THIS WEEK
VIENNA, Part Two By John Mariani NEW YORK CORNER
FOUQUET'S By John Mariani
GOING AFTER HARRY LIME
CHAPTER FIFTY
By John Mariani
NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
DRINKING OLD RED WINES
IS A RISKY BUSINESS By John Mariani
❖❖❖
VIENNA,
Part Two
Motto Brot
There is hardly a street in
Vienna—especially during the current
holidays—where you will not be drawn in by a
window festooned with pastries, chocolates
and Christmas breads. Of course, those shops
are always there in profusion, along with
wine stores, butchers and outdoor markets
that draw on the bounty of Austria itself.
These specialties are
enough to tantalize any visitor, but Vienna
is very much an international city where
you’ll find as many ZARA and H&M stores
as you will department stores like Peek
& Cloppenburg and vintage clothes at
FLO.
This global reach extends to the
restaurant scene in Vienna, where it is as
easy to find a pizzeria and sushi bar as it is
a traditional Würstelstand
or Gasthaus.
Of the latter there are scores of places
serving the old beloved dishes like Wiener
Schnitzel and Tafelspitz.
One of the prettiest and best known and very
popular is Plachuttas
Gasthaus (Walfischgasse
5), near the Vienna State Opera, with a
good feeling of old Vienna (left).
I found a new one to me in the trendy,
youthful Mariahilf district lined with
boutiques of every kind. We stayed at the
uniquely furnished, 49-room boutique Hotel
Josefine (Esterházygasse
33) with its 1896 art nouveau
appointments, impressive pillared staircase
and an abundant use of the color purple (right),
with a delightful downstairs breakfast room.
Just around the
corner is the charming, very cordial Gasthaus
Steman (Otto Bauer-Gasse7), with outdoor
tables in good weather. This serves very
traditional, moderately priced, well prepared
fare including a splendid, crispy fried Wiener
Schnitzel (€24) and very hearty Gulasch
with a plump Kaisersemmel
roll (€10.50). Warming
Rindsuppe (beef soup) comes to the brim
of a white ceramic pot (€5.50), and a big
platter of Eiernockerl
(egg dumplings) with chopped greens makes
both a hefty course or a side dish for two
(€13). For dessert share the pancake-like Kaiserschmarren
(€10.50).
The owners of Steman also run the
popular Café Jelinek across the street,
where you may relax over coffee and pastries.
A most unusual restaurant named Ludwig
Van (Laimgrubengasse
22), run since 2015 by the ebullient,
highly opinionated Oliver Jauk, is located on
the ground floor of what was once Ludwig van
Beethoven’s residence, now preserved. It has
the feeling of a country tavern inside, and
there is an extensive wine list that Jauk puts
to good use for his tasting menus paired with
wines (extra), which are always changing.
We began with an amuse
of tȇte
de veau with white beans and red onions,
followed by a series of savory dishes (four
course €79, five €89, six €99) like finely chopped
beef tartare with smoked capers, radish and
crouton; a consommé of mushrooms with egg yolk
and truffles; cod in a rich, ivory-colored
beurre blanc with sweet potato tinged with
orange; delicious and tender veal with a
buttery fondant of potatoes and wild broccoli;
rosy lamb with spiced rice, fig and pistachio
(which showed off the chef’s Turkish
heritage); for dessert a Mont Blanc with
candied chestnut and tangerine; and a
delightful gingerbread with honey, apple and
walnut. It is a sumptuous meal, but dishes are
kept to a moderate size, so you might even
indulge in the four varieties of local cheeses
before your petits-fours.
Jauk, who says he is more a marketer
than gastronome, nevertheless knows his wines,
and he’s to be trusted with his choices
matched to his sophisticated take on modern
European cuisine.
In the mood for
Italian food, my wife and I sought out La
Tavolozza (Florianigasse
37), a pleasant looking trattoria with
white tablecloths and candles (right).
They serve a fine array of thin-crusted
pizzas, and the antipasti include a skewer of
scampi,
tuna and scallops (€19); a bright orange
carpaccio of tuna and salmon (€17); and soft
polenta with calamari (€14). Pastas are
colorfully presented, and we enjoyed penne
with funghi
porcini that were just coming into the
season (€14) and potato gnocchi with a verdant
pesto and arugula (€14).
We made not the least dent in Vienna’s
international offerings, and since one cannot
eat Wiener
Schnitzel everynight
it’s
good to know that a sudden hankering for
anything from nigiri
sushi to spaghetti alla
carbonara is close at hand.
A few
words about dining out in Vienna:
*Just
about every restaurant has a menu in English.
*
Dress, as everywhere in Europe these days, is
casual, but at the more traditional
restaurants and cafés you will want to dress a
bit conservatively, although bluejeans are
everywhere.
*
There is no smoking inside.
*
Service is unfailingly courteous, and in the
cafés very efficient.
*
As for tipping, VAT tax and service are
already included in the meal’s price, and many
list a cover charge. But tipping is not
requisite, and leaving more than 10%, if you
wish, is generous.
❖❖❖
NEW YORK CORNER
FOUQUET'S
456 Greenwich
Street
917-965-2584
By John Mariani
Since 1899 the name Fouquet’s has
evoked images of cranberry red carpets,
trimmed green hedges and broad red awnings
on the east side of the broad Champs Élysées
(below). Ever since the opening of
the avenue’s first cinema in 1928, the hotel
has drawn the movie crowd and since 1976
became host of the annual gala for the Cèsar
Awards, France’s version of the Oscars. The
hotel itself has been splendidly modernized
in the past decade, but the
restaurant has long retained its gorgeous
mahogany paneling by Jean Royère, and has
gone on to earn the prestigious Inventaire des
Monuments Historiques. It’s always been an
al fresco pleasure to dine on the terrace.
By the way, Parisians know to pronounce
the name as “Foo-ketts,” not “Foo-Kays.” As a self-described brasserie,
Fouquet’s menu has always been predictably
simple and solid, and now, with the
consultation of Pierre Gagnaire (below),
it has been transplanted into several branches
around the world, last year opening in New
York. The hotel’s location on a dark, narrow
street in TriBeCa has none of the cachet of
the Champs Élysée, but the similarity of décor
and colors of the original is obvious. The
walls are the same color wood, though not hung
with movie star photos as in Paris. Time will
tell. The table settings and table lamps are
first-rate, the wineglasses thin, and the
bread (which we had to ask for) was an
excellent selection. The wine list, as you
might expect, is very strong, but top heavy
with bottles well over $100. The
original's bar is in a separate room; here it
is in the main dining room (left). Of
course, New Yorkers being New Yorkers, it’s a
lot louder than in Paris, and here unwarranted
music is, alas, pumped into the dining room.
Fouquet’s gets a fairly well-dressed crowd,
but management does not enforce a dress code,
so that a middle-aged lout was allowed to wear
a baseball cap at the dinner table one
evening. The prices are about the same in both
cities, and, having dined a few times in the
original, I found the preparation of the food
in New York quite on a par, starting with the
very best onion soup gratinée
(below) I’ve ever had this side of the
Atlantic ($24)—a perfect amalgamation of
intense broth with slowly cooked sweet
caramelization and suffused bread, copiously
topped with three kinds of thick, bubbling,
browned cheese. I could never return to Fouquet’s
and fail to order this glorious classic of
bistro cooking. Within the
same heritage are escargots with parsley and
green velouté ($26), and a beef tartare with
garlic chili paste and egg yolk sauce,
accompanied by fat coin de
rue (“street”) fries ($30/$45). Unique
to New York is jumbo lump crabmeat seasoned
with espelette
pepper and chives set on a lime-tinged sweet
avocado puree with thin wafers of radish ($42)
—elements wholly complementary in buoying the
flavor of the crab. Why
can’t French chefs ever learn to restrain
themselves from lavishing extraneous
ingredients on pasta, as is never the case in
Italy? The potato gnocchi at Fouquet’s were
nicely made, but their flavor got smothered in
pea puree, sugar peas, mint and lemon zest
($33). A generous one-and-a-half-pound lobster
($78) came as a hearty fricassée with sautéed
spinach, roasted carrots, a Cognac-laced
bisque and a white rice pilaf, the kind of
dish the French excel in (left).
Fouquet’s buys the best lamb from Elysian
Fields, cooks it perfectly to one’s wishes,
enriched with a Provençal reduction of juices
and sided with Israeli couscous, herbed
tabbouleh and crisp gaufrette
potatoes. I should mention that one of the
menu’s most popular items seems to be the
Fouquet’s cheeseburger ($30), as ordered by
all six twenty-something women at the adjacent
table. For
desserts there are all the classics you’d hope
for at a brasserie, including a plate of fat
profiteroles lavished with chocolate ganache
($20), enough for two, and fragile,
cream-filled millefeuille pastry with a
variety of macerated autumn fruits ($16). Near the main dining room is the far
more casual but very handsome Par Ici Café
within a glassed-in garden, whose menu is
largely vegetarian with salads and pastas but
also with caviar, roast chicken ($29), salmon
($35) and butter-poached lobster ($46). TriBeCa
needs a fine dining room like Fouquet’s,
though its prices are high for the
neighborhood ($100 for sole meunière is the
highest I’ve seen in New York). Filled as it
was midweek when I visited, there are
apparently enough people who find the ambience
and vibrancy of the restaurant and its history
very good reason to eat and drink there.
Dinner nightly;
Brunch: Sat., Sun.
❖❖❖
GOING AFTER
HARRY LIME
By John
Mariani
To read previous
chapters of GOING AFTER HARRY LIME go
to thearchive
CHAPTER
FIFTY
“A picture
should end as it has to. I don’t think anything
in life ends right.”— Carol Reed on the
ending of The
Third Man
The smooth
approach to JFK Airport over the white sand
beaches of Fire Island and Jones Beach and the
slow descent before touchdown is for everyone
arriving from Europe equal parts excitement and
relief, but for Katie and David, after all
they’d been through, the end of the flight gave
them a feeling of release. All their anxieties
dissipated at the thought of being safe and
being home in New York. Even the long line through security gave
them time to enjoy the familiarity of the arrivals
hall and the customs agent welcomed them home with
the crunch of his stamp on their entry forms. Then
they walked the last fifty feet into the vast
terminal hall, past the people waiting for friends
and relatives and the card-carrying limo drivers
and outside to the taxi stand. Katie anticipated David’s saying something
like, “Well, I guess this is where we say
goodbye,” by cutting in first with, “So, David.
I’m going to need to see you in a day or two to go
over everything and get your input before I start
juggling everything in my head.” “Well, it’s not that I have awhole
lot on my schedule,” he replied. “Whenever you
say, just gimme a call.” They parted with a short
hug and a kiss on both cheeks, Katie got into a
cab to the Bronx and David in one up the Hudson
River. He had a longer drive to think everything
over. On arriving home, Katie saw her phone
blinking with dozens of phone messages she’d get
to the next day. David had only a few, none of
them important.
****
It was Christmas
Eve when Katie headed for the McClure’s
offices on Sixth Avenue, so she had a chance
to see the magnificently lighted Rockefeller
Center Christmas tree and pass by the beautifully
decorated windows at Saks Fifth Avenue. When she
got to the office everyone welcomed her back.Several
asked if she’d come close to getting murdered, and
she’d just flick her hand and say, “Let you all
know later.” Alan Dobell actually rose from his chair to
greet her at his open door. “Back in one piece, I see,” he said,
looking Katie up and down. “No bullet holes?” “No bullet holes. But almost a skin
puncture,” she replied. “I’ll tell you about it
later. Meanwhile, put your feet up on your desk
and I’ll tell you what I’ve got.” Dobell retreated to his usual position and
said, “I’m all ears.” Katie took out her notebook and began with
a quick review of everything Dobell had already
been told, then went on to tell what happened when
David and she traveled to Budapest. Dobell was
suitably impressed, rarely interrupting the flow
of her narrative.When she finished, he said, “Well, I really
am glad you’re all in one piece. Sorry to hear
about David though.” “Yeah, yeah, but it makes a better story,
doesn’t it?” “Gotta admit it does,” said the editor, who
then began peppering her with questions, asking if
she had it all down in her notes or on her
recorder. He asked about Chambers and how much of
those conversations she could use. He asked if
she’d be able to get in touch with Kovalyov to see
what he’d confirm. He asked what parts of the
story were the most salient and newsworthy. “I know you went over there to find Harry
Lime,” he said, “but this turned into a much
bigger story. There’s the Philby angle, then the
Toth ending. I have to think this through to see
what part should be the focus. Toth’s
important—hell, he tried to kill you—but all the
intrigue and cover-ups of the FSS and MI6, that
may turn out to be the bombshell.” Katie said she’d be happy to go through
everything again until they found the focus
together.At
that moment one of the other editors tapped on
Dobell’s door frame and asked to see Katie. “This envelope came for you yesterday,”
said the young woman. “Not addressed to you but
given to me by a woman—she had an accent—who asked
it be given to you on someone else’s behalf.” “What’d she look like?” asked Katie. “About my age. Maybe a student. She sounded
Eastern European.” “Russian?” “Maybe. Anyhow, here’s the envelope.” Katie opened the envelope to reveal a
greeting card that had been handwritten in
Russian. There was no signature. Katie asked if McClure’s Russia
expert, Anne Barkov, was in the office. Dobell
said she was and summoned her. Barkov was in her thirties, very tall, with
green eyes. She was a journalist who’d won awards
for her coverage of Russia, where she’d been
posted for three years in the mid-1990s.She
welcomed Katie back and asked how she could help.
Katie asked her to translate the card. Barkov skimmed it and said, “It seems to be
an Easter card. Most of the text is from the
Russian Orthodox Easter liturgy.” “An Easter card? Do the Russians send
Easter cards at Christmastime?” “No, they celebrate Easter around the same
time Catholics and Protestants do, but they use a
different Church calendar, so usually it’s within
a couple of weeks of one another; sometimes it’s
the same date. But it’s always in the spring.” “So why am I getting an anonymous Easter
card two days before Christmas?” asked Katie.
“What does it say?” “As I said, it’s part of the midnight Mass
liturgy, and the Russians all get together for a
big meal afterwards and repeat this part of the
liturgy when they toast Christ’s resurrection with
shots of vodka.” Barkov began reading the Russian, line for
line, then translated:
Let God arise, let his enemies be
scattered; let those who hate him flee from before
his face! Christ is risen from the dead, trampling
down death by death, and
upon those in the tombs bestowing life.
Below the text were two
large letters. Katie asked, “What do those letters
mean. K
and P?” “It’s actually supposed to be X and B, which
stands for ‘Khristos
voskres!’ and means ‘Christ is risen!’ It is
odd that the letters look more like K and P. The
rest of the handwriting is very good, old-style
Russian.” Katie took back the card and looked at it
for a long time, then her mouth dropped open. “What?” said Dobell and Barkov at the same
time. “The letters were written that way on
purpose,” said Katie. “KP stands
for Kim Philby and the liturgy is telling us he’s
died.” Barkov had no idea what Katie was talking
about but Dobell was dumbfounded, saying, “You
really believe that?” Katie kept nodding and said, “I think this
is a note from Kim Philby’s wife Rufina informing
me that her husband has died and that the liturgy
text is reflecting her sentiment that he has
defeated his enemies who said he had died by
actually dying, and he’s trampling on those in the
tomb where he was said to be buried.” Dobell asked, “Why the big mystery? Why
didn’t she just contact you to tell you her
husband died?” “Because Rufina knew that every phone call
is monitored and every letter she writes is opened
by the Russians. She must have given this unsigned
card with no address on it to the woman to deliver
here to the magazine. Rufina had no idea what my
home address is but knew I worked for McClure’s,
so this woman was probably just coming to the U.S.
and was asked to drop off what looks like an
Easter card.” “That’s going to be tough to prove,” said
Dobell. “I
know, but maybe this time the Brits will weigh in
and confirm it. If Philby’s really and truly dead—finally!—they
may be willing to do so. Better that than to lie
about not knowing he was alive and kicking all
those years.”
Was
it only last week I was recommending red wines
dating back ten and twenty years? Yes, indeed, but
my rationale for that article was that I was able
to find wines that had aged
beautifully and matured into what they once
promised. That is not usually the case. The fact is that it is a myth that wines “get
better with age,” meaning beyond the point where the
producer thinks it should be released. There are, to
be sure, many illustrious wines whose reputation for
aging dates back at least to 19th century, such as
the Grand Crus Burgundies and First Growth Bordeaux.
And, yes, I have had some red wines that dated back
a half century or more and found them remarkably
drinkable—which is not the same thing as saying they
were wonderful. It was
just that it was a surprise—actually more a
relief—to find them still in decent condition, with
acceptable color and modest oxidation. I’ve also had
once-great wines that had not fared well over the
decades and some—I’m thinking of a 1929 Château
Lafite-Rothschild I was served—was pretty good on
first sip, then sank like a plumb line within
fifteen minutes. There are even fewer white wines that age
well beyond three to five years, exceptions being a
handful of white Burgundies and, as is intended,
dessert wines like Sauternes (right) and
German Trockenbeerenauslese Rieslings. But it is a
foolish notion to bank on most wines, red or white,
to keep improving in the bottle when in fact they
start to deteriorate as soon as the cork is put in.
The fault is not just in the natural
oxidation that occurs in the bottle, making the wine
smell musty and chemical. Nor can it be blamed on
faulty corks, although it may well be the case that
five to ten percent of wines with cork stoppers may
well be “corked.” Heat, or wide swings of intense
heat and bitter cold, can affect a wine’s structure
in the bottle, so that an apartment building
registering above 80 degrees is far from ideal for
keeping a
wine sound. Which is why people who buy fairly
expensive wines from an older vintage should really
invest in a humidified, temperature-controlled unit.
You can get a 24-bottle storage cooler for about
$550 and they go way up from there. Wine preservers are hand-held gadgets that
supposedly suck out the oxygen from a bottle that
has been opened but not finished during a meal. Frankly, I don’t know how
well any of these work—I have one Ibought for
about ten bucks—but they are not intended to
preserve the wine past a couple of days anyhow. How do you
know, then, if a wine you purchase will age well, or
needs aging at all? There isno
foolproof way, despite claims in the wine media
about this Sonoma Valley Pinot Noir that needs
another five or ten years in the bottle. Only the
long, documented tradition of a wine that has, year
in and year out, shown that it needs further aging
makes sense. The problem is that tastings by
professionals are often from barrels, before the
wine is even bottled. Obviously, with a wine like
Château Margaux 2020 (the 2021s have not yet been
released) selling for $1,000 or more, few
connoisseurs are going to open a bottle every year
for twenty years to see how things are coming along.
Estimates for peak maturation are notoriously
useless, especially when some excellent wines—like
the vaunted 1997 Brunello di Montalcinos—go through
what’s called a “dumb period,” when the wine tastes
flat and hasn’t come together cohesively. But no one
can predict that. Years later many were superb. The best rule of
thumb, then, is, unless you are a very well-heeled
person for whom a $1,000 bottle of wine is a
fleeting pleasure, it’s best to buy your wines to be
drunk within a year or two, which is very much what
the producers would like, so that they can ship more
bottles to wine shops to replenish their shelves.
Otherwise, there’s no such thing as a pull date on a
wine bottle.
❖❖❖
FOOD WRITING
101: HYPERVENTILATING IS
NOT THE SAME THING AS DESCRIPTIVE PROSE
"2021
Specially Selected Cairanne Cru des Côtes du Rhône,
France. Set
your alarms for Aldi’s festive gift to the nation:
this excellent earthy, cracked black pepper of a
southern red rhône that you’ll need to race to the
shops for on December 11. It’s a turbocharged,
grenache-led, unoaked wallop of a red, with a good
slug of syrah and a dab each of mourvèdre and
carignan."—"50 best red wines for winter
(and the £3.49 bottle everyone should buy" by Jane
McQuitty, London Times
❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's
books below may be ordered from amazon.com.
The Hound in Heaven
(21st Century Lion Books) is a novella, and
for anyone who loves dogs, Christmas, romance,
inspiration, even the supernatural, I hope you'll find
this to be a treasured favorite. The story
concerns how, after a New England teacher, his wife and
their two daughters adopt a stray puppy found in their
barn in northern Maine, their lives seem full of promise.
But when tragedy strikes, their wonderful dog Lazarus and
the spirit of Christmas are the only things that may bring
his master back from the edge of despair.
“What a huge surprise turn this story took! I was
completely stunned! I truly enjoyed this book and its
message.” – Actress Ali MacGraw
“He had me at Page One. The amount of heart, human insight,
soul searching, and deft literary strength that John Mariani
pours into this airtight novella is vertigo-inducing.
Perhaps ‘wow’ would be the best comment.” – James
Dalessandro, author of Bohemian
Heart and 1906.
“John Mariani’s Hound in
Heaven starts with a well-painted portrayal of an
American family, along with the requisite dog. A surprise
event flips the action of the novel and captures us for a
voyage leading to a hopeful and heart-warming message. A
page turning, one sitting read, it’s the perfect antidote
for the winter and promotion of holiday celebration.” – Ann
Pearlman, author of The
Christmas Cookie Club and A Gift for my Sister.
“John Mariani’s concise, achingly beautiful novella pulls a
literary rabbit out of a hat – a mash-up of the cosmic and
the intimate, the tragic and the heart-warming – a Christmas
tale for all ages, and all faiths. Read it to your children,
read it to yourself… but read it. Early and often. Highly
recommended.” – Jay Bonansinga, New York Times bestselling
author of Pinkerton’s War,
The Sinking of The Eastland, and The Walking Dead: The Road To
Woodbury.
“Amazing things happen when you open your heart to an
animal. The Hound in
Heaven delivers a powerful story of healing that
is forged in the spiritual relationship between a man and
his best friend. The book brings a message of hope that can
enrich our images of family, love, and loss.” – Dr. Barbara
Royal, author of The
Royal Treatment.
Modesty forbids me to praise my own new book, but
let me proudly say that it is an extensive
revision of the 4th edition that appeared more
than a decade ago, before locavores, molecular
cuisine, modernist cuisine, the Food Network and
so much more, now included. Word origins have been
completely updated, as have per capita consumption
and production stats. Most important, for the
first time since publication in the 1980s, the
book includes more than 100 biographies of
Americans who have changed the way we cook, eat
and drink -- from Fannie Farmer and Julia Child to
Robert Mondavi and Thomas Keller.
"This book is amazing! It has entries for
everything from `abalone' to `zwieback,' plus more
than 500 recipes for classic American dishes and
drinks."--Devra First, The Boston Globe.
"Much needed in any kitchen library."--Bon Appetit.
Now in Paperback,
too--How Italian Food Conquered the
World (Palgrave Macmillan) has won top prize from the
Gourmand
World Cookbook Awards. It is
a rollicking history of the food culture of
Italy and its ravenous embrace in the 21st
century by the entire world. From ancient Rome
to la dolce
vita of post-war Italy, from Italian
immigrant cooks to celebrity chefs, from
pizzerias to high-class ristoranti,
this chronicle of a culinary diaspora is as
much about the world's changing tastes,
prejudices, and dietary fads as about
our obsessions with culinary fashion and
style.--John Mariani
"Eating Italian will
never be the same after reading
John Mariani's entertaining and
savory gastronomical history of
the cuisine of Italy and how it
won over appetites worldwide. . .
. This book is such a tasteful
narrative that it will literally
make you hungry for Italian food
and arouse your appetite for
gastronomical history."--Don
Oldenburg, USA Today.
"Italian
restaurants--some good, some glitzy--far
outnumber their French rivals. Many of
these establishments are zestfully described
in How Italian Food Conquered the World, an
entertaining and fact-filled chronicle by
food-and-wine correspondent John F.
Mariani."--Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street
Journal.
"Mariani
admirably dishes out the story of
Italy’s remarkable global ascent
to virtual culinary
hegemony....Like a chef gladly
divulging a cherished family
recipe, Mariani’s book reveals the
secret sauce about how Italy’s
cuisine put gusto in gusto!"--David
Lincoln Ross,
thedailybeast.com
"Equal parts
history, sociology, gastronomy, and just
plain fun, How Italian Food Conquered the
World tells the captivating and delicious
story of the (let's face it) everybody's
favorite cuisine with clarity, verve and
more than one surprise."--Colman Andrews,
editorial director of The Daily
Meal.com.
"A fantastic and fascinating
read, covering everything from the influence
of Venice's spice trade to the impact of
Italian immigrants in America and the
evolution of alta cucina. This book will
serve as a terrific resource to anyone
interested in the real story of Italian
food."--Mary Ann Esposito, host of PBS-TV's
Ciao
Italia.
"John Mariani has written the
definitive history of how Italians won their
way into our hearts, minds, and
stomachs. It's a story of pleasure over
pomp and taste over technique."--Danny Meyer,
owner of NYC restaurants Union Square
Cafe, The Modern, and Maialino.
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET
NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Publisher: John Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher
Mariani, Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Gerry Dawes, Geoff Kalish.
Contributing
Photographer: Galina Dargery. Technical
Advisor: Gerry
McLoughlin.