Gotham Gal

Sarah, Sarah

We are subscribers to the Manhattan Theater Club. You sign up at the beginning of the year for the amount of plays or tickets you want and they show up in the mail a few weeks before hand. I like it because they put on a variety of different productions and you are done for the season. Although some of the plays end up not being so great. One of the best values is if you can't make a particular date they help you outs. I found out that I had to move something last week so I call the subscribers office. They asked me to rip up my tickets, tape them on a piece of paper and fax them to the office. Then, they sent me tickets for another night which I requested. That is a great deal.

Last night we went to see one of the productions, "Sarah, Sarah". It was playing at the City Stage on West 55th Street. The play was written by Daniel Goldfarb. It was a 2 act play, four actors. The first act is set in a house kitchen apartment, 1961, in Toronto. You are introduced to the mother - a tough controlling Jewish mother and her Polish housekeeper who happens to be a man dressed in woman's apparel that he likes. The mother is having her son's new fiance over for tea. Once the fiance arrives, the mother basically tells her that she is not rich enough and her family is not good enough for her son. The son arrives on the scene and is mortified. Eventually the cleaning man gets furious and tells the mother he has had enough and tells her hidden secret that she is actually an orphan and has no right telling her son that this young woman is not good enough for him.

The second act is the son, who has now become a father to a brood of kids and is in his 60's with one of his daughters in China. The son obviously married the woman his mother did not want him to. The daughter is 39 years old and is adopting an orphan in China. So, the story basically comes full circle. The father (who was the son ) tells the story of his mother being an orphan to the newly adopted baby although this is the first person he has told this secret to since the fateful afternoon in his kitchen.

All and all, it was not that great of a play but the acting of Richard Masur was fantastic. Also, the 2 young performers were first time Off-Broadway performers so it was fun to watch them act. The girl, Lori Prince was very good. The best line of the play, which did get quite a howl from the audience was in the last act. The daughter asks the father, "What do you think the baby is thinking"? He replys, "Chinese orphanage to Rich Jew...YES!"

The play was not too long and wrapped up by 9ish so we walked next door to Milos. The food is simple and always good. We sat at the bar. We had the tomato salad which has big slabs of feta cheese and ripe tomatoes and cucumbers. We also ordered the grilled shrimp, grilled octopus and calamari. The shrimp is large and grilled to perfection. The octopus is sliced, grilled and intermixed with grilled yellow and red peppers. It is all simply prepared and delicious. I'd never go out of my way to get there but if you are seeing theater in that area, you can't beat it.

Superpowers at The Adobe Theater

New York is a hub for artistic events. Thank god for the foundations and private people that support the off the radar events. Last night, I went out with 2 people who are thankfully involved in giving and creating events like Superpowers at the Adobe Theater.

First we rambled around Soho and had some appetizers and wine at a cute restaurant at 41 Mercer called The Antique Garage. It's got a nice vibe, live music. Mediterranean food. We ordered a few places of "mezes". They were quick and very nice. We had Tzatzikiki which is a rich yogurt spread with cucumbers. Very very garlicky. Way too much for my taste. We also had the calamari, deep fried, simple, nothing great. Rolled phyllo dough stuffed with feta cheese and deep fried. It was ok. The feta was not that interesting and layered with oregano. Our other dish was spicy shrimp in a garlic type sauce. I admit it, our family is one of those rare groups that don't eat garlic in their home. I do not mind it but I don't like food that is overwhelmed by garlic. I really liked the restaurant. I'd go there again for a drink but I'd perhaps pick foods like a cheese and salami type platter that would guarantee me, no garlic.

Next stop, the theater. It was a 2 hour production, no intermission. The premise is "be careful what you wish for." The play starts in a police station with 3 people (an elderly man, a young woman and a young man) and 2 private detectives investigating a car accident with the 3 people who are now all dead. Each person leaves the police station through a door and the stage changes. First, the older man tells his story on how he got to the accident and then other characters follow suit. It helps the audience get a feeling for each character and who they are. At each point, the individual characters meet up with a dog who they take to and then changes each of them into what they wish for. The elderly man wishes to be young again, the young woman wishes she was beautiful and the young man wishes to be invisible so he doesn't have to deal with society. All of their lives become entangled at different points through different characters and events but they collide at the end with the car accident.

The play was probably longer than need be with each character telling their story. But, I really enjoyed the concept and the acting. The writing of the play was really good and clever. There were some smart, saavy lines. The play was written by Jeremy Dobrish who is the co-founder of the Adobe Theater. I'd really like to see more of his work.

You could see something new and different in NYC every night. The majority of off-off broadway is generally not great but something did strike me last night. I am still thinking about the play today which is more than I can say about some of the huge expensive productions put on Broadway each night.

Owning a car in NYC

Owning a car in NYC is a true luxury. The montly cost of a garage is probably the same cost as the mortgage on a 5000 square foot house in upstate New York. You can always opt for keeping the car on the street, but to me, that is just another aggrevation to deal with. Moving the car to the right side of the street. Worrying about break-ins etc. Unfortunately, it is what it is.

We don't use the car that often but when we do, it is a treat to have. My husband hit a huge pothole the other day. This left one of the tires with a big bump. Like a swollen node. Not pretty. Of course, I have been left to deal with this. One of my biggest fears is getting a flat tire in the middle of nowhere or worse on the LIE.

I got the car this morning and drove up 10th Avenue. Between 23-34th there are a variety of repair shops. I found one between 28/29th that appeared to have availability. The majority of these guys work on taxi cars which are abused daily.

Ralph was happy to help. I could stay and wait or he'd call me when he's done. I opted for the call. 45 minutes later, Ralph called me. New tire and alignment complete and by the way, your inspection was up over a month ago. I never notice that stuff. So, I told Ralph, do the inspection too and let me know when you are done. 1/2 an hour later, done. So, I basically dropped off the car around 10 and it was done by 11:15ish. Total cost $200 with tax.

I was thrilled. It was a no brainer. Ralph could not have been nicer or more efficient. No appointment, no problems, no wait. Maybe owning a car in the city is not such a big deal after all.

Il Palazzo

Little Italy is so old New York. Over the years, Little Italy has shrunk down to a few blocks. Chinatown has taken over. Although there are so many fantastic Italian restaurants through out New York that we are not lacking for good food. But, the charm of downtown Little Italy is fun.

Our middle daughter loves Italian food. Last Friday night, she was our only kid at home so I made reservations at Il Palazzo for dinner. I scrounged all the reviews and this one came up consistently as having the best italian food in the area. The restaurant even gets a 25 in Zagat for food which is as good as you can get.

We took the B down to Grand Street and weaved through the markets of Chinatown until we hit Mulberry Street. Mulberry Street is closed off to driving and all the restaurants now have outdoor cafes. It is really nice. It has feel of an Italian city.

I admit, I was skeptical on the food because the food down there has really gone down hill and is mediocre at best. The menu was your typical heavy Northern Italian food. We started off sharing 2 appetizers between the 3 of us. Grilled portobello mushrooms with smoked mozzarella and tiny pieces of proscuitto melted over the top and grilled octopus with sliced potatoes, arugula, and tomatoes. Both were outstanding. The sliced potatoes were cooked to perfection underneath the salad of arugula and tomatoes with large pieces of grilled squid and an olive oil sauce over the top. The mushrooms were also outstanding. We literally finished both plates clean. Now came the main courses. I had a standard chicken mushroom marsala with green beans on the side. The dish was beautifully put together. The brown sauce was delicious. Hints of marsala wine with browned mushrooms over a perfectly cooked piece of pounded veal. Our daughter had the Ravioli ala Casa. Large raviolis stuffed with ricotta and parmigiano cheese topped with a light tomato and basil sauce. The cheese oozed out upon cutting. My husband had one of the specials. Linguini with seafood. The sauce was a vodka type sauce but not as thick. The seafood consisted of a small lobster, huge shrimps, clams and calamari. It was unbelievable. I did not want to order the pasta, just wanted to taste. I probably consumed 1/4 of it. It was soo yummy and fresh.

The portions are tremendous. But, it tasted so good that we finished off everything and passed on dessert. We were so stuffed by the time we left that we all wished we could just unzip our pants and lay on a couch. Instead, we decided to walk. We walked all the way home into the Village. It was such a beautiful evening and the walk served us well. You realize how close everything is downtown. People were hopping in Washington Square Park. The bars were exploding into Soho. A real New York night.

The good news is that Il Palazzao will probably be around for many years to come.

Fundraisers

We get invited to so many fundraisers that I can't begin to start counting. We pick the ones that actually mean something to us. I really prefer the fund raisers that are different. Going to a sit down event and having a stuff scrod or baked chicken and listening to some honoree is not my cup of tea.

One of the organizations we support is our temple. We are members of the New Shul. There are many assets to this organization but the one that is the most important to me is that the founders think out of the box. They are trying to create an environment that is interactive, fun, thought provoking and different then the temple we grew up in. Our kids actually like the Hebrew School and it is only one day a week, after school, which allows them to do other things. I like this because it provides the balance vs. shoving Hebrew School down there throat 2 days a week. No wonder so many of us hated it. The New Shul has a bar/bat mitzvah academy where the kids take classes apart from their Hebrew such as cooking, dance or creating a news program around the events in the Middle East. They are taking part in their Jewish education. Also, an added bonus, I think the rabbi is great. Young, charasmatic, and a true intellect.

We have recently attended 2 fundraisers for the temple in the past month. One was a wine tasting party, which took place at our house. Great event. You really got to meet and greet other members. True community. The other event took place yesterday at Dylans Candy Bar. We took over the store. There were chocolates to be decorated, dancing to be done and more importantly, you could eat as many candies as you wanted to. It is a children's fantasy. It is an adult's fantasy too. We all went to town. The event was from 4-6. I was literally green by the time we left. Once you start on a few m & m's, it is hard to stop as we moved into the swedish fish, chocolate kisses, chocolate covered pretzels, the best licorice in the world from australia...shall I go on?

As far as fundraisers go, both were fun and different and you got a chance to know the community that you are giving money to. That is what I hate about the big typical fundraisers. I leave most of the time not knowing where the money really goes or who are the people behind the organization that make it tick every day.

To all the non-profits out there, think differently and creatively when raising money and I really believe, you will be rewarded.

Chikalicous

Chickalicous is a dessert bar in the East Village. I have wanted to go since it opened. The concept of having a price fixe three course meal of desserts only is a clever idea. The desserts are paired with wines. You are given a starter to taste, the dessert that you have chosen accompanied with your glass of wine and a small plate of petit fours to complete your meal.

Great concept, poor execution. Nothing is that interesting. Everything we tasted last night was just ok at best. When I have dessert, it has to be worth the calories. It should explode inside your mouth and your reaction should be "omigod, this is incredible". That is not what we said last night.

The decor is clever. Bright and white. The counter, like a diner, seats about 15 people. There are also a few cozy booths with tables behind the counter.

We sat at the counter which is entertaining. All the desserts have already been prepared. It is just a matter of putting them together. The presentation is key. As a person who makes dessert, watching the small already prepared tupperware pieces the staff takes out to scoop out each essential ingredient is fun. They use so little of each that they must be making a decent profit.

We started with their opening of the day. It was a large slice of kiwi that had a lavendar sauce poured over it with a small scoop of vanilla yogurt sorbet on the top. 3 bites. The dish was sour and not that interesting. Not too much depth. We each ordered a different dessert so we could taste. We had a brown sugar panna cotta with meyer lemon sorbet and prosecco poured over the top. The panna cotta had the consistency of sea urchin. The meyer lemon sorbet was very sour and the prosecco sort of mushed the whole thing up. This was paired with a Muscat wine which was fine. The other dessert we had was mint ice cream, chocolate wafers, chocolate ice cream and diced bananas. You could taste the herb mint in the ice cream which was nice but too subtle. The whole dish was too subtle. I guess that was my problem with everything we ate. This was paired with a port which was again, ok.

Lastly, we get the petit fours. coconut marshmallows which were very clever and tasty. They were my favorite thing. Biscotti, again not that interesting. Also, 2 small chocolate puffs put together with a chocolate cream. They were put together right before serving. The chocolate cream was not as rich and sweet as it should be. Also, it should have been more at room temperature. It was so cold that the depth of the flavor, if there was any, was probably lost.

All and all, a huge disappointment. I thought about stopping into one of the local pastry shops and getting a big yummy eclair for the walk home. I was still dying for something good and sweet. My desires were not fulfilled and I had just consumed god knows how many calories. The good news is that when we got home, our son was in the kitchen with our fantastic babysitter/house manager/everything and they were pulling a coffee cake out of the oven. We quickly sliced it up, ate a piece and said "now that hit the spot".

The Strokes at Summerstage

Last night kicked off the first of Summerstage in Central Park. It is such a great forum. The crowd is pretty mellow. You are sitting in Central Park. It is lush and green. You can see the tall buildings in the distance looming over the park. But, here you are listening to rock and roll and having a picnic. I love it!

We took the whole crew to go see the Strokes last night. We took along a picnic so we feasted on steak, arugula, tomato and sundried tomato tapenade roll-ups, cherry tomatoes, carrots, strawberries and pineapple and homemade chocolate chip cookies (made by our oldest daughter). It was perfect.

There were 2 backup bands. The first was Sean Lennon. A few decent songs which could be worked out in the studio, but not great. I still have high hopes for him. His gene pool is too good. I can't remember the name of the 2nd band, although I am going to work on finding it. They were really good. Very Jonathan Richmanesque. The songs were hilarious and the music was beautiful sounding. He sang a song that poked fun at Jessica Simpson that was a good hoot.

The Strokes came on about 9ish. They rocked. These are 5 guys who grew up in NYC and went to the Dwight School on the Upper West Side. They were thrilled to be in their backyard. The put on an awesome show. The lead singer, Julian, has an incredible and very distinct voice. The light's for their concert were fantastic. All and all, they rocked.

The night ended up to be sunny and cool, so we lucked out on the weather. Our kids thought they were fantastic.

I am looking forward to the next concert in the park. It is such a great thing to do.

Mary's Dairy

How could you not check out a new ice cream store in the neighborhood? Years ago, we lived in Brooklyn Heights and lived at Peter's on Atlantic which served homemade ice cream.

Mary's Dairy is on West 4th between 6/7th avenues. What can I say but "wow"! The ice cream is incredibly rich. Obviously very little air is being pumped into this ice cream. The flavors are intense. Not only do they offer simple flavors, they also offer up some exotic flavors which include taking a flavor and mixing it with white and dark chocolate or pistachio halvah or even chunks of nuts. There is obviously a higher price on those items but well worth it. We had quite a few tastings.

Last night we ordered 5 different flavors. We had the killer chocolate. Rich, intense. The cappucino kahlua was rich and buttery chocked with coffee flavor. We also tried the dulche de leche which was a luscious carmel color. Not over powered but delicious. We got one of the exotics which was Ying Yang which was killer chocolate with varhona chocolate chips. There is also a soft ice cream machine that produces their option to Tastee Delight or Cremalita. It was delicious. It did not taste fake. The strawberry was rich and the chocolate was smooth and really rich for a diet ice cream. Only 60 calories for the 4 ounce serving. We did not have the sorbet but they do make 2 a day. The ice cream list has about 10/12 different choices.

The ice cream's were so rich that we actually did not finish all of the small servings.

The atmosphere is simple. White, bright and great seating. There is small seats in the windows and stools with tops that look like ice cream cones. Very cool!

All and all, a high five for Mary's. Much needed and incredibly delicious.

Gazpacho

It is that time of the year again. My kids are asking for gazpacho. One of the things I find when I cook is that if you start with a basic recipe, you can add on and change anything according to your tastes. That is one of the things I love about this recipe. I was given this recipe probably about 23 years ago by my college friend's mother. She was a fantastic cook. I have used these recipe over the years and have adopted it many times based on my whim of the season.

2 - 3 large cans of plain tomato juice
1 sweet or spanish onion - diced into small pieces (I probably only use 1/2 an onion)
1 red pepper - diced into small pieces
1 green pepper - diced into small pieces
1 yellow pepper - diced into small pieces
1 large cucumber - peeled, cut in half, scooped out and sliced into small pieces
4 celery stalks - sliced in half and then cut into small pieces
1/2 cup or more of apple cider vinegar
6 large tomatoes - deseeded and sliced into small chunks (you could also use 12/14 italian tomatoes)
tabasco

As you can see, I sort of feel my way through the recipe.

Pour all the vegetables into a large container. Then, pour the tomato juice over the vegetables until they are completely covered and then about one inch or so over that. Then, pour in about 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar (the apple cider vinegar is key). Shoot in a couple of dashes of tabasco, salt and pepper. Stir. Now taste. If you want it more vinegary, throw in a bit more vinegar. If you want it more spicy, throw in some more tabasco. I personally like it more vinegary and probably use more than 1/2 cup. I probably use about 1 cup. If you want it more tomato soup like and less vegetables put in more tomato juice. Etc.

Put in the refrigerator and chill for about 4 hours.

This recipe can take on more. During the summer, I grill corn and throw the kernels in. I sometimes serve this gazpacho with crab meat and sliced avocado on top. It is a great basic for the summer. I know someone who throws in worchestshire sauce at the end to add a different flavor all together. I also throw in chopped cilantro sometimes.

Enjoy and experiment.

Role Models

The New York Times (one of my favorite sources of information) had an interesting article in the Sunday Style section about children and parents of this generation. This article was about a mother/daughter bookclub in Greenwich and the relationships between the mothers and daughters. Bottom line, the daughter's think their mothers rock. That their parents are role models.

The parents of this generation seem to be younger, more astute and hip to their kids. The clothing styles are the same whether you are 40 or 15. We listen to the same music. We are involved in their education. There can be constant communication through cellphones. Parents of this generation did all the drugs and drinking, so perhaps they are more aware when their kids use. Perhaps they are more equipped to talk to their kids about issues such as drinking, drugs and sex.

The premise of the article is that the world is so unsure today that having a postive family life are the roots of stability which is reassuring. Parents, particularly parents that have already gone through the teen years or just remember theirs, always say "just you wait.". I have to admit, and perhaps I will eat my words, I am not too concerned about those "teen" years.

One of the biggest mistakes parents can make is being such a friend to their kid that they end up not being a disciplinarian. That is not good. There is a balance between being a friend but setting rules and teaching life long lessons. Setting boundaries are the most important lesson you can teach your kid. In the end, respect comes from those decisions as long as the decisions are explained. For us, the key has always been treating each kid with respect and honesty. You will always be the parent but parenting at a younger age is different than parenting as a teenager and different than parenting as a young adult and parenting as a full grown adult.

Why I am not concerned is because I see the relationship we have with our first teenager and it is a solid one. We really know what is going on. Our kids, so far, embrace our achievements and want to understand through us how they can achieve the same thing. We are all their role models. They are proud of who we are. They enjoy conversations about books, religion, politics and pop culture. They are interesting to us and we are interesting to them because we have an interactive relationship. We set the boundaries but we challenge them and are interested in their positions. I think that is what has made this generation different. We are working together with our kids to make a better world for all of us vs. just telling them how they must behave. We want to know them and they want to know us.

Each generation is so different. Who knows what will happen the next time around. Will parents not identify with their kids, will they have them earlier, will kids go the complete opposite of their parents, will the next generation rebel. We will see but for now, I am thrilled having our kids and seeing other kids look to their parents as role models. It creates a healthy and happy environment.