magnificent than ever this year- with
three types of currants, tart jewels in garnet, purple-black and pale
rose, gooseberries, amber apricots, and the best Romano beans. (Have you gone back to actually cooking
green beans? Those pretty but unpleasant blanched beans ubiquitous in
the past couple of decades have perchance ceded to the lusciousness of
a green bean cooked until tender. The Romanos, or “flat beans”, are
heaven when cooked ‘til meltingly tender, and sprinkled with sea salt
and nothing more. To make a meal of them, stew them for an hour or so
with chopped tomatoes, onions and olive oil. With a little black pepper
and a crust of good bread, this sort of down home supper says early
September. You might crumble on some stark white feta or ricotta
salata. You might not, but do listen for the crickets).
Summer in the City is a banquet, too. And as for a report from down the
river, I am happy to offer that this year’s Fancy Food Show was the
best ever. You hear me say that every year, but I am not one whit
hyperbolic when I say that the specialty food world appears to be
revivified, agog, inventive, determined, and above all eminently sapid.
As the products we found arrive up here, it is evident that our patrons
agree. Always, after that show, we walk east on one of those clogged
streets in the 30’s, and look uptown on the staggering vista of
Midtownevery conceivable juxtaposition of geometry and element and
line. And the heat really does shimmer, in waves, as this grand center
of human possibility lumbers into another summer in late June. New York, just like I pictured it, sky
scrapers and everything, the City rife with only the delicious
memories, generous indeed that time
edits our memories so adroitly. All the muses do business here,
laying wait on this groaning peninsula, swathed in shimmering heat or
giggling at the anesthetizing cold. Memories revered to the foodie: the
cool subterranean Greek haunt Idra, forty years ago, white-washed
walls, the first real moussaka and grilled octopus; incendiary
vindaloos and cold King Fisher beer along East 6th Street: long and
loopy nights at Florent, lamentably shut now- a victim to the
unconscionable greed ruining the old meat-packing district- once
luscious and louche- wonderful Florent, with the icy Martini, the steak frîtes or frisée lardons, having a
smoke outside with the gorgeous transvestites or smarmy leather boys at
three a.m.; the clattering trolleys of dim sum and the huge ginger
oysters at Triple Eight Palace under the Manhattan bridge on Sunday
morning; the truffled, bronzed roast chicken, the real white linen
pampering and those bouquets of blue delphiniums up at La Grenouille;
the first velvety Vietnamese iced coffee with the crispy, gingery,
garlicky Cha Gio way downtown
at Pho Ba; the bustling brasserie Café Luxembourg, with
cassoulet, gamey pâtés and copious Côtes du Rhone
and cigarettes; those smoky Korean bul
ghoki joints in the 30’s, food furiously hot or subtle as milk;
the little gold cups of inky espresso and a cracklingly fresh sfogliatelle at one end of
Mulberry Street, the chrysanthemum tea and diaphanous shrimp dumplings
at the other; those angsty times at ‘Ino when only the truffled egg
toast and Beloved Dining Companion could bring about a smile. And then
a laugh.
Now, for me at least, there is laughter all the time in Gotham, cause
the muses live here in its steel canyons just as much as they abide in
my birch trees at home. Always, looking uptown from those impossible
streets, there is that particular satiety of having eaten well all day
long. This year, the show had its eerie promotion of a favorite new
cheese, Beemster Gouda, in
the form of a dirigible-sized Beemster
Mascot Cow bobbing up and down idiotically in the filthy
exhaust-laden Eleventh Avenue air. Ha! But overall the gimmickry and
mediocrity of recent shows was missing this year. We were treated
regally and tasted exceptional food at the Cheeseworks booth, where we
found amongst other treasures, Doris, our tour guide, and the Achelse Blauwe Belgian blue cheese
that is at once a gustatory and esthetic masterpiece. There were new
raw goat cheeses from Spain, luscious and expensive canned shellfish
from up around Barcelona, new Robiola manifestations from the Langa
Caseificio, and some wonderful old French favorites that had fallen by
the wayside, to be resurrected this winter.
Monsieur Mahjoub of Les moulins
Mahjoub was again the epitome of deference and dapper as he
offered us crisp- textured and brightly flavored marmalades, new
gentler harissas, perfect chutneys (we’ve been extolling, and
consuming, his preserved lemon and fig chutney for some time now),
crisp and lemony marinated olives, and of course his melt in the mouth
handmade cous cous with its various and vibrant sauces. He again
invited us to his orchards in Tunisia for the olive harvest this
winter, and this may well be the year that we take him up on his
graciousness.
We asked for seconds (taboo at a show where ya gotta eat all day long)
from a new line of raw milk water buffalo cheeses, lingering (another
taboo) over the complex and buttery richness of that particular milk in
its attempt-at-immortality form. We tried superb condiments at our new
friend Nancy Wekselbaums’ Gracious Gourmet booth, and we are already
sold out of a second shipping of her four onion and balsamic spread and
her sour cherry chutney. At the Grafton Cheddar booth we had a two year
aged cheddar on an Effie’s oat cake, and found it so delicious and down
home that we did our homework and had the Effie’s in the store within a
week. It’s always nice to find that little blast of simple perfection
amongst all the arch sophistication that is, after all, New York.
Next day, we had lunch at Beloved Dining Companion’s new discovery Sfoglia. It’s all about Italia
these days, gastronomically and culturally, and we hit the trattorias
now, not hanging at the brasseries, as was once our wont. It’s peaceful
up at Sfoglia, near the 92nd
St Y, tucked away with the matrons of the area, comme il faut at their
corner table in chartreuse silk and diamonds. Safely ensconced for two
hours or more away from the throngs of midtown, here under the three
magical pink Murano chandeliers, where the tables have a centerpiece
not of flowers but big old washbasins filled with lemons or red
peppers. Perfect warm bread, oil, and olives. Sepia-stained grissini,
crisp, black and briny, offseting a frisée, radish and octopus
salad. Oh yeah. One- just one- gnocco makes up for the singular lack of
personality on the part of our waiter. There are fried capers on the dorado en papillote. The skin of
the bronzed chicken al mattone
crackles; its free-range flesh melts in the mouth. (This method of cooking a spatch-cocked
(wherein the back bone is taken out and the bird is flattened) chicken
under a brick is popular now, and you can try it at home with a foil
wrapped brick or another iron frying pan pressing your marinated
chicken into the hot pan underneath. You can do this on the grill or in
a 400 degree over for three quarters of an hour or so.) The
laughter resumes, or continues, through tales of turbulence too awful
to bear, joys too all-encompassing for words. Ah, New York: the
peaceful understanding of that one special bud; the implied lilt of a
Cole Porter song hanging in the air; the good bread and oil.
What is it about food that can do that? Perhaps, like music, when done
well, it is some manifestation of real, agenda-free love. That’s why I
seek to perfect my focaccia all morning some summer mornings and plead
with the Sfoglia folks to
share their pistachio-lemon bar recipe; and why JR takes people to
Italy to show them how it’s done there; why AB assiduously makes her
perfect Cannoli Siciliani (available in the cheese department on
Saturday mornings at 11 a.m. ‘til that morning’s supply runs out); why
JW years ago showed me how to “walk” the Fancy Food Show; why that
wonderful little man in Belgium created that glorious Achelse Blauwe. Yes, they are
making a living, but it becomes so much more than that over time. It’s
assuredly why I hit the NASFT show, or go downtown and spy on Murray’s
Cheese and look around for things you might like to add to your larder,
those things that might go well with the bounties and relative comforts
of the country. You have to return the love, somehow.
Ask us for a sample of that Blauwe
cheese, or the Beemster,
or one of Ms. Wekselbaum’s chutneys, or an Effie’s homemade oatcake. We
can tell you how to cook chicken al
mattone, too, and which of Monsieur Mahjoub’s chutney’s to put
with it. We can inform as to our preferred, albeit archaic, approach to
green beans, and share some focaccia tweakings and insights. Partake as
you will, but above all savor the seasons with those you love, whether
on a clogged avenue or an aster-lined country road.
|
subhead
|
text
|
subhead
|
text
|
subhead
|
text
|
subhead
|
text
|
subhead
|
text
|
subhead
|
text
|
subhead
|
text
|
| Sources: |
| text |
| Back to the Table of Contents |
|
|
|
