MARIANI’S
Virtual
Gourmet
William Frawley (Fred)
and Vivian Vance (Ethel) from "I Love Lucy"
❖❖❖ IN THIS ISSUE WHAT I'M MISSING By John Mariani NEW YORK CORNER LOVE AND PIZZA Chapter Seven By John Mariani NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR GOOD ADVICE ON DRINKING WINE. . . FROM THE 16TH CENTURY By John Mariani ❖❖❖ WHAT I'M MISSING Part One By John Mariani
As a writer I have not
undergone a radical change from my usual routine
of staying home every day during this pandemic.
I can’t, however, travel or dine out at
restaurants, which is both professionally and
personally daunting after a lifetime of doing
so. But, while I’d love nothing more than to
dress up in a suit and tie and feast on a meal
at a great grand dining room like Le Bernardin
in New York, the Ritz in Paris or Da Fiore in
Venice, the foods and places I’m missing most
are considerably down the totem pole. Here are
some of my favorites, currently unavailable. The
shellfish towers at Le Dôme in Paris—Whatever
coquillages
come in freshest that morning land at Le Dome’s
door, which opened in 1898. It’s a place the
so-called Lost Generation made famous when in the
1920s it was part of what Malcom Cowley called the
“heart and nervous system of the literary colony.”
It was remodeled in 1986 but you can still see
photos of all its famous clientele while feasting
on Marennes oysters and Chablis. Hot
chocolate at a café on Las Ramblas in Barcelona—This is not cocoa made
from a powder. It is really melted chocolate,
thick as hot fudge and best appreciated with the
crisp fritters called churros.
Any number of places along Barcelona’s main street
serve it, including inside La Boqueria market,
Patîsserie Escriba and Dulcinea.
New
York pretzels and Papaya King—Indigenous
items
in New York’s rich food culture, fat, yeasty,
heavily salted pretzels are served warm from
street carts, along with chestnuts. Papaya
King, with several locations—the original opened
in 1931 on East 86th Street and Third
Avenue—became famous for its papaya fruit juice
served with a plump hot dog with onions and
relish.
The
cheeseburger and fries at Beach Burger on Santa
Monica Pier—I could
happily eat at fifty favorite burger joints, but
when you’re standing on the Santa Monica Pier at
twilight, with the surfers and sunbathers retiring
for the day, and kids on the carousel and roller
coaster, there’s no prettier place to consume
America’s favorite sandwich. Irish
Coffee at San Francisco’s Buena Vista Bar—This
was the first place to introduce Irish
coffee in America, at a time when it was unknown
in Ireland, except for Shannon Airport, where it
was served as a promo for the whiskey. Opened in
1916, the old bar started serving the coffee
confection in 1952, and there’s a plaque on the
outside wall to prove it. The special glasses are
lined up by the dozen at the bar and the bar man
pours the whipped cream in with a slow motion
finesse that makes the drink all the more
decadent.
The vast night markets of Taiwan—The idea of night markets dates
to the Ninth century, and they teem with every
imaginable kind of food. In Taiwan many are run by
the Han people and feature xiaochi, which means “small
eats." You
go row by row, one stand to another; one is
frying, one is grilling; and you can smell the
“stinky tofu” stall from twenty feet away. Roast chicken at Henne in Berlin.—Of all the roast chickens I’ve
ever had, Henne’s is extraordinary. Its crispness
derives, I believe, from being fried whole as well
as roasted, and its skin comes out crisp as
parchment. The little dining room is filled with
local Berliners throughout the evening. The only
other thing on the menu is potato salad, and of
course, the beer keeps flowing. The
cheese fondue in Trois Sifflets in Vevey,
Switzerland—Once
fondue sets were
requisite wedding gifts in the 1960s, especially
after fondues, including chocolate, were
featured at the New York World’s Fair. The little
restaurant Trois Sifflets in Vevey, Switzerland,
not only has the right local cheeses and wines for
fondue but has an atmosphere in which the
presentation of the dish is greeted with a playing
of the Swiss national anthem. The draft
cider and smoked tenderloin lomito
ahumado at Café Tortoni in Buenos Aires—Outside
Café Tortoni on the Avenida de Mayo is a bronze
statue of Argentina’s most famous write, Jorge
Luis Borges, who frequented the place with his
artist friends. Everyone drinks the coffee, but
the cider is delicious, as is the smoked
tenderloin. The
crab restaurants on the Chesapeake.—When
Chesapeake Bay is a little choppy, the
gulls sweeping the sky and the struggling live
crabs come in baskets, the seashore houses in
Maryland are ideal places to spend an afternoon
cracking the shell with a wooden mallet and
picking out the meat in the once blue-now red
shells, then adding a shake of lemon and Tabasco. The
beignets and chicory coffee at the Café du Monde
in New Orleans—Immensely
touristy and, most of the year, intensely hot and
humid, the Café du Monde is still a requisite stop
for its hot-out-of-the oil beignets in a blizzard
of powdered sugar with a cup of chicory coffee
(which became popular in New Orleans during the
Civil War, when regular coffee was scarce). The
waiters all seem Asian, the wait for a table is
not too long, but you can also go right up to the
take-out window and eat outside the café on nearby
benches.
❖❖❖ NEW YORK CORNER
By
John Mariani By John Mariani LOVE AND PIZZA Since, for the time being, I am unable to write about or review New York City restaurants, I have decided instead to print a serialized version of my (unpublished) novel Love and Pizza, which takes place in New York and Italy and involves a young, beautiful Bronx woman named Nicola Santini from an Italian family impassioned about food. As the story goes on, Nicola, who is a student at Columbia University, struggles to maintain her roots while seeing a future that could lead her far from them—a future that involves a career and a love affair that would change her life forever. So, while New York’s restaurants remain closed, I will run a chapter of the Love and Pizza each week until the crisis is over. Afterwards I shall be offering the entire book digitally. I hope you like the idea and even more that you will love Nicola, her family and her friends. I’d love to know what you think. Contact me at loveandpizza123@gmail.com —John Mariani To read previous chapters go to archive (beginning with March 29, 2020, issue. LOVE AND PIZZA Cover Art By Galina Dargery © John Mariani, 2020
CHAPTER SEVEN "Ophelia" By
John Everett Millais (1851)
That night in bed, in the room
she still shared with her sister, Nicola
said, “Natalie, do you ever think of leaving
the neighborhood?” ❖❖❖
NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
GOOD
ADVICE ON DRINKING WINE. . .
FROM THE 16TH CENTURY By John Mariani Wine writing was once a gentleman’s avocation, and those who wrote well about wine, like Evelyn Waugh, Ernest Hemingway and Art Buchwald, were far more devoted to the pleasures of drinking it than in analyzing it down to its last gram of tannin and degree of acidity. Indeed, today’s wine writers are largely note takers who conjure up tedious comparisons to everything from tobacco box aromas to the flavors of bacon. Waugh, in fact, sent up such drivel long ago when he had his effete characters, Charles and Sebastian, in Brideshead Revisited (left) describe wine thus: '...It is a little, shy wine like a gazelle.' 'Like a leprechaun.' 'Dappled, in a tapestry meadow.' 'Like a flute by still water.' '...And this is a wise old wine.' 'A prophet in a cave.' '...And this is a necklace of pearls on a white neck.' 'Like a swan.' 'Like the last unicorn.'
So it is always good to find a new book on the
shelves that regards wine with both pleasure and
common sense, including a good deal about manners
and drunkenness. How to Drink:
A Classical Guide to the Art of Drinking
(Princeton U. Press; $16.95) was written by a
garrulous fellow named Vincent Obsopoeus, who did
so in reaction to the barbarous drunken behavior
demonstrated by the Germans of his day, who were
consuming 120 liters of wine per person per year.
His day was the 16th century.
❖❖❖
SPONSORED BY ❖❖❖
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❖❖❖
FEATURED
LINKS: I am happy to report
that the Virtual
Gourmet is linked to four excellent
travel sites: Everett Potter's Travel Report: I consider this the best and
savviest blog of its kind on the web. Potter is a
columnist for USA
Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and Luxury Spa Finder,
a contributing editor for Ski and a frequent contributor
to National
Geographic Traveler, ForbesTraveler.com
and Elle Decor.
"I’ve designed this site is for people who take
their travel seriously," says Potter. "For
travelers who want to learn about special places
but don’t necessarily want to pay through the nose for
the privilege of staying there. Because at the end
of the day, it’s not so much about five-star
places as five-star experiences." THIS WEEK:
Eating Las Vegas
JOHN CURTAS has been covering the Las Vegas
food and restaurant scene since 1995. He is
the co-author of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50
Essential Restaurants (as well as
the author of the Eating Las Vegas web site: www.eatinglasvegas.
He can also be seen every Friday morning as
the “resident foodie” for Wake Up With the
Wagners on KSNV TV (NBC) Channel 3 in
Las Vegas.
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET
NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Publisher: John Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani,
Robert Mariani, Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Gerry Dawes, Geoff Kalish,
and Brian Freedman. Contributing
Photographer: Galina Dargery. Technical
Advisor: Gerry
McLoughlin. If you wish to subscribe to this
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