Dinner with Friends

Handwritten Thank-you Notes

 

I almost always send handwritten thank you notes on beautiful cards or stationary (and sometimes even stationary I have made that matches the invitations I made) to those very lovely people who give me gifts.  Sometimes, I email the notes instead but only if someone gives me something for one of my table settings so that I can include a picture of said table setting.  This is going to the first time I have blogged a thank you note but it's also because I want to include a picture.

A few months ago a good friend of mine had the incredible opportunity to move to London (and my husband and I are going to visit her over President's Weekend-YIPPEE). While I am of course very happy for her I am terribly sad for me. But she sent me Hanukkah and birthday presents which I received yesterday and love them both.  She knows how much I love black, white, and silver tables and look at the gorgeous candles she sent, for just such a table at a future dinner party!  

 

The picture frame is equally ultra cool , particularly au courant for me because I finally have a picture of my glam friend (he takes hundreds of photos but this is the first of us together in which we both look good and we are both looking into the camera at the same time and together) and have been looking for a frame for it-which I have now found!  I can't show you a picture of it because there is too much reflection off of it so you don't see anything but my office furniture or my Blackberry as glare in the photo-but it's an 8 1/2 X 11 black glass frame with a 4X6 clear glass cut out in the center-my glam friend and I look fabulous in it as he printed the picture for me in black and white. 

 

So thank you friend of mine, I adore my gorgeous gifts!

A Two Restaurant Day

Yesterday, I had one of my very rare "two restaurants in one day" days. I don't often do that because 1) it's much too fattening and 2) I don't really enjoy a long fancy lunch in the middle of the day as I still have half a mind in the office and it stops my work rythym. But I have been wanting to try the Danny Meyer restaurant, Maialino, in the Gramercy Park Hotel so I went with a friend I haven't seen in a while.  It's a casual and pretty Roman trattoria with friendly service and really good food. We shared the fried artichoke appetizer which was delicious-quartered artichoke hearts fried to a luscious non-greasy golden crispness and sprinkled with chopped herbs. Next to it was an anchovy sauce which was tangy and salty, the anchovies had melted into the sauce and added body and salty richness. My friend who doesn't like anchovies loved it as much as I who do like the little fish!  Then she had a peppered pasta -a crinkly thick spaghetti cooked perfectly in salted water and was served with much black pepper as a garnish and was terrific-the bland (and not in a bad way) bite of the spaghetti against the heat of the pepper was terrific.  I had a rich flavorful chicken broth (though to be really honest it had the funny aftertaste of chemically made broth-though I feel certain it was all made from scratch and just used a flavor I didn't recognize) with egg in it-like an Italian egg drop soup.  Very luxurious but not fattening! I was actually expecting pasta in it so was very pleasantly surprised that it wasn't there. Though let's be real here-I never met a noodle I didn't like!  I had affogato for dessert-one of my favorites and they gave it to me with chocolate ice cream (I would never have ordered it with the standard of vanilla with espresso poured over it).  My friend and I were thrilled with the portion sizes which were admitedly on the small side but she is a model and model thin and I am a fat person hiding in a thin person's body who has to watch very carefully what I eat, so as I say we were quite happy.
What I don't understand about the newest fancy but ultra fabulous chic hotels is why they are opening pretty, casual, country decorated restaurants. The GPH is an ultra cool modern colorful artist decorated hotel and yet the restaurant has checkered tableclothes-the Standard Grill in the Standard Hotel is a similiar situation (more about that another day and I apologize for offering my life to you out of order :)).

Last night I had dinner plans with an old friend who was joing my regular Wed night glam friend plans.  We all wanted exceptional but inexpensive food so I looked through my Michelin guide and found, Rhong-Tiam a Thai restaurant with 1 star and penny symbols, not dollar signs. Who would have thought such a combination possible!!!  Once I looked at the picture my glam friend and I remembered we had been there before, when we needed to eat inexpensively and liked it so we made the plans.

He came to my office to pick me up but just before he arrived my other friend found she had to work late after all. Tres triste.  Strangely for me, I had been craving the chili shrimp burrito from the deli next door which is highly unusual as Mexican is the one cuisine I really dislike.  My glam friend loves it so he took advantage of his golden opportunity-as I never suggest Mexican to him. Unfortunately, that part of the deli was closed but by now he now had Mexican on the brain so I was  to try the bar at Rosa Mexicana which was too crowded so we walked from 18th and 5th to Laguardia and 3rd to the original Thai place, Plan A, after all and we found, upon arrival was closed?!?!?! A man standing outside kept whispering "next door, next door" so we went next door to a Cuban place (Favela Cubano) which turned out to be delicious (though more of a pan-Latin cafe, than a specific or authentic Cuban place). I often have to stay away from Cuban food for how pork heavy it is but I looked at the menu and saw many other options.  I started with the banana/chicken/tomato/almond salad which really delicious and again an odd choice for me as I don't like lettuce very much and I don't eat meat (especially chicken which I detest). I then had the shrimp mango avocado salad, also, very good but I liked the other better while my glam friend had roast chicken and mashed potatoes. The chicken smelled divine and the skin was so deeply colored that at first I thought it was steak and it looked really juicy on the inside. We then went to an old college hangout of mine, Cafe Reggio, a very beatnik coffe house around forever and popular long before Starbucks existed and it was as charming as I remembered!

It was a day full of adventure and a very enjoyable one. Tonight my glam friend is coming to dinner at my house which I am of course looking forward to.  I just called Murray's in Grand Central Market to have them hold some buratta (his absolute favorite cheese) for me to make as part of an appetizer.  And Wild Edibles has my husband's favorite Scottish wild salmon and my favorite salmon roe.  I expect a very fab dinner with everyone having a favorite!

Apres Antiquing Lunch 2010

Every year my Mom, Aunt, cousin, and various friends go to a flea market that raises money for Alzheimer's research, which for the past few years has been held not terribly far from my house so I invite everyone back to my house for lunch. Giving me much joy.

Here’s how my roundabout brain works…how things come together, even years later… 

About 2 years ago I was invited to a caterer tasting at which was served little cups of lobster macaroni and cheese. So delicious!  I had been looking for the right place to serve such a thing ever since. For some reason, on Thanksgiving 09 I had decided I would serve it for this après antiquing lunch.  And now the day has arrived.  Over the past few days I have been thinking of what to serve around it, oh and I must also say that the original was with real lobster and mine will be with kosher and therefore pretend lobster-one of the very few fake things I will ever allow in my life.  We'll see how the tastes differ...I wanted the rest of lunch to be not at all fattening since the mac and cheese has so many calories.  I decided on the very old-fashioned wedge of ice berg lettuce salad with my hand made dill roasted garlic ranch dressing.  Also a number of years ago I was looking for pretty toothpicks, found a website that sold many different styles-of course got stuck with several hundred of them so I skewer a lot of garnishes. I am planning to skewer grape tomatoes to garnish the lettuce salad, though will probably serve them on the block of Himalayan salt which I really adore and tomatoes are always so much better with salt.  Alas my first course. 

The mac and cheese was delicious and very lobstery tasting. I used farfalle for the macaroni and stirred in the chopped fake lobster and of course the cheese sauce.  I would like to do it again but with thyme added.

For Chanukah my aunt gave me a set of casserole dishes in pale blue.  It was very sweet of her but what could I possibly do with blue casserole dishes-everything I wear and decorate with is black! I do wear and use color but always dark colors-navy, hunter green, cranberry, brown-those are the non-black colors in my life.  I do admit that there a few brights I will wear/use turquoise, fuchsia but they are also deep dark colors in their own way. Baby blue is just not in my repertoire. I didn't know how to set the table... I talked to my mom and we came up with a palette of white and navy with pale blue accents.  I brought my white dairy dishes up from the basement and put them on the table. Then I added clear Depression glass salad plates in a pattern called Cubist so lots of texture.  I remembered my vintage 50's Tom Collins glasses had pale blue and gold stripes and others with pale blue and gold bubbles so added them. I tried to alternate the navy salad plates with the clear ones but they really didn't work with the pale blue stripes of the glasses so I alternated two different clear plate choices. I added vintage silverware that was my Grandmother's and was then faced with what napkins to use. As I say, I really don't have much blue to choose from. I took some pale blue jacquard napkins that I brought home from Paris out of a closet that I was saving as part of a gift for my cousin (who uses a lot of blue!). I dug through my other napkins and pulled out a swirly patterned choice of pale blues, greens, and turquoise-they did work together, though not my favorite. Nothing I could do. Years ago I was walking past a shop in Brooklyn and fell in love with a short wide vase, almost a bowl in deep blue and green stripes which seemed to work too. I filled it with silver ornaments and added, in vodka shot glasses, 3 on each side of the bowl, white tulips. Again, not my favorite table but ultimately, it really did work.

 

 

Most importantly, we all had a delicious time even though the flea market was a disappointment-very few vendors were there and what they were selling was unappealing. Apparently, last year, when the economy had been a disaster no one bought anything and the vendors didn't bother to come this year.  As Jet’s fans the world over are saying-there is always next year… 

Scientific Dinner Party

On Saturday night I had a dinner party and enjoyed myself immensely! 

 

For Chanukah, my wonderful husband gave me the first kit available to create molecular gastronomy (Wikipedia explains: In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the term started to be used to describe a new style of cooking in which some chefs began to explore new possibilities in the kitchen by embracing science, research, technological advances in equipment and various natural gums and hydrocolloids produced by the commercial food processing industry) at home and I was very excited to try it.  As a person who swipes ideas from restaurants all the time it was frustrating to me that there were techniques and equipment I had no reasonable access to-but this is one barrier that is down and I am thrilled.  Sous-vide is the next hurdle and I have seen articles describing the home cook equipment but they are still very large and over $500 so I’m not ready.   (Wikipedia also explains: French for "under vacuum", is a method of cooking that is intended to maintain the integrity of ingredients by heating them for an extended period at relatively low temperatures. Food is cooked for a long time, sometimes well over 24 hours. Unlike cooking in a slow cooker, sous-vide cooking uses airtight plastic bags placed in hot water well below boiling point (usually around 60°C or 140°F).

A friend at work asked me to do the dinner party-who am I to say no to such a request…I find 4-6 to be  perfect dinner party numbers and if I am the only girl among several boys so much the better!!!!  I knew immediately that I would make the brisket braised in beer once again (it was really good and I had the 6 pack of porter left).  Then I had to decide on an appetizer.  I had trouble thinking of what to serve, I kept thinking of things but rejecting them.  I looked through various, lists, magazines and books but nothing really grabbed me for some reason.  Then I came across “beef sushi”on the Epicurious website and thought how brilliant it would be to make carrot juice into caviar using my molecular gastronomy kit-all so witty a play on sushi.  Get carrot juice at the health food store, grill strip steak, while it’s grilling boil strips of carrots, make a basil/caper/mustard pesto of sorts-spread the carrot strips onto the sushi mat, carefully spread the pesto onto the (slippery and moving) carrot strips, then lay the slices of meat over the carrot strips and roll.  I rolled the whole thing onto a piece of plastic wrap and made a very tight cylinder then refrigerated it for several hours, making the cutting into smaller rolls like sushi much easier.  Just before your guests come mix the carrot juice with the thickener in your “science box” and let it sit until ready for it.  Just before serving (though you know how I hate working carefully in the kitchen when guests are in the living room, but it could not be helped, and I think the next time I can let the finished product sit for longer than the instructions say, meaning I can do it more ahead of time.) put together the special calcium somethingorother bath and with the plastic eyedropper also supplied in the kit, slowly drop one carrot juice drop at a time into the calcium thingy.  I want to get a glass eye dropper as I think it will work out better with it for next time, the plastic dropper is too soft and more than one drop comes out at a time making a glob rather than a caviar shaped ball.  But it really looked like salmon roe on my “sushi” and then I threw some black sesame seeds over it-trés trés professional!  And so exciting that it worked!!!!!!!!!

My glam friend was one of my guests and he explained to me why he has to have jello shots at his annual holiday party-the colors go with Christmas and people really love them, which I do understand but what I don’t understand is why they have to be the chemically fake neon kind when one can make jello from scratch very easily and to my standards. J  So, to show him, for an amuse bouche-pre dessert, I made espresso/Kahlua jello shots in vintage 1930’s glass jello cups.  They were delicious especially when we drizzled my chocolate sauce onto them.  Then I served chocolate cake and cinnamon cookies to dunk in the chocolate.

My glam friend and his boyfriend stayed over after dinner and we had a glam breakfast on Sunday morning.  I poached eggs for the first time-partially because I wanted to and partially because his boyfriend went to culinary school and is a professional baker, so he really knew how to poach the eggs.  They tasted just like poached eggs but what a pain in the neck!!  You could only do one at a time, I suppose I could have had more pots of boiling water going too but…We had fun hanging out in the kitchen, watching the eggs boil (and watching me try to fish the slippery little guys out of the water), munching on the smoked salmon that was supposed to be on the English muffins, on goat cheese, and on buratta (a spectacular, luxurious cheese that is a nugget of fresh mozzarella made from cream around which is wrapped mozzarella made from milk) and crackers.  Finally we were able to sit at the dining room table and had a marvelous breakfast.

I look forward to this weekend when I am going antiquing and serving lunch to friends…more about that next week.

Another Magazine Pet Peeve

I must apologize for taking so long to post anything new, I've had a few, ok, many, technical difficulties with Typepad.  They seem to be settled now and I have a few pieces typed and waiting and will post them in the next day or two...

 Here is another fashion magazine pet peeve of mine-the best dressed list. In the olden days of the 1940's and 50's when Elanor Lambert created her best dressed list, I think it really meant something. Ms. Lambert was a very wise PR exec and she created the list to help American fashion become more know or popular.  It was the first time American women didn't have Paris to look to as the pinnacle of fashion or as inspiration because the Nazi occupation of Paris cut the city off from the rest of the world.  In fact, Hitler wanted to move the Couture to Berlin or Vienna but the brilliant Lucien Lelong,

Lucien LELONG,	Lucien	Lucien	Lucien Lelong	Lucien Lelong

a couturier and the President of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture kept fobbing him off  (The Chambre is like the union or guild of couturiers).  He kept saying yes yes yes to Hitler and reminding him that the infrastructure of Couture was all in France and couldn't possibly be moved but that he would look into it.  He really took his life in his hands by denying Hitler and the world has him to thank for it.  But there was no more shipping of designs, gowns, or socialites from Europe to the US-we had to look to our own talent to create what we wore.  And that we did.  Claire McCardell was one of the very first American designers to make a mark in the history of fashion.  Hattie Carnegie too.

Because there was only 1 list it was an authority-now anyone can make one and slap it up on the internet. What do any of them mean, really? Vogue does a best dressed list every month, I think (I ignore it so I can't quite remember how often it is) and now Bazaar has begun one. Is this like giving every kid in the class an award of some kind at the end of the year so no one takes a blow to the self esteem? And do we really have to worry about models and actresses' self esteem?  In those days we saw really well dress women on the list, women like Babe Paley, Mona Bismark, and Jackie Kennedy.

AND!!!! These (silly) best dressed lists of the magazine's seem to show only actresses in evening gowns!?!?!?! While I'm as thrilled to look at gorgeous and high fashion evening gowns as the next glamor girl I cannot believe that if you wear jeans and a T-shirt everyday and put on a gown a few nights a year you really get to be on anyone's best dressed list! NO! You must be well dressed all the time. My husband runs into actresses all the time while working and he often reports that each wears a shrunken jacket, a T and jeans which have begun to morph into boyfriend jackets and jeans-each a fashionable look but worthy of a best dressed list? I don't think so.

And now that award show season has begun it can only get worse...

Jeans to work and a coffee bar

As I've mentioned many times before, I'm a very dressed up person and don't need or want to wear jeans very often. Last week, however, I have shocked myself (and anyone else in the office) and worn them every day! I have never done that before in my life!!!! It just worked out that I was wearing them on Monday as I was going to the movies with my fashion friend who would be wearing them. Tue I could have dressed but I realized that Wed I was going out with my glam friend who would be wearing jeans and Thursday it was supposed to snow so it seemed best to wear jeans. So I acquiesced to the pattern and wore them Tuesday as well.

I wore all of my current pairs only once and I was surprised to realize that I had so many pairs of current jeans and that I could probably go 10 or 12 days without repeating but let me remind you that that will never happen. Although I enjoyed all the outfits I put together, including jackets from Galliano and vintage Donna Karan, I think Wednesday's outfit was my favorite. Bootleg jeans I got in Paris and fit like the proverbial glove, a ruffly white tuxedo shirt out over the jeans (which I also rarely do), a vintage black shrunken jacket (late 50's) sporting 3 rhinestone buttons, and a vintage pearl necklace that has it's own story-2 actually, which I will tell you in a moment, with Ralph Lauren black label high heel booties. The outfit was cool and elegant, casual but very polished. And my (gay) glam friend even said I was sexy!!

Ok. The pearl's stories. My gorgeous husband bought this necklace for me for my birthday a few years ago at the Pier Antique Show and I loved it on sight! It's about 10 strands of pearls that go around your back of your neck like a lariat and fasten with a rhinestone paisley that sits on the top of the breastbone. Hanging from that clasp are 10 more strands of pearls that cascade down, each ending in a teardrop pearl. It's a 1950's cocktail necklace from the days when women could still wear a cocktail dress or suit and it's tragic that we don't really do it anymore. I have the opportunity to do it every once in a while though not nearly often enough to suit my taste so I lamented ever wearing my gorgeous necklace. I was telling the story to a woman I used to work with who said, "how could you possibly be so dumb-wear it with jeans and a T-shirt". Well, we all know how I feel about that idea but I did start wearing it with wide leg jeans, a T-shirt, a shrunken jacket, and heels. Then yesterday, I came up with wearing it with a cocktail jacket, tuxedo shirt and jeans-I think it finally found it's real home in such an outfit.

This outfit and my glam friend went to the movies (The Young Victoria, which we loved!!!!!!!!!!!!! Though it was actually the second time I saw it as when I saw it with my fashion friend on Monday night the projector broke about 15 minutes before the end so we were given free passes and a refund) then to the bar at the newly opened Ace Hotel. We started at the Stumptown Roasters coffee bar. The coffee was rich and flavorful, gorgeous colors and watching the barista work through his process was fascinating. Since I was asking questions, he explained as he worked. Very fun! We brought our drinks into the lobby bar where we sat on deep (but not too deep) soft (but not too soft) sofas next to some really good looking and interesting people. Eventually the obnoxious waitress (who periodically stuck her condescending butt in our faces leaning over us to serve others but never once asked us if we wanted anything) started bothering us because we were sitting too long without ordering anything else. A charming and adorable manager came over and asked us if we wanted anything else and we ordered-my friend a beer and we shared a cheese platter. The room is cool, as these new hotels are. Walls and ceiling painted black but the gorgeous old moldings were still there. Fascinating but modern chandeliers (although I love old fashioned crystal chandeliers in a renovated space it would have been the obvious choice and I did like that the chandeliers were modern and still important) mixed with some of the original gas sconces. There was one area over the steps to the restrooms and gymnasium that we didn't understand. My glam friend thought it looked like a Nazi interrogation room-undecorated smooth black walls with single bulb sconces forcing one shaft of light down each wall-I can understand why he thought that. I thought it looked like unfinished plywood that they forgot to decorate.  I thought about it for a few days and wondered what the hotel was before it was the Ace Hotel, thinking that that awkward space was something that needed to be covered up, but alas no, this was always a hotel.  It was the Breslin before the Ace which is interesting since the new restaurant in the hotel is called the Breslin.  Before that it was an old fashioned ladies hotel which makes perfect sense as it's on 29th St just west of 5th Ave and therefore just off the Ladies Mile.  Apparently there was hotel after hotel on 29th St in late 19th and early 20th centuries, again making perfect sense.  At that time, 5th Avenue between 14th St and 23rd St, part of what we call the Flatiron District was The Ladies Mile. There was shop after shop and little tea rooms where wealthy, proper, ladies could safely go shopping alone or in groups at a time in social history that women were not encouraged to do much alone.  The Flatiron Building itself was a modern marvel in 1902 and the tallest building in the City as late as the 20's.   At the time, Harlem was farmland, the country and 23rd St., 34th St., were the outer reaches of the city.  As it is today, Manhattan was a draw for people all over the world and ladies could come shopping in this glamourous uptown neighborhood and even stay in a hotel.