But What About Donald Duck?

Saturday, July 11, 2026

My niece Susan was visiting her father in New Jersey from Shanghai along with her older son Tomas from California and her daughter Emma from Minnesota. We were, of course, drawn to this multigenerational assemblage. The gathering inevitably occurred at Seasons 52, 217 Lafayette Avenue, Edison, New Jersey, which should not surprise regular readers. This location, very close to my brother’s home, is one of over 40 nationally. Maybe the others stink, but this one consistently satisfies us. The tables are well spread out, service is attentive, the food is good and they have Coke Zero on tap.

I started with a bowl of lobster bisque, garnished with fresh lobster and roasted corn relish, topped with a splash of sherry and chives ($11.50). It seemed a little thicker than necessary. For a main course, I chose “Wood-grilled shrimp that are caramelized and served over stone-ground grits with tomatoes, savory bacon and chorizo” ($25). This is the second time ever that I had shrimp and grits, the first in Charlotte, North Carolina. Again, I was disappointed. I don’t fault the kitchen; the dish just isn’t very interesting. It’s less than the sum of its parts.

On the other hand, the desserts are always interesting. They sound familiar, but they are deconstructed and served in tall shot glasses in an attempt to keep the calorie count down. All are $5. I had a raspberry chocolate chip mini cannoli, the shell kept separate from the filling. Yes, it was very good, as were the blueberry and lemon, the turtle cheesecake, and the chocolate peanut butter concoctions. 

Sunday, July 12, 2026

I know at least one very nice Karen; I don’t know any Chads. Without any other information, those names supposedly carry the most negative connotations, “with Donald, John, and Damien appearing frequently among the names most likely to trigger a negative reaction when heard for the first time.”

https://studyfinds.com/karen-chad-most-judged-first-names-in-america/

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There’s no place like home, it was once said. However, starting in the middle of the last century, young adults (“roughly 20 to 35 years of age” https://dictionary.apa.org/adulthood) seemed to prefer anywhere but home. For many of us, an apartment lease quickly followed a diploma. Today, economic conditions have reversed the tide. “The Crowded Nest: More Adults Are Living With Their Parents” https://www.realtor.com/research/adults-living-with-parents-june-26/

Here is a visualization of the situation.

Monday, July 13, 2026

We traveled to Kenya and Tanzania in 2018, spending most of our time observing animals. There were thrilling sights day after day. Giraffes might have been my favorite; there is simply nothing like them. There were also hundreds and hundreds of zebras, an impressive sight. I understand that every stripe pattern is unique, although I don’t know how you prove it. 

There is a recent study of the value of stripes to a zebra. It has been established that zebras are less the target of flies than monotonic animals. Researchers in Japan painted stripes on cows and found that they too were less bothered by flies. The stripes did it, although exactly why remains uncertain. Presumably, they are waiting for flies to testify.

https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/zebra-stripes-painted-cows-biting-flies-ig-nobel-prize-2025-125091900536_1.html

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Gentleman Jerry and I had lunch at Simply Noodles, 267 Amsterdam Avenue, a small, efficient joint. Noodles, dumplings and some miscellaneous items are on the menu. We shared a thin, semi crispy scallion pancake ($8). I had a Rainbow Dumplings assortment, vegetable, pork, chicken, beef and shrimp pot stickers, in distinctive wrappers ($11). It was all very good, but not gut busting.

Wednesday, July 15, 2026

My hope for an England-France World Cup final will have to wait four years, although they compete Saturday afternoon for third place if anyone cares.

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Today is Margie’s birthday and her sisters made it special. Betsy, younger, was the host (or is she still the hostess? [if not, what about Hostess Cupcakes?]) of a lovely dinner party. Betsy prepared an intricate DIY sushi meal. It was great fun, if not occasionally messy, wrapping seaweed around salmon, tuna, cucumber, sweet potato, panko, sesame seed, scallion, wasabi, soy sauce, rice and aioli.

Susan, older, baked a delicious chocolate birthday cake and, blessedly, there was enough left over to give me a piece to take home.

Thursday, July 16, 2026

It’s that time of year again, the New York City Department of Education announcing the results of the competitive process for admission to nine selective high schools. Eight rely solely on a written examination; one, devoted to the arts, use auditions and/or portfolios. 

Stuyvesant High School, Alma Mater of my brother, Alan, Ariel, Arthur, Benjamin, Burt, Fred, Ghada, Hank, Jenny, Margarita, Mark, Marty, Melanie, Nicky, Pete, Ronnie, Samuel, Steve and me, as well as any number of departed friends and relatives, offers the most disturbing picture. Admission has been granted to 777 new students for the upcoming year, only three identified as Black. This is not an instance of white supremacy; 133 are identified as white. Asian students, predominantly Chinese, are the core group, 534. 

With each year’s results, there are calls to abandon the test, including New York’s Democratic Socialist mayor, himself a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, another elite institution. John McWhorter, Associate Professor of Linguistics at Columbia University, examines the issue and concludes that “[s]aying that the analytical reasoning required by standardized tests is incompatible with Blackness sounds a lot like saying Black people are less intelligent than others and should settle for excellence in sports and entertainment but not academia.” 

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/opinion/new-york-high-school-test-racism.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

For years, I have unsuccessfully been trying to find the quote by Arthur Ashe, the Black tennis star, to the effect that if kids applied themselves as intently to academics as they did to athletics, they might achieve comparable success. Even if he never expressed that directly, I believe it. 

Friday, July 17, 2026

Urban Hawker, 135 West 50th Street, a pan-Asian food hall, populated by Singaporean vendors, is closing today. Pan-Asian meant Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian and Malay cuisines. Good Neighbor Trent just returned from a visit to Singapore where, he told me, there were similar enterprises. 

The building has changed ownership, effecting a change of plans for the space. I will miss it. The variety and quality were high. Prices were almost reasonable. Maybe I have to go to Singapore.

Friday, July 17, 2026

It was another date night, dinner and a show. We ate at Frena, 773 Tenth Avenue, a newish Middle Eastern restaurant. It’s fairly large, a dozen tables outside, a bar with 10 stools and about two dozen tables inside arrayed at a 90° angle. The decor is an attractive combination of off-white, beige and tan, the wooden furniture mahogany and wicker. It was empty when we walked in at 5:15 PM and full 45 minutes later.

We were only moderately hungry but enjoyed what we ordered and shared. We had a trio of dips, baba ganoush, roasted eggplant, tahini, lemon juice, and garlic; labne, creamy yogurt; and matbucha, red peppers, tomatoes, garlic and olive oil ($28), served with a freshly baked bread, brushed with olive oil, Maldon salt (sea salt harvested in Maldon, England), rosemary and sage. The bread was so good we had another loaf for $11. Then, we had wasabi and pepper crusted tuna, four slices, roughly 2" square, tasting very good, but overpriced. With this caveat, put this place on your list.

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A good meal and a great parking space would have made for a successful night out even if the show was a dud. However, Birthright by Jonathan Spector, winner of a Tony last year for Eureka Day, earned very positive reviews from the New York Times and America's Favorite Epidemiologist. Of course, I quibbled, but you should not be deterred. The play deals with a group of young adult (see above) Jews weeks after they return from an all-expense paid trip to Israel on the Birthright program. In three acts with two intermissions (a rarity these days), their interrelations and their attitudes about Israel are tested. It would be a rare Jew outside ultra-Orthodox circles, however, who doesn't share their concerns.   

    

Married To Your Job?

Saturday, July 4, 2026

“A New York Times review of securities filings from nearly 500 companies showed that they avoided taxes by attributing hundreds of billions of dollars in earnings to low- or no-tax foreign locales like Cyprus, Bermuda, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. Often, corporations funneled the profits through subsidiaries in places where they had no employees, offices or customers.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/29/business/economy/offshore-tax-havens-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Why didn’t I think of that?

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Fifty years ago today, I celebrated the Bicentennial with my Original Wife on the beach at Santa Monica, California. We must have been with other people, but I can’t remember any other details. Today started with my Real Wife on our living room sofa, as usual.

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An article in the New York Times states "In his two decades on the court, Justice Alito has emerged as one of the most reliable conservative votes.” I would substitute farbissener for reliable, resorting to the street language of my people. It means embittered, sullen, “someone who not only isn’t enjoying herself, but is determined to make sure that nobody else has any enjoyment either.” (https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/the-farbissen-faction/). 

Remember Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) which took constitutional protection away from a woman’s right to an abortion? Alito wrote the majority opinion stating that Roe v. Wade (1973), the precedent on the matter, “was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.” 

I think Alito actually first wrote those words as soon as he was confirmed for his seat on the Supreme Court on January 31, 2006, waiting for the day that he could use them. He might have been the inspiration for Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns on The Simpsons, except Alito emerged in public well after Burns. 

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We got off the sofa this evening and went to Carole Kessner’s 28th floor apartment for dessert and to see the holiday fireworks. Unfortunately, another high-rise building was directly in our line of sight, but that gave us more time to enjoy the eats. I had an impeccably poached pear, cookies and ice cream, almost every vital food group.

Carole’s biography of Marie Syrkin, educator, writer, Zionist advocate, won the 2009 National Jewish Book Award for Biography. She described the origin of their relationship when Carole was in Syrkin’s English literature class at Brandeis University. She was assigned to write a paper on King Lear over Winter break, but a marriage proposal and other stuff kept her busy and distracted.

Just before going back to campus, a cousin offered her a well-received paper on King Lear written for another college. Carole took the paper and submitted it. “See me” was Syrkin’s comment. When they met, Syrkin expressed her doubt that Carole wrote the paper and Carole quickly confessed. Syrkin accepted her explanation and they formed a lifelong bond.

Sunday, July 5, 2026

Today’s chuckle:

“The Justice Department on Saturday forcefully argued that an offer from India’s richest man, Gautam Adani, to invest billions of dollars in the United States played no role in the department’s decision to abandon criminal charges against him.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/04/nyregion/adani-justice-department.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

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We had dinner with Barbara and Bernie, cousins of cousins, at Nisi Estiatorio, 32-07 30th Avenue, Astoria, a relatively new Greek restaurant. It's a large, asymmetrical space, painted white with touches of blue. Undeservedly, it was almost empty at dinner time.  I say undeservedly because it proved to be a very good restaurant, with good service and good food. 

We started with a generous assortment of dips and spreads, tzatziki (yogurt and cucumber dip), tirokafteri (feta cheese, red peppers, and olive oil), skordalia (potato and garlic dip), and melitzanosalata (eggplant dip), accompanied by fresh pita ($26). With a couple of beers we could have stopped here, but we persevered. I nibbled some of the large horiatiki sataIa (Greek salad) shared with the others and then I had paidakia arnista, three lamb rib chops, with thick wedges of lemon potatoes, overpriced at $51. In retrospect, I'm not sure what I expected for $51. 

Two very nice desserts came gratis, bougatsa, custard cream pie, and something similar but different. A collateral benefit of visiting Nisi Estiatorio is the giant fruit and vegetable market right across the street, white peaches, yellow peaches, red watermelon, yellow watermelon, red, yellow, green and orange peppers, colorful displays at lower than Manhattan prices.

Monday, July 6, 2026

Naz reminded me that we had not had lunch together for a while, so we met at Little Pine, 125 Division Street, yards from 13 Essex Street, Mother Ruth Gotthelf's birthplace. My Aunt Sophie, my mother's older sister, told me that a Chinese family lived across the hall, but I am sure that none of our family ate Chinese food back then.

Little Pine is a new restaurant, featuring Northeastern Chinese (a/k/a Dongbei) food, with the feel of a potentate's tasteful home, no accounting for the name, however. Note that if you look up Little Pine, you might find reviews for a Los Angeles joint with the same name serving Italian food or a state park in Pennsylvania.

Everything we ate was very good. We chose one of the dozen lunch specials to build on, all with a cup of egg drop soup, a small salad and white rice for $13. We had fish fillets in black bean sauce, Naz taking the salad, me the soup. 

Then, we ordered Rainbow Glass Noodle Salad ($18) and Traditional Dongbei Sweet and Sour Pork ($23). The noodles weren’t multicolored, the vegetables on the plate were, making a tasty combination. Sweet and sour pork is a cliché in most Chinese restaurants, but not here. The meat is pounded thin and delicately coated before frying. The sauce was not sticky, gluey, the result memorable. We ended with Crispy Milk Custard, six cheroot-sized, coconut-coated cylinders ($11). 

Naz had printed a helpful Reddit review to help with our ordering. When a young sailor sat down by himself, I gave him a copy, too.

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I found an article by Nicholas Lemann, former Dean of Columbia University’s School of Journalism, to be very insightful. “It’s an illusion to think that Jewishness can ever be entirely comfortable or that our identity can be made to comport seamlessly with some set of universal ideals. We are, historically and also in the present, much more outsiders than insiders.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/opinion/jewish-america-identity.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Thursday, July 9, 2026

Here is a fascinating chart matching jobs and divorce rates.

I admit to favoring doctors over actuaries.

Friday, July 10, 2026 

Whether you have marriage in mind or not, but you want to impress your date this weekend, here are our dining suggestions. Top 20 Fast Food Chains in America,  According to the American Consumer Satisfaction Index
​	Chain​	2025 Score​	​2026 Score
1	Jersey Mike’s	N/A	84
2	Chick-fil-A	83	83
3	Jimmy John’s	N/A	81
4	Panda Express	80	81
5	KFC	77	80
6	Papa Johns	79	80
7	Pizza Hut	79	80
8	Domino’s	78	79
9	Raising Cane’s	N/A	79
10	Starbucks	80	79
11	Subway	76	79
12	Burger King	77	78
13	Culver’s	78	78
14	Dunkin’	78	78
15	Little Caesars	77	78
16	Panera Bread	79	78
17	Arby’s	79	77
18	Chipotle	76	77
19	Sonic	73	77
20	Wendy’s	75	77

Consumers ranked the nation’s largest chains on a number of factors (including quality, value, and reliability).

What I found most interesting is how close the scores are. Are they basically all operating at the same high level or are they all essentially mediocre?

Hot and Spicy

I apologize for the transmission errors that plagued some of you last week. I hope that it all got sorted out eventually.

Saturday, June 27, 2026

I went on a date this evening, dinner and a movie. Fortunately, my young bride was my date. We ate at Long Island Dumplings, 513 Sixth Avenue, a very informal joint that offers a wide variety of dumplings, dim sum and noodles. You can order on an electronic tablet or with a real live human being. Seating is very limited, two four-tops and a counter with four stools. 

I had good siu mai, $6 for four cylinders of chopped shrimp and pork, and Crispy Chicken Curry Buns, three for $8 the size of golf balls. They were not particularly crispy and weak on the curry, but passable. I enjoyed one of my better half's steamed vegetable dumplings, six for $8.75. It tasted very fresh, with a delicate wrapper. While Long Island Dumplings is one block west and one-and-a-half blocks north of where I attended law school, unfortunately it appeared about 25 years too late to make it my home away from home. 

You are guaranteed not to see a superhero movie at the Quad Cinema, 50 West 13th Street. We went there to see For the Love of a Woman, an Italian production in English set in Israel. It is about a young woman in the late 1970s who reluctantly explores her past as instructed by a letter from her mother delivered after her mother’s death. The woman travels to Israel, which she left as a small child in the 1930s, and learns that her personal history is far more complex than she ever imagined. 

The movie often flashes back to Palestine in the 1930s, but never addresses the two overarching issues in modern Israeli life, the conflicts between Jews and Arabs and between secular and observant Jews. And that’s good, because there is enough drama and tension in the lives explored. It might be hard to find, but For the Love of a Woman is worth tracking down.

Sunday, June 28, 2026

Happy Birthday Mel Brooks, 100 years young. We celebrated by going to dinner at Sala Thai, 307 Amsterdam Avenue, which was very busy although he wasn't there. Its capacity is very deceptive. Walking in you barely see a table or two, but the joint keeps going and going further back and opens to a newly added side room. Walls and ceiling are covered by wood panels, giving a warm feeling. 

Especially warm was the Kee Mao Beef that I ordered, a version of drunken noodles, broad, flat noodles stir-fried with chili, garlic, mushrooms, oyster sauce and soy sauce ($20). It came very spicy, just at the limit of my tolerance, a drink of water following every bite until I made all gone. I had gotten off to a good start with Duck Roti Bouquet, duck, cucumber, scallion, radish and Hoisin mayonnaise wrapped in a crêpe ($16).

Monday, June 29, 2026

You might have to change your travel plans. The Pekin Noodle Parlor, 117 South Main Street, Butte, Montana, the longest operating Chinese restaurant in the country, has closed after 117 years. The owner is reportedly ill and no one is interested in succeeding him. This loss is apparently of more historic than gastronomic significance. From what I have read, the food was enjoyed only by folks who never left Butte, Montana. https://www.reddit.com/r/chinesecooking/comments/1s7nfcz/impressions_of_pekin_noodle_parlor_oldestchinese/?solution=e8b811e8545f9fa4e8b811e8545f9fa4&js_challenge=1&token=7afd7253fec22262ff1c52b1703fe9ec739def366d6d464a7c1e12d19637b808&jsc_orig_r=

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

There were several reasons to go to Lungi, South Indian & Sri Lankan Restaurant, 1136 First Avenue. It's relatively new; it just received a positive review in the New York Times (June 2, 2026); our companions Eva and Jerry served in Sri Lanka in the Peace Corps. In all, it was a wise choice. We had plenty of good food, somewhat similar but different from other South Asian meals.

We shared just about everything -- Cauliflower 65, cauliflower fritters tossed in a Manchurian sauce ($16), an excellent dish with an undecipherable name; Masala Dosa, big, flat crêpe stuffed with mashed potatoes ($25); Kari Dosa, big, flat crêpe stuffed with minced chicken ($27); Chicken Chettinad, chicken simmered with curry leaves, coconut and freshly ground spices ($32); lamb Kothu, lamb stir-fried with shredded paratha (bread), vegetables, onions and egg ($30). There was more, but I failed to record everything that we ate. You should visit Lungi, with or without your pencil.

Wednesday, July 1, 2026

When I made a lunch date with Irwin Pronin CCNY Student Council President for Life, we agreed to meet at Our New Place Chinese Restaurant, 242 East 79th Street. When I got there, there were two surprises, the name had changed to Cao Tang New Sichuan Cuisine and something broke in the kitchen and they were unable to cook. However, I was early, so I sat in the airconditioned premises and waited for Irwin, prepared to tell him that we had to go somewhere else. Then, fortune intervened, necessary repairs were made and lunch would be served.

We started with Chengdu Cold Noodles, ordered as "mild spicy" delivered as hot, hot ($9.95). Then, we splurged on Peking Duck, 1/2 for $38.95, complete with four pancakes, scallions, cucumbers and Hoisin sauce. It was very good, almost as fat-free as you could expect from duck, but it was no more than 1/2 of 1/2 of a duck. The right size would have warranted a higher price, although a higher price might have deterred us, an issue for economists to ponder.

On the way home, I stopped into the oddly named Salt & Straw, 360 Amsterdam Avenue, to pick up some much better than average ice cream. I bought pints of Birthday Cakes (sic) and Blackberries, "Hunks of birthday cake flecked with rainbow sprinkles folded into salted vanilla ice cream and ribboned with juicy blackberry jam," and chocolate babka w/ hazelnut fudge, $12.50 each. This proved to be a big bargain considering the resulting delight at Palazzo di Gotthelf.

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Speaking of pondering, the other day I explained Jack Benny and his famous slow reaction to the challenge "Your money or your life?" to someone a half century younger. Later, I realized that this alternative applied to the United States Supreme Court's somewhat contradictory rulings the other day on executive power, that is President's Trump's power over independent regulatory agencies. In Trump v. Slaughter, the court overruled the 91-year precedent of Humphrey's Executor v. United States, which limited the grounds for removal of a member of a federal regulatory agency. In this case, the agency was the Federal Trade Commission, which pursues fraud in business and consumer relations. Back-to-back with this decision was Trump v. Cook, where a different majority conditionally protected a Governor of the Federal Reserve System from removal. The real difference, Slaughter's job entailed protecting you and me, while Cook operates in the international finance playground, admission by invitation only. 

Friday, July 3, 2026

The Big Apple is the Baked Apple as the temperature reached 100° for the second day.