I've been asked often enough what the greatest meal of my life was, so I've considered the question and come up with the answer: It was a plump grouse roasted rare with green cabbage and a syrupy reduction of red wine, served to me at a long-gone restaurant in London. Never having had grouse before, I was wholly unprepared for the riveting flavor of its meat, a deep, dark wild taste mingled with the red wine that just gushed over my tongue. I remember every bite. Game can do that to the receptive palate.
    I don't fully understand why so many people have no problem chowing down on Porky Pig and Donald Duck but recoil at the thought of eating Bambi and Bugs Bunny. I know it has to do with the perception that some animals are cuter than others and therefore deserve to escape the gastronome's table, but it certainly shouldn't have anything to do with an ill-advised belief that deer, as well as elk, antelope, geese, pheasant, grouse, quail and wild boar, are being shot by hunters despoiling the wilderness or driving such animals to extinction.
   The fact is, every morsel of every game animal in every restaurant and butcher shop in America comes from a farm where they are raised, fattened, slaughtered and inspected specifically for those markets. One need not get into an argument about the morality of hunting to accept the notion that game animals are now treated exactly the way chickens, steers, lambs, and pigs are for consumption. The exception to this would be imported game from Scotland, where a deer or grouse still may be shot in the wild, but must be quickly inspected by a health official before being sold in the marketplace.
    This is all to the good, because the increasing availability of excellent, healthy game is a boon not only for the gourmet but for anyone interested in fine meat that is also low in fat.  And, although wild game generally have a different flavor (dependent on what they eat) from farm-raised game, the variety now offered in restaurants, by butchers and by mail order is amazingly rich. Chefs adore game  for a chance to play with other flavors and textures that go better with certain fruits and vegetables than does the ubiquitous sirloin, breast of chicken or veal chop. 
   The thought of rare roast partridge with dried cranberries and wild rice, or a hearty haunch of venison au grand veneur in a reduction of Port wine and red currants (right), seems far more glorious in autumn, winter and early spring than it does in the heat of summer. The season for wild game begins in the fall and continues into winter, though the availability of farm-raised game has made the seasonal appetite for such meats more traditional than necessary.
   For some, squeamishness about eating game is based on the erroneous—though understandable—belief that game is, well, gamey.  But just as fresh fish should never taste fishy, so, too, game should have a distinct but mild flavor. Indeed, to my taste too much farm-raised game is rather bland, especially pheasant, and the venison widely imported from New Zealand has a consistency chefs love but which I find all too boring from meal to meal. Those who have never tasted wild venison can't imagine the luxurious flavor of the meat, whose flavor is determined by the diet and age of the animal. Some of the finest I've ever eaten has been venison provided to me by a hunter friend who shoots exclusively with bow and arrow.
     Game should be slightly aged, but the fashion in France and England for game hung for several days, even weeks, is not only outdated but highly dangerous, so that even the bible of French cuisine, Larousse Gastronomique, now notes that hanging meat till it's "high" can cause the flesh to be toxic. (It can also stink.)  No game you buy at a market or eat at a restaurant is ever going to be hung more than a few days, but aging under controlled cold temperatures, a day or two for deer, and perhaps a few days longer for birds, breaks down the muscle and fibers of the meat and makes it more tender and more digestible as well as flavorful.
    The traditions of game cookery are very strong in human gastronomy, quite obviously going back to those prehistoric days when bringing back meat from the wild was the only thing that kept tribes alive. Much later the Egyptians (right), Greeks and Romans created game preserves for the sport of hunting, and by the Middle Ages the hunting of game was largely restricted to the aristocracy, so that when the French Revolution was in full swing, the invisible gates to the forests were flung open to the peasantry, an event that in turn required people to pay for a license to hunt game, lest the species be completely wiped out within decades.
    Game, therefore, became once again food only for those who could afford it, except in America, where the vast herds of game animals, including single herds containing up to 12 million buffalo, filled the great plains and the skies were literally blackened by game birds. Their slaughter, sometimes to extinction, brought about the need for both preservation and the farming of stocks, so that no one now need fear eating any game that has not been raised solely for one's delectation.
   It goes without saying that the diet of the mountain men, overwhelmingly fur trappers, who first ventured into the Colorado territory was wholly based on what they could shoot, some of it made into jerky, which was highly nutritious, full of fat and salt, and easy to carry in one's saddle bags.  There was scant evidence any of it was cooked with much refinement, causing Horace Greeley to append to his exhortation to "Go West, young man," with the comment that what the West really needed was "a thousand good cooks." 
    Nevertheless, the traditions of American game cookery have much to do with what was available where. In fact, western game like elk, grizzly bear, even buffalo tongues were shipped back east as delicacies, while in Colorado boom towns like Aspen, the local saloon was probably serving such items as part of the free lunch.

                                            Robert Redford in "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972)    

       Availability today, from butchers or on-line specialty meat stores, is just hitting its peak now, and a bird and a bottle or a haunch of venison is as celebratory as the season can get.

      It’s almost a moot point to discuss the reasons not to dine out in the Big Apple during the holidays, because the chances of getting a reservation at any good restaurant are next to nil. But there are five good reasons to hold off, unless you’ve already made your reservations well in advance.

 
•         Restaurants are jammed until January 2. Post-covid, New York’s restaurants sprang back with astounding resiliency, and the pent-up desire and demand for reservations quickly reverted to pre-pandemic levels. After a six-month period of building back lunch business, everything is in full swing again. Out-of-town travelers, business and private parties are taking up all the spaces in both the most popular restaurants and those on the second tier, whose local clientele pack them most nights of the week. Restaurateur David Ghantanfard, who just opened Valbella at the Park off 42nd Street, said, “In all my years in the business, I’ve never seen anything like this. We never have an empty tab

•         At any time of the year, especially during the day, New York is a traffic nightmare, especially in midtown, where blockages lead to long delays to get across, up or downtown. The highways are jammed bumper-to-bumper from 8 to 10 a.m., then 2:30 to 7 p.m., and that has only gotten worse during the holidays because of out-of-towners coming in for events, theater and restaurants. Recently, a trip that usually takes me 40 minutes to drive to midtown took 90, and the same amount of time to get home. And, if you do get into town, parking on the street is extremely difficult during the holidays—and if you don’t have familiarity facility reading the city’s  byzantine parking signs you’ll get an $80 ticket or, worse, be towed, for $325 — and parking lots charge $40 and up for two hours.

           
•         Trains, Taxis and Car Services are iffy. Getting into New York’s Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station provides admirably on-time access and exit, but at peak hours during the holidays the trains can get very full. Then, you need to hail a cab, Uber or Lyft (forget buses, which have to deal with traffic despite bus lanes), and those become rare around dinner time and they, too, have to claw their way through traffic. If you’re lucky enough to get a cab or car outside Grand Central and have a restaurant reservation just ten blocks away at 7 o’clock, it could take 20 minutes or more to get there.

 •         Restaurants can’t handle the onslaught of business. Because there are still serious labor shortages in the restaurant sector in New York and elsewhere, there simply aren’t enough cooks or waitstaff to handle the crush of customers who arrive by 5 o’clock and keep coming till 9. Restaurateurs try to stagger reservations but because of the late arrivals (due to those traffic jams and parking problems), the schedule often goes haywire, with people backed up at the door waiting for their table. Once seated, initial service can be slow and getting the food out of the kitchen even slower. Kitchens are used to high volume and full rooms, but not at the daily and nightly intensity they get during the holidays.

            •         Everything gets much better in January. After New Year’s, New Yorkers still dine out, but cut way back, and January is a notoriously slow month for restaurants. That is when you will more easily find tables at even the most popular restaurants, especially at lunch time, and the pacing of your meal much more relaxed. Plus, the restaurateurs are very, very happy to see you during that slow month.

      Katie asked a few more questions but could see that Donaldson had a great deal on his mind, for while the overall effect of selling the Vermeer was good for Crofthouse’s reputation, the carping about the lower sale price might mean that the next time the Chinese would sell through Sotheby’s or Christie’s.
         “What time is it in New York?” Katie asked David.
         “You’re asking me? I still haven’t gotten it right.”
         Katie quickly did some figuring in her head. “I think it’s eight in the morning.  I’d better call my editor and let him know what happened. The American papers will run the story tomorrow, and it’s like, what? one p.m. in London? They might get it in a late edition or on the TV news.”
         “But Dobell won’t be running anything soon,” said David.
         “True, but he’ll want to know ASAP.”
         “What about Coleman?”
         “Screw Coleman. You going to call Kiley and Bao?”
         “Oh yeah,” David said. “No rush. I’ll call them right after you let me take you out for dinner. Okay?”
         “Mr. Greco, you’ve got yourself a date,” said Katie. “You have that list of restaurants Mrs. Curren gave us?”
         “I already asked her to make a reservation at a good one.  I’ll even pick up the check.”
         “Now, don’t start doing that, David!  Never waste a legitimate opportunity to take full advantage of an expense account when you can. So where are you taking me?”
         “A place called Man Wah in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. It’s less than a mile from here.”

         “Really? Well, it’s such a beautiful night, shall we walk over?”
         David thought that was the best thing Katie could have said.
         “At your service,” he said, offering her his arm.
         The night was indeed very beautiful with a crescent moon over Hong Kong Harbor, and Katie and David took their time walking to the posh Mandarin Oriental hotel on Connaught Road, where the restaurant Man Wah was perched on the 25th floor, offering a stunning view of the sparkling city at night.
         The room itself was low lighted, with paintings on silk, lacquered furniture, and first-rate Chinese ceramics throughout. By then it was close to ten o’clock, but the two Americans were very cordially welcomed as friends of the Currens and promised a very special evening.
         The cuisine was exquisite, far more refined than anything they’d had over the past week in Hong Kong, and the table settings and stemware seemed to be of museum quality.  Katie and David left the menu up to the captain and were rewarded with the chef’s signature dishes, which included braised bird’s nest soup with dried seafood, a velvety steamed fillet of spotted grouper with aromatic ginger, and roast suckling pig with marinated abalone, jellyfish and shrimp in a delicate sesame sauce.
         “I’ve never had Chinese food this wonderful,” said Katie.
         “I’ve never had Chinese food anything like this,” said David, enjoying new tastes like abalone, sea conch and seaweed. “But I really like it.”
         They spent a good deal of time looking out the vast windows at the city that had become their sanctuary.
         “We were so lucky,” said Katie.
         David just nodded, feeling that being rescued was only part of the joy he felt sitting across from Katie.
         “Here’s to Jan Vermeer, who got us here!” she said, raising a glass of French wine.
         “And to the Hong Kong Harbor Police who saved our asses.”
         He wished he hadn’t said that. It kind of broke the spell of the moment, so he just kept quiet and looked at Katie and past her at the yellow crescent moon bobbing in the choppy waters of the great harbor.   

         When Katie and David arrived back at the Consulate and retired to their rooms, both ditched plans to make any calls back to the U.S.  The stress and excitement of the past ten days, plus the food and wine, took its toll by lulling them into a deep sleep and a late morning rising.
         It would be their last day in Hong Kong, at least for the present, and their flight left in the late afternoon, so a good breakfast was followed by fond farewells all around. Mrs. Curren presented them both with wrapped gifts that turned out to be small carry-on suitcases.
         “I know you don’t have much to pack, but they’re better than a paper bag,” she said. Indeed, except for what Katie and David had acquired in Hong Kong, they had nothing left to pack. “And remember,” said Mrs. Curren, “if you have to come back here for the trial, I insist you stay with us.”
         The flight was 15 hours to New York, and Katie and David slept much of the way.  After going through customs at JFK, David said, “I’m planning on crashing for the rest of the weekend before calling anyone. What about you?”
         “I’ll call my editor, but I want to find out what, if anything, has happened with Coleman before speaking to him again.”
         Katie was next in line for a taxi—David was taking a shuttle van to his home up the Hudson River—and she said, “Well, I guess I’ll see you soon enough.”
         “I hope so. I hope it’s before we have to go back to Hong Kong.”
         “I hope we don’t have to go back to Hong Kong. I can’t say I have real fond memories of the place, even though everything worked out well.”
         “And you’ve got your story.”
         “And I’ve got my story.”
         The cabbie was getting out to open the trunk, even though Katie had only the small bag.
         “Okay, then,” said David. “Let’s speak soon and wrap this whole case up.”
         “Absolutely. And, David, once again, thanks for everything you did, right from the start. We make a damn good team, don’t we?”
         “My pleasure,” he said, “but make sure Dobell sends the check.”
         “Send me your receipts.”
         Katie hugged David, kissed him on both cheeks, waved from inside the cab and was on her way back to the Bronx.  He waved at her till the cab was out of sight.