Travel Is Broadening

Monday, January 11, 2016

America's Favorite Epidemiologist flew away yesterday to the left coast, leaving me to my own devices and a nearly-full refrigerator.  I will struggle to survive.

The New York Times Sunday travel section was devoted to 52 places to go in 2016.   http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/07/travel/places-to-visit.html

First on the list is Mexico City and already I may be on a different page.  I can understand El Chapo yearning to visit Mexico City, stay in a nice hotel and go to a few museums.  Not me.  Of course, 52 alternatives offers many fine choices.  Bordeaux, France is second and has, among other attractions, a new "Franco-Chinese restaurant Dan."    http://www.danbordeaux.com

If you scroll through to Dan's menu, you'll see it's not Grandpa Alan's usual Chinese menu.  But, as we say in old Shanghai, chacun à son goût.  

Even the 51st choice, Sydney, Australia is a place I'd like to see, unlike the 52nd, Beaufort, South Carolina.  I have been to only 9 of the 52 destinations, some in the distant past and one or two on quick business trips, with no time to see anything except a hotel lobby.  Does this give me an agenda for my declining decades?  Probably not, because, as I will demonstrate in a couple of days, my wanderlust bends towards a familiar path.    So, sorry Abu Dhabi, I'll skip your artificial gilded cage and head to the worn sidewalks of London and Paris. 

I am embarrassed.  I own three pairs of jeans a/k/a dungarees or "tangerines" per Esther Malka Goldenberg, my beloved maternal grandmother.  I bought them at least a dozen years ago -- one pair blue-black, one regular blue, and one bleached light blue.  About four years ago, I tripped over a sidewalk stanchion and made a 1" rip in the knee of the regular blue pair.  Consequently, I wore them mainly at home or for short errands outside.  The blue-black pair was reserved for dressier occasions; I'm sorry to have to say that.  The bleached light blue pair then got heavy use and eventually began to show signs of wear and tear.  This weekend, a 6" slit opened up across my right knee.  Now, I would look like one of those people wearing expensive jeans, artfully abused to give the impression that garment and owner have labored mightily without concern for appearances.   I don't know if I can be seen in public like that.

Our stock market has taken a beating as a result of the economic turmoil in China, but does this explain the Wall Street Journal's foray into Jew food?  http://www.wsj.com/articles/pastrami-on-rye-the-6-best-places-to-eat-new-yorks-signature-sandwich-1452104866

Not surprisingly, my skepticism about market capitalism is confirmed by the WSJ listing as its third choice a pastrami sandwich with cheddar cheese, such a transgression that I am unwilling to even identify its purveyor.

Nick Lewin, an illustrious fellow graduate of Stuyvesant High School and CCNY, directed me to an article in the UK's Daily Mail about everyone's favorite candidate's phallicism.  

"The term appears to predate Trump's political life as well.  A May 1967 issue of 'The Campus,' a newspaper written by City College of New York students, described . . . a student government election.  As Ellen Turkish, running for Council '68, put it: 'We got schlonged'."  

Of course, I tried to find Ms. Turkish to share the good news with her.  However, the man who answered the phone at the only listing for Ellen Turkish, appropriately in Boca Raton, Florida, a haven for chilled New Yorkers, denied that his Ellen Turkish went to CCNY.  I'm not sure that I believe him, but I understand his reluctance to have his mother/wife/sister/grandmother/aunt/paramour associated with DT evermore.

While not a delicatessen, Red Farm, 2170 Broadway, has pastrami on its menu.  This upscale, innovative Chinese restaurant offers an egg roll filled with Katz's pastrami ($9.50).  Stony Brook Steve and I had lunch there today, ordering from the small plate and dim sum menu.  We had spicy crispy beef ($16), lamb dumplings with miso broth on the side ($14), and five flavor chicken dumplings ($14).  Each order had four dumplings; the large egg roll was cut in off and served with a delicious honey mustard sauce.  The beef was excellent, the portion small.  In sum, first rate food at very, very high prices.  

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Continuing the pastrami theme, Gary M. and I went to the Ranger game last night, eating at Ben's Kosher Delicatessen, 209 West 38th Street.  As usual there, I had a pastrami/corned beef combo on rye.  The meat here has been consistently good on several recent visits, and I can recommend it.  I don't know about the typical dinner dishes because no restaurant has ever approached the efforts of my mother or other mature Jewish cooks in my experience.  Have a big sandwich, the complimentary pickles and cole slaw, maybe crinkle-cut French fries, and an appropriate carbonated beverage.

The New York Times today, reflecting on the current woeful state of Brooklyn's professional hockey and basketball teams, brought up some disappointing history.  The Brooklyn Dodgers, my youthful passion (at an age when I had not yet discovered girls and my family could rarely afford to go to restaurants), drew very small crowds while playing their very best baseball.  "From 1950 to 1957, while the Dodgers earned four National League pennants, they never averaged 17,000 fans. In 1955, their [World Series] championship season, the Dodgers averaged crowds of 13,423."  For comparison, the Milwaukee Braves (occupying the space between the Boston Braves and the Atlanta Braves) averaged slightly less than twice as many fans in 1955.  Was it because men wore suits and ties and fedora hats to the ballpark?

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

I landed in London this morning after a comfortable flight on British Airways, and then took the underground to Euston Station, where I had a 3 hour wait for my train to the northwest coast of England.  I was delighted to have the company during my wait of David Brodie, who will be housing me in a few days when I return to London.    

The train took me to Arnside, a village set on an estuary off the Irish Sea.  I don't know what an estuary is, but it looks like a cross between a bay and a river.  There I was greeted by David Mervin, dear friend since graduate school, whose 50th wedding anniversary celebration (which, of course, had a major role for his wife Kathleen McConnell) my young bride and I attended in 2014. Arnside is in the part of England that has had unprecedented flooding recently, and the train passed by many fields, usually covered by crops or grazing sheep, now turned into ponds or lakes.  

Aside from the familiar Davids, I met two young men on my trip so far on interesting paths when ours intersected.  My seat mate on the airplane left Buenos Aires Monday, arrived in New York Tuesday, walked around Manhattan during the day, took the flight to London and was connecting to a flight to Geneva, where he was meeting a friend.  Sitting in Euston Station, I conversed with Gil, an Israeli, who came to England to go to a soccer game in Liverpool.  

Thursday, January 14, 2016

I learned this morning that 4-8-19-27-34 and the Powerball number 10 were the winning combination in the $1.5 billion multi-state lottery.  Alas, this was not what I saw on the ticket that I purchased before leaving, so my return to the US next week will be in no better than the crowded economy section of a scheduled British Air flight.

The Mervins have excellent Wi-Fi (something few of us could have claimed earlier this century), which allowed me to exchange tender messages with America's Favorite Epidemiologist, who returns to New York today.  

Kathleen and I went to an exhibition of Canaletto paintings and drawings in Kendal, a popular tourist town nearby dating back to at least the 8th century, while David was off to a meeting.  He returned proudly bearing the latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are?, a popular British genealogy magazine, which contained an article entitled "I'm related through marriage to an American icon," including a full page color photograph (the spell checker here wants me to add the u) of David and Kathleen.  That's because David's extensive research has disclosed that Kathleen is a direct descendant of a passenger on the Mayflower and is the fifth cousin three times removed of Abraham Lincoln.  

Friday, January 15, 2016

It was hard to leave the home of the relative of an American icon, but I got on a southbound train this afternoon to return to London and continue my vacation under the roof of David and Katherine Walker Brodie, whom I have known only 16 years compared to the 53 years for David and Kathleen McConnell Mervin.  The hospitality shown me in each household defies quantification, however.     

Reply

Forward

Rewinding

Monday, January 4, 2016

I'm not sure how to interpret my behavior last night, whether it represents an inability to deal with change, or a bold move into another direction.  This irresolution arose from leading Stony Brook Steve, his lovely wife and America's Favorite Epidemiologist to Wok Wok Southeast Asian Kitchen, 11 Mott Street, for dinner.  This joint has become a favorite of mine since opening in August, but now since retiring I won't be a couple of blocks away five days a week.  On the other hand, I went to Chinatown at night, for dinner, with women, a dramatic departure from my eating habits for the last six years.  In either case, we had a wonderful meal, including roti chicken wrap, roti beef wrap, crispy veggie spring rolls, spicy lemongrass chicken over rice, tangerine beef over rice, Wok Wok beef with fried egg in a stone rice bowl, and whole fried red snapper with mango salad.  By the way, the secret to going to Chinatown on Sunday night, when it is especially crowded, is to park next to the courthouses on Centre Street, Worth Street and Baxter Street, where there is almost no housing and the spaces are reserved for judges and staffmduring the work week.  Stay away from any street with operating businesses.  They will be near-impassable and parking spaces locked down for the whole weekend.   

If you want a fairly comprehensive look at New York Kosher and "Jewish-style" delicatessens, I recommend http://ny.eater.com/2015/12/22/10628778/best-nyc-delis.  Several authors contribute to this long piece, including the reliable Robert Sietsema, who wrote The Food Lover's Guide to the Best Ethnic Eating in New York City, apparently out of print, but you can come over and look at my copy.

If you don't get heartburn vicariously from reading about delicatessens generally, you might want to focus on knishes, an item not found at Whole Foods. http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/151240/dont-worry-the-knish-isnt-going-anywhere

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Julian Turley is a senior at the University of Michigan, who grew up in Grand Rapids.  He is quoted in today's paper regarding Michigan's efforts to maintain racial diversity in the face of the United States Supreme Court's efforts to return us to the 19th century.  I don't know him personally, but I am attracted to him, not necessarily because of his position as a black student on an overwhelmingly white campus.  Julian, aside from his academic pursuits, has set a goal of eating at every restaurant in Ann Arbor before he graduates.  The article gives no other information about his efforts, but I set out to quantify this.

Trip Advisor, in spite of the spurious reviews that I recently uncovered for a New York steakhouse, is still a reliable aggregator of details.  It lists 495 restaurants in Ann Arbor.  Of course, this includes multiples of certain chains, so I can only sympathize with Julian having to go from Denny's to Domino's Pizza to Olive Garden.  I believe that the 495 number is comparable to the over 300 (predominantly) Chinese restaurants that I have eaten in the last 6 years in Chinatown.  Trip Advisor apparently excludes the depressingly large number of mega-chains, such as Burger King, McDonald's, Subway, so it's near impossible to gauge the actual dimension of Julian's goal.  I find 24 Subways with Ann Arbor addresses, 17 McDonald's, 3 Burger Kings.  The good news is that Trip Advisor lists 23 Chinese restaurants; the bad news is the list includes Panera Bread and 3 Panda Expresses.  

I am writing to Julian (a real letter) to encourage him in his quest and invite him to meet me in New York sometime for a meal in Chinatown.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

There was a certain synchronicity last night when I had dinner with Professor David at Palm Too, 840 Second Avenue, which remains open even though the original site across the street has closed and the building put up for sale.  I lived across the street from the two restaurants for 23 years in my bachelor years and ate there several times a year.  Now, living across and up town, it's been close to a decade since I visited Palm/Palm Too.  So, with Professor David staying with us for two nights, I took advantage of our shared carnivorous instincts to have a big steak dinner.  The added frisson to dinner was the news just before we sat down that Mike Piazza had been voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  There were two moments in Piazza's career that will always remain with me, and probably with most Mets fans, the broken bat incident with Roger Clemens in game one of the 2000 World Series and the home run off the Braves in the first Mets game after 9/11.  By coincidence, Professor David, then law student David, and I were live in person at Yankee Stadium for that World Series game and were shocked by Clemens's manic behavior, probably fueled by steroids.  

On September 21, 2001, I was driving David and his date home from an evening with his mother, my bride-to-be, listening to the Mets game on the radio.  Just as we got off the West Side Highway, Piazza came to bat in the eighth inning with the Mets trailing 2-1, with Edgardo Alfonzo, the still under-appreciated second baseman, on base.  Shea Stadium was near full; the Mets wore caps embroidered with NYPD, FDNY and other first responding agencies.  Of course, we hated the Braves.  Even though the traffic light changed, I did not move the car forward.  Boom!  Piazza hit a towering home run to right field, nothing cheap, no doubt as soon as he swung.  I cried then, just as I am tearing up now.  The gash in our soul from the attack on the World Trade Center was far from healed.  If you got anywhere near downtown, you smelled the ruins which smoldered for ten months.  Now, 40,000+ crazed New Yorkers regathered for the first time and witnessed a heroic performance, many more of us following on television or radio.  Yes, it was only baseball, but it was us, the usually downtrodden Mets taking a big step to lead the battered city back to primacy.  

Thursday, January 7, 2016

David Goldfarb, another of the wonderful Davids in my life, invited me for lunch.  David, who takes his food and wine very seriously, prepared a lovely meal for the two of us.  The feature dish was branzino, baked with a little olive oil and herbs, served with oyster mushrooms, Italian flat beans and boiled potatoes.  The wine was a 2010 Vouvray from Clos de la Meslerie, a winery owned by a friend of David's.  Our dessert, in the classic style favored by David, was cheese, but not just ordinary cheese or even merely an extraordinary cheese.  While shopping at Eataly, 200 Fifth Avenue, a very upscale provisioner, David found Gotthelf Kase, a Swiss Emmentaler.  http://www.cheesesfromswitzerland.com/cheese-assortment/emmentaler-aop.html

David paid me a fine tribute, but I kind of hoped he had found ice cream or chocolates bearing my name.  

Friday, January 8, 2016

Judith Kaye died yesterday.  She was the first woman appointed to the New York State Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, and eventually became the chief judge.  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/nyregion/judith-s-kaye-first-woman-to-serve-as-new-yorks-chief-judge-dies-at-77.html

While she wrote some memorable opinions, her most important achievement, in my eyes, was the reform of our jury system.  She removed many excuses not to serve, thereby expanding the pool, getting the average citizen in and out quicker, making the experience more tolerable.  I met her causally outside the workplace a couple of times.  A few years ago, on Yom Kippur, America's Favorite Epidemiologist and I were walking home from services when I spotted Judith Kaye approaching us.  One reason I liked her was her resemblance to my young bride, stature, coloring, wardrobe, grace.  As we got close, I smiled at her and she beamed at us, apparently thinking that we really knew each other.  We exchanged holiday wishes and spoke for a few moments about a mutual friend, who customarily hosted a large break fast at the end of the Day of Atonement.  (Yes, Joe F., you.)  I hope that she came away having enjoyed our brief time together as much as we did.

Wound Down

Monday, December 28, 2015

While we returned from visiting the second and third generations in Massachusetts on Saturday, I remain on vacation for the next couple of days which that affords me time to catch up and stay current with my reading.  

The following story I found particularly absurd.  "Breaking Up? Let an App Do It for You"  Certainly, in my many years of bachelorhood, before and after marriages, I became well practiced in breaking and being broken.  It was never easy, on either end, and there were probably some occasions when the deed was done over the telephone.  "It's not you, it's me," works much better when the "you" is not looking into the eyes of the "me."  However, to remove yourself from the process entirely, delegating it to an app, is the behavior of a punk.

http://nyti.ms/1YDPH5F

One reference in the article, apart from the subject matter, bothered me: the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. "The Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society."  Cf. http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/

I guess I am being naive in objecting to a pseudo-scientific approach to bleeding-heart liberalism (my personal creed).  After all, the rich and powerful endow myriad institutes and foundations to rationalize their greed and selfishness.  

A more productive use of newsprint is found on-line in a compilation of useful charts and graphs summarizing the year that was in the United States.  The information ranges from the cheering -- unemployment at the lowest level since our financial geniuses flushed the toilet in 2008 -- and the gloomy -- gun murders per 100,000 people at 4 times the next developed nation.  http://nyti.ms/1kojiwV

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Another vacation day.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

"A first impression of burned sugar and dark bread crust gives way to baked fruit — wild blueberry pie?"  These words may put your salivary glands to work, but what is the New York Times talking about?  Wine, cheese, your next door neighbor?

Actually, it's a 2.2 ounce chocolate bar from Colombia selling for $10, one of 8 high end chocolate bars compared.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/29/dining/best-chocolate-bars.html

I admit that I like chocolate, preferably in a cookie baked by Jacques Torres or in mandelbrot baked by my daughter-in-law.  Note that only the former has a web site. (http://www.mrchocolate.com/), but, in any case, I'm spending my ten bucks on the limited edition Reese's Mini Sticks, real chocolate-covered wafers filled with peanut butter, $1.49 for a 6.3 ounces package at Lot-Less Closeouts (http://lot-less.com/), 97 Chambers Street, my preferred emporium, with change to spare.

The Boyz Club gathered in force at Jing Fong, 20 Elizabeth Street, to celebrate my last day of work.  The ten of us, who had to wait almost 40 minutes before at least a hundred diners were seated ahead of us, were served 31 plates, containing 13 or so discrete items.  At the end of the meal, we pledged to continue to gather, even if in the absence of our Chinatown base.  

Thursday, December 31, 2015

The last day of the year and the first day of my retirement.  Yesterday, cleaning out my desk, I took one last look at my collection of menus and business cards of the hundreds of (predominantly) Chinese restaurants where I have eaten lunch for exactly the last 6 years and rarely rued a bite.

  

Winding Down

Monday, December 21, 2015
Here is a contemporary approach to communications, inspired by the venerable Mad Libs™.  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/18/nyregion/emoji-your-holiday-card.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&moduleDetail=inside-nyt-region-3&module=inside-nyt-region&region=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region

Before Mel Brooks made very funny movies and broke Broadway records with “The Producers,” he had become immortal with his 2000-year-old man routines, recorded with Carl Reiner originally in 1961.  If you have never heard them, beg, borrow or steal copies, conveniently boxed as The 2000 Year Old Man: The Complete History (Amazon.com @ $32.99).  Besides getting an archival copy for yourself, consider giving one to a desperately ill person who retains good hearing.

I believe that the 2000-year-old man not only provided us great amusement, but profound insight into human behavior as well.  In many instances, he identified fear as the basis for our conduct.  On transportation: “an animal would growl, you'd go two miles in a minute.  Fear would be the main propulsion.”  
On singing: “Saying ‘a lion is eating my foot off’ didn't get nearly the attention that singing it did.”
On handshaking: Shaking hands began as a way of finding out if a man had a rock or a knife.  
On dancing: By dancing a man kept another person’s hands and feet busy, so he could not get hit or kicked.
On marriage: A man needed a woman to watch out behind him to make sure an animal didn’t creep up on him. 

Today, fear continues to shape our behavior.  I cite:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/us/lesson-on-islam-shuts-down-virginia-school-district.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=wide&state=standard&contentPlacement=2&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2015%2F12%2F19%2Fus%2Flesson-on-islam-shuts-down-virginia-school-district.html&eventName=Watching-article-click

In Virginia, home of Patrick Henry, a school district shut down because “Students in a world geography class at Riverheads High School in Staunton, Va., had been asked to try their hands at copying a passage known as the Shahada, or declaration of faith in Islam.”  The poor, dumb teacher meant it to “give you an idea of the artistic complexity of calligraphy,” not even telling the kids the meaning of the words.  While the teacher should probably have had the students copy a falafel recipe, the fear shown by some parents is notable.  

Mel Brooks proves that we can't go back far enough to find a world not governed by fear.  Today, Syrian refugees are the demons du jour.  Home of the Brave, we ain’t.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015
I was fortunate to be joined at lunch today by the Stanley family, Papa Jay, Momma Meg, Ben, Jack and Lucy, the latter three not yet of voting age, but as sensible as most of the announced presidential candidates, or more so.  We went to Jing Fong, 20 Elizabeth Street, that festive dim sum palace, an experience new to the younger guests.  I am pleased to report that no Yucks were heard during the meal, and all of us put away our fair share (adjusted for age and weight) of the food wheeled up to our table.

After lunch, I went to a white elephant party held by the more social segment of my department.  Not only was I able to foist off a totally unwanted, unneeded (although generously offered) gift from an earlier holiday season, but I came away with a box of Godiva chocolates, which may turn out to be my next gift to you.

While many conservative adults continue to fear anything that they don’t understand, “progressive youth” are overreacting in their own narrow-minded way.  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/22/us/oberlin-takes-culture-war-to-the-dining-hall.html

Students at this famously liberal college “are accusing the campus dining department and Bon Appétit Management Company, the main dining vendor, of a litany of offenses that range from cultural appropriation to cultural insensitivity.”  Ironically, the student complaints include black students wanting more fried chicken, while others are dissatisfied with the quality of the sushi.  “When you’re cooking a country’s dish for other people, including ones who have never tried the original dish before, you’re also representing the meaning of the dish as well as its culture,” Tomoyo Joshi, a student from Japan [said].  “So if people not from that heritage take food, modify it and serve it as ‘authentic,’ it is appropriative.”  I imagine that I might have cause to rail against most bagel sellers in the US.  

Wednesday, December 23, 2015
The Upper West Side's Power Couple took off for a visit to the second and third generations in Massachusetts this morning.  Our path allowed us to have lunch at Nardelli's Grinder Shoppe, 540 Plank Road, Waterbury, CT.  I was predictably delighted with a roast beef sandwich, fully loaded with everything except tomatoes ($6.50, supposedly a half, but large enough to satisfy me), and a bag of Herr's Creamy Dill Pickle potato chips, impossible to find in my usual haunts.  A welcome addition to the menu was Nardelli's own brand diet root beer, quite delicious.  This was notable because, just three nights earlier, on the way to a Rangers game at Madison Square Garden with my cousin Michael Goldenberg, we met at Ben's Kosher Delicatessen, 209 West 38th Street, never to be confused with Ben's Best Kosher Delicatessen, 96-40 Queens Boulevard, Rego Park. While I thoroughly enjoyed my corned beef/pastrami combo on rye ($16.99), I was surprised and disappointed to learn that Ben's had no Dr. Brown's diet black cherry soda, in fact no diet Dr. Brown's was on hand.  What kind of doctor is that?  A floor manager, so skinny that I asked him if he ever ate here, told us that Dr. Brown's had not supplied Ben's with diet soda for some time.  Obviously, I'm fated to bring Nardelli's and Ben's together.  

 "The Typical American Lives Only 18 Miles From Mom," is a headline to get your attention.  The NewYork Times published this interesting study on mobility, which contradicts the picture of the aggressive American seeking opportunity throughout the land.  http://nyti.ms/1SbuiLY

This article reminds me of a study cited (conducted?) by Andrew Hacker over 50 years ago, which demonstrated that CEO's of Fortune 500 companies lived much further from their birthplaces than US Senators.  Staying close to home was a better base for building a political than a business career, especially when top companies cluster in certain locations, while Senate seats are inherently dispersed.  For whatever it's worth, I now live just under 12 miles from my parent's last residence, although I am, believe it or not, neither a CEO or a US Senator.  

Good, Better, Best?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Sidewalks Of New York

Monday, December 7, 2015
Open Table is a convenient web site, allowing you to make restaurant reservations filtered by cuisine, location and time. It also has its own reviewing system and it just released the top 100 American restaurants, according to its participants.
http://www.opentable.com/m/best-restaurants-in-america-for-2015/

Given the geographic breadth of the list (Charleston, South Carolina to Paia, Hawaii), it’s no surprise that I missed the top 10 entirely. As I have noted before, best restaurant lists these days are dominated by joints offering fixed meals, usually in the low three figure price range. Seven of Open Table’s top ten operate that way, whether offering sushi, Italian or French food, or an American "multi-taste Grazing, Rooting, Pecking menu."  Mother Ruth Gotthelf had it right all along. One night it was her divine salmon croquettes with spaghetti; another night lamb chops with mashed potatoes; Friday night chicken. You also did not tip when getting your coat back.

When the top 100 list is examined, we find that 22 states are unrepresented; maybe that might be expected for Alaska, but how about Iowa where all those Republicans have been spending so much time before the caucus scheduled for February 1, 2016. You would think that Mike Huckabee or Ben Carson, after a weary day on the campaign trail, deserves to sit down to a hearty plate of Sea Scallops Ceviche with Persian Cucumber, Radishes, Sea Lettuce, Finger Lime, White Sturgeon Caviar, or Sweet potato and yam gnocchi, bacon, maple, pecan, pomegranate, and brown butter, or even Malted wheat malloreddus with cotechino, as found at some of the top joints.

My diversity initiative has stalled. My calls have gone unanswered by the Patels, the Caseys, the Ramirezes, the Leungs, the Gardinos and the Holmqvists. Therefore, we went with the Schneiders to see Fiddler on the Roof on Saturday night. It was a very good production; Danny Burstein does a fine job as Tevye, on stage much of the time, and the focus of the story. In any case, it's almost impossible to knock Fiddler on the Roof, and I too could barely resist singing along to the familiar tunes. How ethnocentric of me.

In case you did not attend Stuyvesant High School, here is a list of the 99 next best public high schools in the United States:
https://k12.niche.com/rankings/public-high-schools/best-overall/

Tuesday, December 8, 2015
113 over 78. I was surprised that my blood pressure was so low given the state of the world. But, hours spent with the estimable Michael Perskin, M.D., showed that my physical condition, at least, was quite healthy and the ravages of time have not begun to seriously ravage. As a reward, I mostly ate ice cream and potato chips for the rest of the day.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Michelle K., a lovely and talented co-worker gave me a holiday gift today, the famous Collin Street Bakery of Corsicana, Texas "Original Deluxe Fruitcake." This outfit sells about 1.5 million fruitcakes a year, mostly by mail order. The business, founded in 1896, is so successful that its former corporate accountant was sentenced to 10 years in prison three months ago for embezzling $16.7 million dollars.

In addition to her general kindness, Michelle gave me the fruitcake because I recognized and enjoyed it last year at an office holiday party, when apparently no one else did. I admit this in spite of the insistence by Calvin Trillin, the greatest philosopher of our time, that there is only one fruitcake, which is shipped from person to person each Christmas so no one has to eat it. He espoused this view at least as far back as 1981. Cf. https://books.google.com/books?id=3iwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&dq=fruitcake+and+calvin+trillin&source=bl&ots=RAFkZvRIam&sig=dcYUV58glPGhk5ee1g2oGHBTHUI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjkmuyNms_JAhXDbD4KHYutACoQ6AEISTAH#v=onepage&q=fruitcake%20and%20calvin%20trillin&f=false 

You might be interested in where Katherine Hepburn got her chocolates. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/nyregion/mondel-chocolates-shop-in-manhattan.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-3&action=click&contentCollection=N.Y.%20%2F%20Region&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article

She and I lived only three blocks apart for many years, but I was surprised to learn where she went for chocolates because it was far removed from our neighborhood, Second Avenue and East 49th Street-Turtle Bay vs. West 114th Street and Broadway-Columbia University. New York City, in spite of the size of its population and geographic scope, has really been a collection of neighborhoods, although that may be changing with the onslaught of development (gentrification). I certainly don’t automatically oppose the leveling of nasty old buildings and construction on junk-filled lots, but I am concerned about the disappearance of low-rise, reasonable-rent housing and the small businesses that serviced the residents, rich and poor.

I think that we can be spared the opening of one more macaron café when it becomes very difficult to find a freshly-baked rye bread. And, the very-occasional residents of the luxury housing that has recently sprouted in Manhattan are not the type to go strolling to the corner candy store to pick up their newspaper, or to take their clothes to the dry cleaners. At least, the old rich criminals who populated the better addresses seemed to be part of their neighborhoods, while the new rich criminals (many foreign-born, but not the object of D.T.’s scorn) connect only to a patch of sidewalk between building lobby and curb, where their limousine awaits.

I have to tell you about 11 Fifth Avenue, where my dear friend Andy lived with his father in the late 1960s. It is a lovely building in a fabulous location, between 8th and 9th Streets, in the toniest part of Greenwich Village. At the time, I was living at home, teaching secondary school. Many evenings and weekends, I would drive into Manhattan (believe it or not) to hang out with Andy, and to get away from home and secondary school. Because of the frequent time spent in and around 11 Fifth Avenue, I observed the following ritual: At 9 P.M., Carmine DeSapio, deposed leader of Tammany Hall, the New York County Democratic Party machine, the most powerful politician in New York State at his peak, resident of 11 Fifth Avenue, dressed elegantly in a gray herringbone topcoat with a black velvet collar in cooler weather, came walking out the front door, turned left on 8th Street, and went to the candy store about three doors down, to buy the early edition of the New York Daily News, which had the highest circulation of any American newspaper at the time.

Andy got married and moved out before DeSapio went to federal prison in 1971, there is no longer a candy store or newspaper stand anywhere nearby, and the current owner is trying to sell the Daily News, now the fifth largest US newspaper. 

Thursday, December 10, 2015
Newspaper clipping: "In an appearance on Capitol Hill, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said Wednesday that the [San Bernardino] couple, who met online, had been talking of an attack as far back as two years ago. They were ‘talking to each other about jihad and martyrdom before they became engaged and married and were living in the U.S.,’ Mr. Comey said."

Imagined dialogue: "Honey, I was reading Martha Stewart’s Weddings magazine and she says, in America, family and friends give gifts to couples when they get engaged and when they marry. In fact, to make it easier, many couples tell certain merchants what they would like to get to start their life together. They call it registering. You put yourself in a Bridal Registry."

"Dear, that sounds very nice and convenient. What do you think that we should ask for?"

"Well, sweetheart, I think I would like a Cuisinart, bathroom towels in a dusty rose color, and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher."

Friday, December 11, 2015
"Vatican Says Catholics Should Not Try to Convert Jews"
There goes my dream of being an altar boy.

Take A Shot

Monday, November 30, 2015
The Godfather part one and two were shown repeatedly during the holiday by a cable television network, which gave me the chance to record these two brilliant movies.  It wasn’t a perfect experience; the shows included a glut of commercials and some language was obviously edited, although quite sanitary by current standards.  I was amused to notice, in that fabulous scene where Michael takes revenge on the five families, that Barzini was shot on the courthouse steps here at 60 Centre Street, an imposing backdrop, often seen in “Law & Order.”  Even after 40 years, that scene and several others still take my breath away, and, unlike some other old favorites when viewed today, do not seem like filmmaking or acting of an earlier day.

Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Last night, I went to a Rangers game at Madison Square Garden, offering me the opportunity to see if Jack’s 99 Cent Store, 110 West 32nd Street, has returned real chocolate-covered graham crackers and pretzels to stock.  When they offered these two-to-a-package delights for 99¢, an unimaginably bright glow illuminated West 32nd Street and gave me comfort and joy that more than balanced any sadness accompanying a Rangers loss.  Last night, the Rangers won and there was no need to ingest a mood-elevating substance, which was not available, in any case.  Nothing on the shelves even came close to offering the gustatory delight of real chocolate-covered graham crackers or pretzels.  The chocolates that Jack’s offered, ordinary varieties of Lindt, Guylian and Ghirardelli, were being sold above typical supermarket prices, not likely to get my interest.

Today is Woody Allen’s 80th birthday.  He came to mind when I was considering a couple of recent encounters which illustrate the implacable black/white divide in our society.  A black woman on the subway complained to a white man that his brief case had hit her 4 or 5 times.  He apologized, but asked why she had not told him sooner. She replied that he should have noticed it himself sooner. Then, she added that he hadn’t taken care because she was only a black woman.  A couple of weeks earlier, we were waiting for bus to go home after a musical show in midtown Manhattan.  A young black man approached us and asked for money.  I forget his story, but I turned him down, my customary response to any such appeal.  He did not immediately take No for an answer and asked again without success.  Then, he asked, “Is it because I’m black?”

I am almost certain that there have been circumstances where the woman on the subway and the young man on the street were slighted, ignored or refused because they were black, but not necessarily this time.  As a bleeding-heart liberal, I was disappointed that each reached for a stereotype that may have been absent, and, at the same time, I was sorry that it so easily came to mind for them.  Could either imagine an encounter that did not reflect the racial differences?  Or, am I naive to think that black/white encounters actually occur in a color-blind fashion?

Which brings me to Woody Allen.  In Annie Hall, which he wrote, directed and starred in, a movie that stands next to The Godfather, Allen’s character says, “You know, I was having lunch with some guys from NBC, so I said, ‘Did you eat yet or what?’  And Tom Christie said, ‘No, JEW?’  Not ‘Did you?’  JEW eat?  JEW?  You get it?  JEW eat?”  While Annie Hall appeared in 1977 and was supposed to be a comedy, I think that many Members of the Tribe would react seriously the same way today, as ethnocentric or predisposed to victimhood as the woman on the subway and the young man on the street.   

Wednesday, December 1, 2015 
[NB - This was written hours before the terrible events in San Bernardino, California.]
It’s time that progressive forces adopt some of the operating principles of the Domestic Enemies of Sanity.  First, since the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun, let’s arm all Planned Parenthood employees.  Second, grant armed Planned Parenthood employees amnesty for all acts of gun violence against unaccompanied white males, since the appearance of an unaccompanied white male in or near a Planned Parenthood facility is a reasonable basis for a Planned Parenthood employees to fear bodily harm. 

After a day spent coughing and blowing my nose in private at home, I decided to come to work and share my discomfort.  A lunch date with the Boyz Club was the main incentive to venture forth on this chilly, drizzly day.  We ate at Wok Wok Southeast Asian Kitchen 11 Mott Street, a joint that deserves your patronage.  We had roti wrap with curried chicken and curry dipping sauce, roti wrap with rendang beef and curry dipping sauce, (very spicy) Thai beef salad, crispy Thai veggie spring rolls, KL Hokkian char mee (fat, round noodles in a dark soy sauce, with pork, shrimp, squid), Mee siam (rice vermicelli with egg, tofu, bean sprouts, chives and crushed peanuts - vegetarian), babas chili chicken (cooked with roasted chili and carmelized onions), tangerine beef, young chow fried rice (with everything), and tropical coconut fried rice (vegetarian).  With a generous tip (as always), the bill came to $18 each.  I also got temporary relief from my head cold with a cup of hot lemon juice and honey.    

Thursday, December 3, 2015
“How Often Do Mass Shootings Occur?  On Average, Every Day, Records Show”
http://nyti.ms/1LPCrOq

And many of our politicians, bold in the face of the undeserving poor, unionized public employees and distant populations, are only able to offer impotent piety in the face of home-grown tragedy.


Friday, December 4, 2015
Tom Adcock called my attention to the obituary of Russia's Favorite Epidemiologist-Spy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/world/middleeast/soviet-spy-marcus-klingberg-israel.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fobituaries&action=click&contentCollection=obituaries&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront