Lots of food has been eaten, as always, but let's take a look at Today's Cinema with "The King's Speech".
"The King's Speech", a rather wonderful prestige picture coproduced by the UK Film Council and the Weinstein brothers, stars Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush as a future king, a future queen mother, and the king's sports coach. The latter detail is admittedly a sort of fancy. Can I describe "The King's Speech" as "Breaking Away" meets "The Queen" meets "Kiss of the Spider Woman"? Perhaps that is overreaching, but here is the story: a stuttering prince decides to overcome his impediment with the help of an unorthodox speech therapist. If you have ever seen a movie, you know the protaganist must succeed, so no need to wonder about the outcome. The prince is Albert, aka Bertie, aka King George VI, father of the present Queen of England and brother of the now more famous abdicator of the throne and husband of Wallis Simpson. The true story of overcoming the stutter and Edward's abdication of the throne, and how one event demands the success of the other, is the plot.
"The King's Speech" takes place in a London both classically imagined and absolutely real. London of the 20's and 30's is drenched in fog and grey and rain, as befits a fairly old-fashioned picture, and the settings are not only sumptuously austere royal interiors but the shabby chic of a failed actor and struggling Bloomsbury intellectual (incidentally filmed in Lord Davenport's mansion on Portland Place). Serious British cinema tends to take place in the grotty kitchen sinks of council estates or the offices and bedrooms of palaces. What I like about the display of British passion a movie like "The King's Speech" entails is the focus on understated intimate relationships. Much of the film is a two-hander, a gentle and well-written look at the evolution of Albert's relationship with his speech therapist. As Albert is a quivering Oedipal mess whose stammer flourished in the perfect hothouse condition of a repressive family and destiny, and the speech therapist is a kind oddball who immediately demands his royal highness treat him as an equal, reveal the torment of his childhood and sing and curse his way through the therapy, we can see where this is going.
It's comforting to see such attention given to psychotherapy, which is actually what takes place between the future king and his speech therapist. If a stutter is what it takes for a future king to open up about his father's torturous parenting and older brother's disdain, perhaps that's a good thing. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush are superb, embodying their roles which are supposed to incarnate and critique the idea of inherent superiority based on blood. The would-be King seems a rather lonely fellow whose only real relationship is with his wife and children, here a positive and supportive force. The passion the movie embodies comes from its extreme focus on the subject. A great deal of the time we are watching Albert in enormous close-up, and he becomes an object of pity and scrutiny. As a stammerer in the public eye he is often uncomfortable and unhappy; as a King he is sometimes belligerent, snobby and rash; as a husband and father he is the sort of proud and adoring English man idealized in Dickens, a man happiest in the comfort of home. That is is of royal blood is frequently remarked on- Albert seems quite taken with his inherited superiority- but his defect humanizes him.
In other words, "The King's Speech" dramatizes the journey of a man to success, the simple one of being able to utter a three minute speech about the fate of the nation without stammering. King George is an interesting figure: the younger brother of the pretender to the throne, he was never groomed for anything but a small naval career as prince until his brother abdicated. The story works beautifully: Albert's need to overcome his stutter increases as he nears the throne, a role he is reluctant to take but absolutely must.
The gentle interplay between Albert, or Bertie as he is called by his family and insistently by his therapist, and that therapist, Lionel Logue, is of course the heart of the movie. It's not quite a romance or a buddy picture. While Lionel's unorthodox methods are shown to be superior to those of more established speech therapists (in other words Lionel is the underdog and therefore the cinematic winner) there is still the passionate British insistence on decorum, understanding and suffering one's assigned role honorably. Albert and Lionel riff on their differences, their sessions taking most of the drama and background of the movie, but one of the most important scenes has as a third character a large microphone. Other standout parts are Timothy Spall as a grimacing, sympathetic Churchill and Michael Gambon, as King Edward VII, looking like he walked straight off a coin.
It will win awards- lots of them. Really, how many British costume drama end with the triumph of an underdog who is actually the king- and done well, amid fainting violins, slow, emotional tracking shots, and a grand burst of glory? I was barely holding back the tears. In other words, hello Oscar!
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Letters, Wolves, Trees, Celebs: Day two of looking at art. Bonus: dinner at Fratelli Lyon
We continue our journey into the art world via a day trip to Miami.
But first, rather than submit an incomplete and not even finish it next semester, I'll briefly describe the return to Fratelli Lyon. We've met Fratelli Lyon a few blog posts down, and it would be nice to further our acquaintance, would it not? At least to enjoy a primi patti after the appetizer?
My companions were some well-to-do art patrons who share my last name and my genetic makeup. They graciously followed my recommendation to eat at Fratelli Lyon after the fair, since it beat walking from the convention parking lot to South Beach or getting a $13 roast pork sandwich in the Art Basel garden cafe.
It was touch and go. We arrived at about 5:30, heady from looking at art and tired from walking (at least my parents were, I was okay). The restaurant was entirely booked- not surprising since an extra 40,000 people were in town. But the manager found a little table for us and sat us in the hallway, which sounds bad but was fine. The only loss was the orange mesh placemats.
Well-to-do art patrons like to eat food that reminds them of art, so we went all out and ordered all the courses an art patron can ingest. Feast your eyes on this:
Let's see. You've got your veal milanesa, your seafood stew, and your mushroom risotto. All very good. I ate the mushroom risotto- it was subtly flavored and hearty and the color of pencil shavings. I like when food looks plain and tastes good. Seems very spiritual. Dad loved his veal milanese, which was the daily special. He hadn't had it for years. Apparently veal milanese is hard to find. I tried a bite and liked it, though it could have been a bit, I don't know, dirtier and crunchier. Perhaps that isn't appropriate for an a nice meal for a well-to-do art patron?
But first, rather than submit an incomplete and not even finish it next semester, I'll briefly describe the return to Fratelli Lyon. We've met Fratelli Lyon a few blog posts down, and it would be nice to further our acquaintance, would it not? At least to enjoy a primi patti after the appetizer?
My companions were some well-to-do art patrons who share my last name and my genetic makeup. They graciously followed my recommendation to eat at Fratelli Lyon after the fair, since it beat walking from the convention parking lot to South Beach or getting a $13 roast pork sandwich in the Art Basel garden cafe.
It was touch and go. We arrived at about 5:30, heady from looking at art and tired from walking (at least my parents were, I was okay). The restaurant was entirely booked- not surprising since an extra 40,000 people were in town. But the manager found a little table for us and sat us in the hallway, which sounds bad but was fine. The only loss was the orange mesh placemats.
Well-to-do art patrons like to eat food that reminds them of art, so we went all out and ordered all the courses an art patron can ingest. Feast your eyes on this:
Let's see. You've got your veal milanesa, your seafood stew, and your mushroom risotto. All very good. I ate the mushroom risotto- it was subtly flavored and hearty and the color of pencil shavings. I like when food looks plain and tastes good. Seems very spiritual. Dad loved his veal milanese, which was the daily special. He hadn't had it for years. Apparently veal milanese is hard to find. I tried a bite and liked it, though it could have been a bit, I don't know, dirtier and crunchier. Perhaps that isn't appropriate for an a nice meal for a well-to-do art patron?
Saturday, December 4, 2010
A thoughtless appraisal of Art Basel
I went to Art Basel. I approached the largest art fair in the United States and its offshoots the same way I approached Israel, which I recently visited for the first time: I did not know what I'd see or what I wanted to see, but I was pretty sure that whatever it was, I'd like it. That was true.
The fair is huge. Here are a few impressions from a person whose knowledge of art comes from going to galleries every now and then. I only wrote down the names of a few artists I liked, and this isn't the least bit journalistic. It just reflects my tastes- I like to draw and take photographs, so I notice that. I also like a lot of painting from between, um, 1910 and 1950, to use some really arbitrary numbers, so I guess I notice that too.
Drawing is big, as it has been for some time. I realized that drawing was big when I found myself unable to avoid attending life drawing classes (it was hard since I was living in London). To some extent it is a collector's issue- the galleries are showing a lot of interesting pen and ink work from the 50's and 60's. Now, the trend is to pull a lot of drawings out of a sketchbook and display them in mass, spirals showing, held together by one or two more serious drawings or paintings which relate thematically to the simple scrawls. I saw this in several galleries.
There was also a lot of work equivalent to found footage- I don't know what to call in this context a bunch of old postcards framed and grouped around a painted poster of a tango, or the sorts of 30's and 40's Hollywood studio photos often found in Fairfax flea markets framed and displayed with little blotches and scratches next to
an enormous digital print of a studio glamour shot of a male actor who I can't identify. Maybe it's a restaged photo, maybe it isn't. It seems to be something beyond appropriation.
Then there is all that text stuff... a lot of it badly done and boring, in my opinion, and sometimes really beautiful and transcendent, like the drawings of trees made of tiny pencilled letters. One New York gallery displays corny old jokes (a Jewish man is hit by a car. The paramedic asks, Are you comfortable? The man says, I make a good living) isolated in plastic tableaux. Hmm.
And then the installations, from the ridiculous to the sublime and mostly passable, as in passing without a look. I really liked a few, like the pirate mannequins with peg legs lying in a row. But some of them were just too silly: from a gallery in Mexico City (no, I did not take very good notes), shelves built into a wall and meant to evoke a hotel bathroom, if the rows of stolen hotel shampoos were evidence.
Or this:
What is it? An ironic comment about the way destroyed buildings end up commodified? They don't. A way of drawing attention to the problem of Palestinian autonomy? Maybe I should have checked the tag. I don't understand how this would wind up with a private collector.
I enjoyed some of the work from L.A. Here is a frame from a video installation by artist Brian Bress, shot in high-definition video and featuring an array of extremely weird puppet people, an actress channeling the part of an artist and a hand-built Jeep driving without moving through an eerie sci-fi desert landscape:
I wrote a few other names: Antonin Horak, James Brooks, Leon Ferrari, Eduardo Stupia. They are not current artists and probably dead. I also wrote down the name Mike Kelley, whose name is either very common or found in two separate photo exhibits in different galleries, one of which I liked (attempt to develop an auteur theory of naming) and whose intention is evident, and the other a series of black and white photographs which were rather poorly exposed and muddy and which frustrated me because with all the very deliberate intentions of most of what I saw at the show I could only conclude that the muddiness was on purpose, and I just didn't understand why.
Here is one final painting:
It's by Lyonel Feininger. Would be nice to have that on my wall.
The fair is huge. Here are a few impressions from a person whose knowledge of art comes from going to galleries every now and then. I only wrote down the names of a few artists I liked, and this isn't the least bit journalistic. It just reflects my tastes- I like to draw and take photographs, so I notice that. I also like a lot of painting from between, um, 1910 and 1950, to use some really arbitrary numbers, so I guess I notice that too.
Drawing is big, as it has been for some time. I realized that drawing was big when I found myself unable to avoid attending life drawing classes (it was hard since I was living in London). To some extent it is a collector's issue- the galleries are showing a lot of interesting pen and ink work from the 50's and 60's. Now, the trend is to pull a lot of drawings out of a sketchbook and display them in mass, spirals showing, held together by one or two more serious drawings or paintings which relate thematically to the simple scrawls. I saw this in several galleries.
There was also a lot of work equivalent to found footage- I don't know what to call in this context a bunch of old postcards framed and grouped around a painted poster of a tango, or the sorts of 30's and 40's Hollywood studio photos often found in Fairfax flea markets framed and displayed with little blotches and scratches next to
an enormous digital print of a studio glamour shot of a male actor who I can't identify. Maybe it's a restaged photo, maybe it isn't. It seems to be something beyond appropriation.
Then there is all that text stuff... a lot of it badly done and boring, in my opinion, and sometimes really beautiful and transcendent, like the drawings of trees made of tiny pencilled letters. One New York gallery displays corny old jokes (a Jewish man is hit by a car. The paramedic asks, Are you comfortable? The man says, I make a good living) isolated in plastic tableaux. Hmm.
And then the installations, from the ridiculous to the sublime and mostly passable, as in passing without a look. I really liked a few, like the pirate mannequins with peg legs lying in a row. But some of them were just too silly: from a gallery in Mexico City (no, I did not take very good notes), shelves built into a wall and meant to evoke a hotel bathroom, if the rows of stolen hotel shampoos were evidence.
Or this:
What is it? An ironic comment about the way destroyed buildings end up commodified? They don't. A way of drawing attention to the problem of Palestinian autonomy? Maybe I should have checked the tag. I don't understand how this would wind up with a private collector.
I enjoyed some of the work from L.A. Here is a frame from a video installation by artist Brian Bress, shot in high-definition video and featuring an array of extremely weird puppet people, an actress channeling the part of an artist and a hand-built Jeep driving without moving through an eerie sci-fi desert landscape:
I wrote a few other names: Antonin Horak, James Brooks, Leon Ferrari, Eduardo Stupia. They are not current artists and probably dead. I also wrote down the name Mike Kelley, whose name is either very common or found in two separate photo exhibits in different galleries, one of which I liked (attempt to develop an auteur theory of naming) and whose intention is evident, and the other a series of black and white photographs which were rather poorly exposed and muddy and which frustrated me because with all the very deliberate intentions of most of what I saw at the show I could only conclude that the muddiness was on purpose, and I just didn't understand why.
Here is one final painting:
It's by Lyonel Feininger. Would be nice to have that on my wall.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Hanukkah oh Hanukkah
There are a few rituals associated with Hanukkah. Lighting the menorah, opening a gift card with money, and cooking latkes, or potato pancakes. Around here in Boynton Beach, there may be a few stubborn holdouts who insist on grating the potatoes and frying them in hot, splattering oil just for fun- it certainly wouldn't be to impress the grandchildren- but if the heaving numbers of diners at Flakowitz is any evidence, locals would rather get their latkes from somebody else's kitchen.
Flakowitz Deli and Restaurant, in a minimall at the corner of Hagen Ranch Road and Boynton Beach Boulevard in Boynton Beach, is a Jewish-style deli and no stranger to controversy. Its matzo ball soup, brisket and pastrami are grudgingly accepted as passable, even good, while the service and cleanliness are derided. This is not the opinion of the reporter, but of the masses of relatives who endure its indignities. Still, suffer we must, for there really is no other choice for the inhabitants of the many 55 plus communities in the vicinity, unless they want to drive over to Toojay's or Ben's, like, another five minutes away. Maybe ten.
Tonight I went with my grandmother, whose days of throwing potatoes in hot oil are long, long gone (and frankly whether she ever did is a matter of debate, not that you'd ever hear me say such a thing if she knew how to read a blog). Flakowitz is incredibly cheap or expensive, depending on how much food you want. If you want a bowl of soup, it's expensive: $4.95, and you'll see Joan Rivers without makeup in the corner before you'll see a free basket of bread. However, pay another five, seven bucks and you can add five pounds of meatloaf, dessert, three sides... or something like that. Here is a charming plate of baked scrod.
The scrod was somehow satisfying, as fresh as Joan River's Edgar jokes (I'm not on a roll, I know) but crispy and well coordinated with the plate. The latke, my Hanukkah celebration, was good. I like my latkes to taste more like potato mix than potato. My grandmother had little to say about her plate of stuffed cabbage other than the ridiculous size of the portion (she has a habit of offering me her food the moment I get my plate- really, I'm not saying this for your health). And then getting the doggy bag from the waitress, who was of the old school, the one which doesn't have time to bring you a doggy bag, was like pulling teeth.
As the food was fairly predictable, my grandmother began quizzing me on what I'm doing with my life (she is a very good grandmother). Tired of this line of interrogation, I decided to turn the tables, and could come up with nothing better than a review of where she lived when she was young. I swear, the story always changes. Last week she spent her whole life in the Bronx and Queens, tonight she added Orchard Street and, as god as my witness, East New York. Do I know a single old person who did not grow up in those mean streets?
"East New Yawk?" the guy next to my grandmother pipes in. He's alone, and sports an obvious toupee.
"Sure. East New York. And the Bronx."
"The Bronx? Where ya from? I'm from the West Bronx."
"You must have been rich. I'm from Beck Street."
"Beck Street, I knew that. Grand Concourse. The Paradise."
"Ah," my grandmother says, "that's where I was married."
"The Paradise?" says a voice to my grandmother's right. "Nothing there's the same."
"You from the Bronx?"
"Sure, I went to Monroe High."
"Times is changed."
"Ah, those were the good old days."
My grandmother was beaming at me. Perhaps she hadn't known she'd find herself with no mere New York Jew, but someone from the Old Neighborhood. I was amused. But I was not surprised.
Just then, a voice cut through the chatter of the crowd. It was a little louder, and it was mine.
"So you met someone from the Bronx. Is there anyone here who is NOT from the Bronx, Brooklyn or Queens? Anyone?"
I rest my case.
Flakowitz Deli and Restaurant, in a minimall at the corner of Hagen Ranch Road and Boynton Beach Boulevard in Boynton Beach, is a Jewish-style deli and no stranger to controversy. Its matzo ball soup, brisket and pastrami are grudgingly accepted as passable, even good, while the service and cleanliness are derided. This is not the opinion of the reporter, but of the masses of relatives who endure its indignities. Still, suffer we must, for there really is no other choice for the inhabitants of the many 55 plus communities in the vicinity, unless they want to drive over to Toojay's or Ben's, like, another five minutes away. Maybe ten.
Tonight I went with my grandmother, whose days of throwing potatoes in hot oil are long, long gone (and frankly whether she ever did is a matter of debate, not that you'd ever hear me say such a thing if she knew how to read a blog). Flakowitz is incredibly cheap or expensive, depending on how much food you want. If you want a bowl of soup, it's expensive: $4.95, and you'll see Joan Rivers without makeup in the corner before you'll see a free basket of bread. However, pay another five, seven bucks and you can add five pounds of meatloaf, dessert, three sides... or something like that. Here is a charming plate of baked scrod.
The scrod was somehow satisfying, as fresh as Joan River's Edgar jokes (I'm not on a roll, I know) but crispy and well coordinated with the plate. The latke, my Hanukkah celebration, was good. I like my latkes to taste more like potato mix than potato. My grandmother had little to say about her plate of stuffed cabbage other than the ridiculous size of the portion (she has a habit of offering me her food the moment I get my plate- really, I'm not saying this for your health). And then getting the doggy bag from the waitress, who was of the old school, the one which doesn't have time to bring you a doggy bag, was like pulling teeth.
As the food was fairly predictable, my grandmother began quizzing me on what I'm doing with my life (she is a very good grandmother). Tired of this line of interrogation, I decided to turn the tables, and could come up with nothing better than a review of where she lived when she was young. I swear, the story always changes. Last week she spent her whole life in the Bronx and Queens, tonight she added Orchard Street and, as god as my witness, East New York. Do I know a single old person who did not grow up in those mean streets?
"East New Yawk?" the guy next to my grandmother pipes in. He's alone, and sports an obvious toupee.
"Sure. East New York. And the Bronx."
"The Bronx? Where ya from? I'm from the West Bronx."
"You must have been rich. I'm from Beck Street."
"Beck Street, I knew that. Grand Concourse. The Paradise."
"Ah," my grandmother says, "that's where I was married."
"The Paradise?" says a voice to my grandmother's right. "Nothing there's the same."
"You from the Bronx?"
"Sure, I went to Monroe High."
"Times is changed."
"Ah, those were the good old days."
My grandmother was beaming at me. Perhaps she hadn't known she'd find herself with no mere New York Jew, but someone from the Old Neighborhood. I was amused. But I was not surprised.
Just then, a voice cut through the chatter of the crowd. It was a little louder, and it was mine.
"So you met someone from the Bronx. Is there anyone here who is NOT from the Bronx, Brooklyn or Queens? Anyone?"
I rest my case.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Fratelli Lyon, Design District, Miami
This weekend is Art Basel. It gives me an excuse to drive the hour to Miami, and go back to Fratelli Lyon, a restaurant attached to the design store Driade. It is at 4141 NE 2nd Ave in the Design District, a small area west of downtown which houses a few furniture stores, art galleries and restaurants.
The Design District is one of the few neighborhoods in Miami I like, along with the nearby Wynwood Arts District. Now, I could say the Design District is my favorite neighborhood in Miami, but that would presume an acquaintance with the city that I don't really have. After living in, what, seven cities, my brain cannot process any more. South Beach is where my great-grandma used to live, and downtown Miami looks confusingly like a video game, all shiny and new. Vast areas of Miami are generic, spread out and somehow poor and fretful. There may be a lot of beauty, carnet colored flowers and even a goat or two:
But to see this goat, who lives in Little Haiti, a large area which contains on its commercial strip tiny Haitian churches and Churchill's Pub, a studenty rock club a few blocks from the Design District, you need to commit to feeding it grass twenty-four hours a day, and that would distract this reporter from her duties in Boca. Back to Fratelli Lyon.
Many years ago, I realized I had a thing for restaurants in stores. Credit my family with this prediliction. Sundays I spent with my grandparents, and the usual activity was shopping. It was the 70's, the place was Bloomingdales on Third Ave, and the kid needed to be entertained, so an ice cream cone slowly consumed in the basement near the hat racks was one way to increase the fun without overflowing the closet. I'd forgotten those days, but they came back to me as I took on the trappings of adult city life. Whether it was a taco counter at Woolworth's in downtown El Paso or a coffee stand at Fred Segal's in Hollywood, I just liked eating small amounts of cheap food in the presence of furniture, racks of clothes and other shoppers, and far away from windows.
Now, the sight of food near furniture excites me, and I am not the only one. Now we have Fratelli Lyon: it looks like a furniture store, but am I allowed to just sit in the window and drink coffee? Yes! Fratelli Lyon captures the excitement of eating regionally inspired antipasti over orange mesh placemats and drinking very passable espresso from perfectly weighted glass cups, served by friendly, handsome Miamians from around the world. Glossy haired women cluster with dashing men in suits confidently holding Italian crystal glasses, discussing business or fashion or whatever. A large window glimpses the street, but inside it's much prettier: why hang around in the sun and shrieking traffic when inside the furniture is peaceful and minimalistic and with a few grand you can walk out with a furniture cabinet?
The menu is reassuringly simple, a single page broken into regionalisms, varieties of antipasti, and several entries. How nice, I thought, to have a chance to eat some antipasti after so much heavy meatloaf and pizza, more typical South Florida fare.
The waiter explained the somewhat complicated pricing structure in a way which narrowed my choices very clearly: I really didn't want meat or fish, just tasty green stuff, and the basic antipasti plate was only $12.
The restaurant is modeled after the sleek wine stalls of La Boqueria or Vinoteca in London. The portions are good, but why is the trend to squeeze a little too much food into a small compartment, leaving well-ordered, gaping holes around?
Menus have become deliberately regional and fragmented; diners now must understand that a tomato sauce would be laughed at in Lombardy and that Romans prefer spaghetti al tono to pizza.
I had the fava beans, fennel and caponata. The beans were a bit oily and the fennel was cooked too gently for my taste, but it was good. A glass of lovely house white, the antipasti and bread and an espresso came to about $20, which is a great deal for sitting alone with some fresh food at a minimalist emporium. Now if only I could have Driade come and clean my closets.
The Design District is one of the few neighborhoods in Miami I like, along with the nearby Wynwood Arts District. Now, I could say the Design District is my favorite neighborhood in Miami, but that would presume an acquaintance with the city that I don't really have. After living in, what, seven cities, my brain cannot process any more. South Beach is where my great-grandma used to live, and downtown Miami looks confusingly like a video game, all shiny and new. Vast areas of Miami are generic, spread out and somehow poor and fretful. There may be a lot of beauty, carnet colored flowers and even a goat or two:
But to see this goat, who lives in Little Haiti, a large area which contains on its commercial strip tiny Haitian churches and Churchill's Pub, a studenty rock club a few blocks from the Design District, you need to commit to feeding it grass twenty-four hours a day, and that would distract this reporter from her duties in Boca. Back to Fratelli Lyon.
Many years ago, I realized I had a thing for restaurants in stores. Credit my family with this prediliction. Sundays I spent with my grandparents, and the usual activity was shopping. It was the 70's, the place was Bloomingdales on Third Ave, and the kid needed to be entertained, so an ice cream cone slowly consumed in the basement near the hat racks was one way to increase the fun without overflowing the closet. I'd forgotten those days, but they came back to me as I took on the trappings of adult city life. Whether it was a taco counter at Woolworth's in downtown El Paso or a coffee stand at Fred Segal's in Hollywood, I just liked eating small amounts of cheap food in the presence of furniture, racks of clothes and other shoppers, and far away from windows.
Now, the sight of food near furniture excites me, and I am not the only one. Now we have Fratelli Lyon: it looks like a furniture store, but am I allowed to just sit in the window and drink coffee? Yes! Fratelli Lyon captures the excitement of eating regionally inspired antipasti over orange mesh placemats and drinking very passable espresso from perfectly weighted glass cups, served by friendly, handsome Miamians from around the world. Glossy haired women cluster with dashing men in suits confidently holding Italian crystal glasses, discussing business or fashion or whatever. A large window glimpses the street, but inside it's much prettier: why hang around in the sun and shrieking traffic when inside the furniture is peaceful and minimalistic and with a few grand you can walk out with a furniture cabinet?
The menu is reassuringly simple, a single page broken into regionalisms, varieties of antipasti, and several entries. How nice, I thought, to have a chance to eat some antipasti after so much heavy meatloaf and pizza, more typical South Florida fare.
The waiter explained the somewhat complicated pricing structure in a way which narrowed my choices very clearly: I really didn't want meat or fish, just tasty green stuff, and the basic antipasti plate was only $12.
The restaurant is modeled after the sleek wine stalls of La Boqueria or Vinoteca in London. The portions are good, but why is the trend to squeeze a little too much food into a small compartment, leaving well-ordered, gaping holes around?
Menus have become deliberately regional and fragmented; diners now must understand that a tomato sauce would be laughed at in Lombardy and that Romans prefer spaghetti al tono to pizza.
I had the fava beans, fennel and caponata. The beans were a bit oily and the fennel was cooked too gently for my taste, but it was good. A glass of lovely house white, the antipasti and bread and an espresso came to about $20, which is a great deal for sitting alone with some fresh food at a minimalist emporium. Now if only I could have Driade come and clean my closets.
Dimitri's Farmer's Market, Pompano Beach
I found this one on a drive home from Broward County. I'd had some old Hi8 video digitized at Old Film Transfer in Coral Springs, and thought I might see a bit of the neighborhood. Somehow that wound up as a drive south, then east, and then north. In South Florida, one does not ramble. It was rush hour, and the traffic clogged near every entrance to the highway, promising a slow ride to nowhere. One north-south street was completely back up, and the next one going east wasn't. So that's where I went.
The grilled cheese was very good. I always order mine with tomato, and this was nice and warm and not just slapped on after cooking. I could have had mine on Texas Toast, but I got rye because when I am given the choice of rye I am unable to say no. The french fries were close to English chips, thick and hearty, and tasted like potatoes. And the coffee was excellent. For my European readers (well, reader), this means the coffee was not watery, but quite rich, and had a hint of flavor, perhaps chicory.
Not much to say about the rest of the menu, which was only two pages and was similar to other "country kitchens" I've seen in Florida. There is a hint of Greek in the name and the existence of a single gyro on the menu, and there the similarity to Greek diners in other parts of the country ends.
It's a long drive, but I'll be back.
I drove down Andrews quickly. This street didn't have minimalls, Publixes (is that the plural?) and gas stations. Here there were repair shops, apartment buildings and little warehouses. Soon I saw a sign that said "Dimitri's Farmer's Market" in a pleasingly faded scrawl. I turned into the parking lot, a bare space fronting a low white shack and spreading into another lot flanked by huge, fearsome trucks. Interesting.
Dimitri's caters to the familiar. The waitresses are old, worn and sweet. They don't bother with makeup, which makes sense as it takes time and is unlikely to increase tips from the clientele, mostly men of a certain age who sit alone at their solitary tables and talk on the phone when they're not talking across the tables to one another, or getting a ribbing from Dimitri, who will gladly ring you up at the register and tell you to have a nice evening.
Here's what you can eat at Dimitri's.
The grilled cheese was very good. I always order mine with tomato, and this was nice and warm and not just slapped on after cooking. I could have had mine on Texas Toast, but I got rye because when I am given the choice of rye I am unable to say no. The french fries were close to English chips, thick and hearty, and tasted like potatoes. And the coffee was excellent. For my European readers (well, reader), this means the coffee was not watery, but quite rich, and had a hint of flavor, perhaps chicory.
Not much to say about the rest of the menu, which was only two pages and was similar to other "country kitchens" I've seen in Florida. There is a hint of Greek in the name and the existence of a single gyro on the menu, and there the similarity to Greek diners in other parts of the country ends.
It's a long drive, but I'll be back.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Grey Saturday
In the past few years I've been alerted by the steadfast diligence of our great national media to a growing national habit dating to the founding of Alaska or to 2005, I'm not sure. It is called Black Friday. It sounds like something fun- a seance, a take your favorite dress to work day, or a gathering storm, but it is also a day to shop at stores I never go to, apparently at four a.m. According to the fine reporting by the numerous competitors of The Boca Union Sentinel, it is not just a great day out with the family, but an accurate measure of the vitality of our great nation's economy. When seven thousand people wait on line to get into Macy's Herald Square two hours before sunrise, it is not a sign of the end of civilization, but a joy for corporate retailers.
I wonder what one hopes to find at an hour normally reserved for sleep or cow milking. I realize that a hundred dollars off a t.v. is an alluring prospect, but doesn't Macy's sell sweaters, wallets and gift certificates? All day, every day? Sweaters aren't that expensive.
In the name of research, this intrepid reporter braved the shopping crowds, about thirty-six hours after the dawn of- say it with a hoarse voice and an overenunciated "l"- BLACK FRIDAY. I had a few small goals for my excursion to Boca Town Center. Or is it Centre? The prize to be collected in exchange for a few hours among crowds of humans, rare and difficult to spot in the gated community which currently houses the (not very) intrepid reporter, is a bathing suit, perhaps a wallet.
The wallets did not meet the exacting standards of this reporter. The wallet was to be taupe or bone, as smooth as a calf's kissable forehead, and large enough to carry a canvas and hand pistol in addition to the usual change and half-torn dollars bills. The search is not over. However, I will at last be able to bathe in the sea or swimming pool attired in the manner of most women, wearing two tiny strings of cloth rather than one single kerchiefy type thing. For at last I have found a bikini, two matching pieces in my size, and sensibly priced.
I hadn't worn a bikini for years before trying it on in the dressing room at Macy's, and I was surprised by how horrible I looked. But I bought it, because it was Juicy Couture, marked down to twenty bucks from, like, a million or whatever, and if there's anything I was taught by my family, it was that you don't pass up a bargain. Or maybe I learned this on my own, the same way I learned how to cook, ride a bike, change the oil in my car and play guitar. The balmy shores of the Atlantic await!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Anthony's, Delray Beach
Since moving to Boynton Beach I’ve lost my cool about pizza. I’d been looking forward to pizza. Florida is not known for pizza, but after twenty years of living away from pizza, sometimes an ocean away, I am not very fussy about it. I just want a large, drippy slice with subtly fragrant marinara sauce, properly chewy cheese, a nice, solid crust which is neither crispy nor soggy but has that indefinably good feel every New Yorker knows from birth... um, yeah, sorry, you were saying?
In Florida, food is found in minimalls. In other words, you get into the car, drive to a minimall parking lot, park as close as possible to your destination, and enter. Any deviation from this routine will invite speculation, stalkers and worried questions. You may not be seen walking, or stopping on one of the few corners amenable to human habitation and contemplating where to go. Now, how is this relevant, apart from to recommend a few places (the mall, the park) where humans are allowed to gather and inspect one another for signs of life?
The minimall life is not conducive to grabbing a slice of pizza. The point of a slice is to balance it over a paper plate while walking down 6th Avenue, or if more time is available the slice is covered in red pepper flakes and cheese and eaten on a stool at a shelf. If you're really lucky you're getting this sold by weight in Rome (or Tel Aviv- just try the amazing pizza slices on Dizengoff) but you aren't getting it from a young server named Scott who keeps asking you, again and again, if there's anything else you need before he brings you the bill.
I could go on and on about minimalls, the ache of loneliness I feel looking out at the parking lot through a glass window, the melancholy that sets upon me eating a slice of pizza without the traffic of the world stamping around me. I don't hear America singing! But I don't want to wind up the implication of pizza without pizza. I want pizza. Come back, crust with cheese.
So let us go then, you and I, to a corner restaurant a few blocks from the easy resort buzz of Delray Beach's Atlantic Avenue. Anthony's. It's a restaurant, and once you're there you will see other humans. Delray Beach, the town that is, gets its fill of humans who come, park their cars next to actual sidewalks, and stroll a good half-mile up and down, past shops and restaurants. It's like a city! You stop in from of a shop window, look inside, and then on to the next one! There are park benches, cafes! And if you know where to find it, a little north on the Federal Highway, Anthony's!
The full name of Anthony's is Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza. It's a local chain- big surprise. You may notice that the name contains nothing about dripping slices, Penn Station, eggplant or even a vague allusion to a borough. So I won't say anything about the pizza, which is that type served as a pie on a raised plate. It's okay. Maybe it's good. But it's thin crust, a little burnt on the bottom, and subtly not burstingly flavored.
However, there is one special dish-the Broccoli Rabe and Sausage. Sauteed in garlic and oil, of course, the texture is finely balanced between the juice of the oil and a delicate crunch in the texture. It actually tastes like food, and I could imagine someone in back, cooking it.
Come to think of it, this is the ongoing theme in my return to the U.S.A. (after many months of training my palate near the Elephant & Castle roundabout in London): does the food on my plate seem to have been conceived, cut and cooked by humans, or did it emerge full blown from a picture of food to be half-eaten and then languish in a styrofoam box in the fridge?
Anthony's: good for balmy Florida with its outdoor terrace and retiree-friendly prices. But I won't be walking down Atlantic Avenue with a slice.
Lunch with Father
My first restaurant post, one of many to follow, will appraise the $5.99 lunch at Sal's Pizzeria.
Sal's Pizzeria, or Restaurant, depending on who you ask (they do publish a menu), is a local chain in South Florida. Whether there is stiff competition for your pizza dollar is simple to determine: how many pizzerias are there in the shopping center near Publix? One? It is probably Sal's.
Sal's delights the wallet with its twopizzaandacoke lunch for a fiver, and for slightly more dosh one gets a lunch with some variety, even a little potential for greens: a salad or soup, slice of pizza and half a sandwich, which at Sal's means something warm and substantial. But how was the food?
Dad: "It's excellent! Whadda deal!"
Me: "It's fine, but why does my eggplant parmigiana taste like Chinese food? Was it cooked in peanut oil?"
I will continue to ponder this matter.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
What is The Boca Union Sentinel?
As of November 2010 Melissa Bellovin has taken over the paper as editor-in-chief, managing editor, chief reporter, chief columnist, chief food critic and chief film critic. In fact, she is chief of everything. She is chief of all she sees, and would like it to stay that way, but there is the bad economy, which luckily does not inhibit her duties as chief food critic. Her parents, avid eaters of food themselves, are willing, in exchange for a bit of fine conversation, to foot the bill. This is no joke, and uniquely qualifies her for the position of chief food critic- I mean chief restaurant critic- of the Boca Union Sentinel. Not only is her palate fine, trained by many years of living in London, El Paso, Los Angeles and Long Island (along with the millions of other professional food critics living in those places), she is objective, because the restaurants she frequents simply have no idea what this brazen woman is up to with her eating and mental note-taking.
In all seriousness, non-existent readers, I will take a moment to point out a few things about the writer and eater Melissa Bellovin.
1. She has never met a soft-serve ice cream she doesn't like- unless its name starts with Vanilla. I'm talking to you, England.
2. She has an immodest pride in her ability to avoid spending money and still eating delicious food, which has served her well in her peripatetic, borderline bohemian existence in various cities whose neighborhoods became trendy once she left and started charging too much for their food.
3. Her favorite place in the world used to be the counter at the Original Pantry in downtown Los Angeles, where she would sit for hours writing nonsense about her love life in a little notebook while drinking bottomless cups of coffee and eating home fries, coleslaw and sourdough bread. This does not in the least qualify her to write about food, but she thought you should know this.
4. Melissa used to consider herself an authority on Mexican food, due to her living there, speaking the language and living in a rooming house with pink walls perched above a really, really good puesto- that's like a taco stand for all you non-Mexicans. She lived on fat sandwiches filled with marinated pork, tiny tacos filled with obscure animal brains, and tamales built in the center of the world, aka The Zocalo. Nowadays she considers Mexican food a corn tortilla with a slice of cheese melted into a bit of chipotle, but still looks forward to some far away day when she will eat nothing but chile relleno served by a friendly transexual in front of a post office in Sonora.
5. Melissa hails from Long Island, which taught her everything she knows about pizza and Jewish food, which is that she basically likes it and thinks she knows more than you do about it, at least if you don't share her rather common ethnic and geographic traits. At this point in her life, however, she has to concede the real pizza superiority to the fine nation of Italy. Oh well.
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