Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

Note: It's become something of a tradition for me to republish this memoir each year in Mariani's Virtual Gourmet, which is in the book Almost Golden I co-wrote with my older brother Robert and originally as an article in the New York Times.

 

             Maybe it didn't snow for Christmas every year in the Bronx back in the '50s. But my memory of at least one perfect snow-bound Christmas Eve makes me think it did often enough that I still picture my neighborhood as white as Finland in those days when I lived along the choppy waters of the Long Island Sound.
          But for all the decorations and the visits to stores, the Bronx Zoo. Radio City Music Hall and the Rockefeller Center skating rink, it was the sumptuous Christmas feasts that helped maintain our families' links to the Old Country long after most other immigrant traditions had faded away. Food was always central to everyone's thoughts at Christmas, and the best cooks in each family were renowned for specific dishes no one else dared make.
 
John and Robert Mariani

         The assumption that everything would be exactly the same as last year was as comforting as knowing that Christmas Day would follow Christmas Eve. The finest ancestral linens were ironed and smoothed into place, dishes of hard candy were set out on every table, and the kitchen ovens hissed and warmed our homes for days.  The reappearance of the old dishes, the irresistible aromas, tastes and textures, even the seating of family members in the same spot at the table year after year anchored us to a time and a place that was already changing more rapidly than we could understand.
          It's funny now to think that my memories of the food and the dinners are so much more intense than those of toys and games I received, but that seems true of most people. The exact taste of Christmas cookies, the sound of beef roasting in its pan, and the smell of evergreen mixed with the scent of cinnamon and cloves and lemon in hot cider were like holy incense in church,unforgettable, like the way you remember your parents' faces when they were young.
          No one in our neighborhood was poor, but few were rich. Yet we mounted feasts as lavish as any I could imagine in a book, and in the days preceding Christmas people took enormous joy in spending their money on foods only eaten during that season.
          It was still a time when the vegetable man would sell his produce from an old truck on Campbell Drive, and Dugan's and Krug's bread men came right to your door with special holiday cupcakes and cookies.  We'd go to Biancardi's Meats on Arthur Avenue and, while the butcher on Middletown Road usually carried fresh fish only on Fridays, he was always well stocked with cod, salmon, lobsters and eel during the holidays.  The pastry shops worked overtime to bake special Christmas breads and cakes, which would be gently wrapped in a swaddling of very soft pink tissue paper tied up with ribbons and sometimes even sealed with wax to deter anyone from opening it before Christmas.
          By Christmas Eve the stores ran out of everything, and pity the poor cook who delayed buying her chestnuts, ricotta cheese, or fresh yeast until it was too late. Weeks in advance the women would put in their order at the live poultry market for a female rabbit—not a male—or a goose that had to weigh exactly twelve pounds.        

         You always knew what people were cooking for Christmas because the aromas hung in the hallways of the garden apartments and the foyers of their homes—garlicky tomato sauces, roast turkeys, rich shellfish stews, and the sweet, warm smells of pastries and breads could make you dizzy with hunger.  When you went out into the cold, those aromas would slip out the door and mingle with the biting sea-salted air and the fresh wet snow swept in off the Sound.
          At the Italian homes in the Bronx ancient culinary rituals were followed long after they'd lost their original religious symbolism.  The traditional meatless meal of Christmas Eve—“La Vigilia"—which began centuries ago as a form of penitential purification, developed into a robust meal of seven exotic seafood dishes that left one reeling from the table.  According to the traditions of Abruzzo, where my father's family came from, the Christmas Eve dinner should be composed of seven or nine dishes—mystical numbers commemorating the seven sacraments and the Holy Trinity multiplied by three. 
        This was always my Auntie Rose's shining moment. She would cook with the zeal and energy of a dozen nuns, beginning with little morsels of crisply fried calamari.  She made spaghetti on a stringed utensil called a "ghitarra" and served it with a sauce teeming with shellfish.  Next came an enormous pot of lobster fra diavolo—a powerful coalescence of tomato, garlic, onion, saffron and hot red peppers, all spooned into soup plates around shiny, scarlet-red lobsters that some guests attacked with unbridled gusto while others took their dainty time extracting every morsel of meat from the deepest recesses of the body, claws and legs.    
        Few children would eat baccala, a strong-smelling salted cod cooked for hours in order to restore its leathery fleshto edibility, and stewed eel, an age-old symbol of renewal, was a delicacy favored mostly by the old-timers. But everyone waited for the dessert—the yeasty, egg bread called "panettone," shaped like a church dome and riddled with golden raisins and candied fruit.
        Christmas Day came too early for everyone but the children.But as soon as presents were exchanged, my mother and grandmother would begin work on the lavish Christmas dinner to be served that afternoon. It was always a mix of regional Italian dishes and American novelties, like the incredibly rich, bourbon-laced egg nog my father insisted on serving before my grandmother's lasagna, in which were hidden dozens of meatballs the size of hazelnuts.
          Then my mother would set down a massive roast beef, brown and crackling on the outside, red as a poinsettia within, surrounded by sizzling roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding glistening from the fat absorbed from the beef.  Dessert reverted to venerable Italian tradition with my grandmother's prune-and-chocolate-filled pastries and honeyed cookies called struffoli (below).  And someone always brought panforte, an intensely rich, thick Sienese fruit and nut cake no one could eat more than a sliver of.
           After such a meal, we needed to go for a walk in the cold air. In other homes up and down our block people were feasting on Norwegian lutefisk, Swedish meatballs, German stollen, Irish plum pudding and American gingerbread. If you stopped and listened for a moment, you could hear the families singing carols in their native tongue.
          By early evening guests got ready to leave and leftovers were packed up to take home, belying everyone's protest that they wouldn't eat for days afterwards.
          By then the snow had taken on an icy veneer and the wind died down to a whisper.  I remember how the cold air magnified sounds far, far away, so as I crept into bed I could hear the waves lapping the sea wall and the rattling clack-clack, clack-clack of the El running from Buhre Avenue to Middletown Road. It was a kind of lullaby in those days, when it never failed to snow on Christmas in the Bronx.

 

    The City of Yonkers––less than ten miles from Manhattan­––has in recent years risen from chronic blight to become New York’s most vibrant Hudson River town. Its downtown area near the beautifully restored train station is called Getty Square, which in the 19^th century was a booming hub of industrial and civic activity. The Otis Elevator factory was located here, now home to the vast new Lionsgate film and TV studio built for $500 million, whose proximity to New York has added measurably to media production.

    Smack on the banks of the Hudson is the new Seafire Grill Westchester, an offshoot of the Manhattan original and part of the Benjamin Group that runs steakhouses from here to Japan. The three-story premises, looking like an elegant houseboat and set on a pier, had been another restaurant for a decade and are now totally renovated, lighter, airier, with a grand panorama on the river  across from the Palisades and within sight of the George Washington Bridge and Manhattan skyline. Jellyfish-like chandeliers and a  vaulted ceiling above polished parquet floors set with draped tables and comfortable upholstered chairs add to the enveloping comfort of the place. A handsome bar stretches against one wall, as do racks of wine bottles, while the private dining rooms are as elegantly set as the rest. I recently visited after dark but I can’t wait to return in spring during twilight.

 

Owner/managers Benjamin Prelvuka, Victor Dedusha and Venjamin Sinanaj

    The Benjamin Group’s long-time managers have honed its hospitality and established long-term relationships with purveyors––which explains its deep, broad wine list of more than 700 labels––so while the menu here focuses on the best seasonal seafood, the steaks and chops are equally dependable.

    The menu is reflective of the Gilded Age when Yonkers was a major mercantile city and gentleman merchants and industrialists sat down to trencherman dinners. So, today you may begin with a sampling from the raw bar of oysters, Littleneck clams, lobster, shrimp, crab and caviar. 

    Appetizers range from a hefty chilled lobster salad (above) with cucumber, avocado, cherry tomatoes, roasted corn, hearts of palm, and a grapefruit dressing. Oysters Rockefeller, once a staple of American fine dining, are on the menu here, half a dozen baked with spinach, Parmigiano and Pernod. Rich yellowfin tuna tartare comes on toasted focaccia with a citrus cream, while pan-roasted dayboat scallops are accompanied by a celery root purée and caviar beurre blanc. True jumbo lump crab meat cake (left) is set on a crispy frisée salad with a red pepper, coulis, and tartar sauce with a celery root remoulade. Spanish octopus takes on myriad flavors from chopped onions, peppers, capers, and a dressing of olive oil. If you like lobster bisque that takes mostly of lobster, this is one you will remember.

    As one might expect these days, there are a few pasta dishes, and the ones I enjoyed were truffled trophy, macaroni with colossal crab meat, roasted cherries, a dash of white wine.

    The fish differ by season, and at the moment roasted Nova Scotia halibut comes with lemony potato gnocchi with fava beans, kale, chimichurri, and a luscious beurre blanc. Fresh from the boat, Montauk swordfish is blackened and served with a tartar sauce and cool, avocado, mousse. A whole main lobster weighing in at 2 pounds maybe add simply steamed or stuffed with crab meat while Alaskan king crab legs come simply withdrawn on butter.

    Our party skipped the meat courses at this point except for our two grandchildren who polished off a 12 ounce fillet mignon with well cut and quickly fried golden french fries.

    All desserts are house made, and the best are strictly American, like the New York cheesecake; not-too-sweet sweet pecan pie (left); a southern favorite,  tangy Key lime pie;  and a flourless chocolate cake with brandy chocolate sauce. All are meant to be shared.

    The generosity of portions is shown throughout the meal, and waiters are adept at serving each guest some of this dish, perhaps a little of that, and you may well go home with the rest.

    Even more so the generosity of spirit at Seafire Grill Westchester is what guides the evening here, and it is clear that the management intends to win as many guests up from Manhattan and New Jersey as it does from Westchester. And since Metro-North’s Hudson Line stops next door––it takes 28 minutes from Grand Central––it is as attractive a place to visit as it is to dine at.

 

Open for lunch Sat. & Sun., for dinner Tues.-Sun.

CHAPTER FOUR

      Katie had contacted Epstein’s publicist to inquire about an interview.
         “What is the story about?” asked the publicist, who sounded wary.
         “Word is that New York Magazine is for sale and Epstein is one of the bidders. I’m trying to speak to all the principals.”
         “All right, Ms. Cavuto, let me or someone here get back to you.”
         “Have you any idea when that night be?”
         “Jeffrey’s usually pretty good with the press. I expect someone will call you within the next day or so.”
         Kate said that would be appreciated, the sooner the better, and hung up.
         Less than an hour later Katie’s phone rang.
         “Is this Ms. Cavuto?” a woman with a British accent asked.
         “Yes, it is. Who’s calling?”
         “My name is Ghislaine Maxwell and I’m Jeffrey Epstein’s personal assistant. I’m told you want to interview him about the bidding on New York Magazine? This is for McClure’s?”
         “That’s right, I’m trying to speak with all the principals.”
         “So, Jeffrey is not the focus of the story then?”
         “No, he’s one of several.”
         “I ask because Jeffrey has no interest at this time in speaking about his personal life, and if he does do an interview with you, he’d want to see the questions beforehand.”
         It was not a unique request, but Katie, like all journalists, hated the idea of allowing a subject to prep for an interview with set answers.
         “He just wants to make sure the questions are germane to the subject and wants to avoid discussing certain topics.”
         Katie knew that Maxwell was shutting the door on any inquiries about the Palm Beach police investigation, which, Katie admitted, had nothing to do with her current story.
         “I’ll have to pass Mr. Epstein’s request by my editor,” said Katie, “but, under the circumstances, I think it will be all right. If I do, I’d appreciate it if Mr. Epstein does not tell the other bidders about such an arrangement.”
         “Don’t worry, Jeffrey won’t be speaking to any of them while the negotiations are ongoing. So, if that’s settled, call me back and we’ll set something up. Jeffrey appreciates your interest. Goodbye.”
         Maxwell hung up and Katie’s next call was to Dobell, who, after making his usual objections, said it would be okay to submit questions, with the proviso that the interview was in person and he allowed you follow-up questions on the spot. Katie called Maxwell back with that response, and Maxwell suggested Katie might see Epstein the following morning.
         That didn’t give Katie much time to research Epstein, and she asked around the office what she should know before the interview.
      “He’s a shady guy and no one has ever figured out how he’s become a billionaire,” said Donna Druley, McClure’s financial reporter. “Like all these guys, he’s been sued and he sues people right and left, and you’ll find as many people who’ll defend him as a wonderful human being as will call him a devious bastard. He’s got powerful friends everywhere, and he’s not above luring them in by holding parties where there are always plenty of young models.  Russian, Victoria’s Secret types.”
         “I read about that in the profile Vicky Ward did on him in Vanity Fair last year. He seems to attract everyone from Bill Clinton and Donald Trump to Prince Albert and Alan Dershowitz.”
         “Birds of a feather,” said Donna. “The guy owns a private 72-acre island called Little St. James in the Virgin Islands, which visitors have nicknamed ‘Pedophile Island.’  and his house in Palm Beach is huge, worth something like $7 million. He’s also got a 7,500 acre spread in New Mexico worth about $18 million he calls ‘Zorro,’ and he chauffeurs his pals around in his Gulfstream IV or his Boeing 727, which is fitted out with a trading room onboard. Calls that the ‛Lolita Express.’  He bought the ranch from the state's former governor Bruce King then  expanded it to 10,000 acres.”
         “Is he into New York society when he’s here?” asked Katie.
    “Not in the least. He likes to control his environment, rarely goes to anyone else’s parties, never eats at a restaurant, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke.”
         “And nobody knows how he got so rich? He describes himself as a financial consultant.”
         “He’s certainly made a lot of money that way from billionaire clients, but how he got into it is very, very murky. Nobody really knows him at the trading desks. Oh, and one more thing, Katie: He once threatened a reporter, saying if he didn’t like the story there would be trouble for his family. He later said he was joking. Nothing came of it.”
          “That’s all I need,” sighed Katie, having had real threats to her life followed through.
        Donna handed Katie a thin folder she’d compiled on Epstein with mostly bio info on him: Born in 1953 in Brooklyn, went to Lafayette High School, dropped out of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and never went to college, yet in 1974 got a job teaching math at the prestigious Dalton School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where he tutored the son of Bear Stearns chairman Ace Greenberg (below), who hired him as a low-level junior assistant. Within an amazingly short time he’d become a limited partner, then left suddenly in 1981 because of his over-the-top, brutal treatment of subordinates. In August, 1981, he started his own consulting firm, Intercontinental Assets Group Inc., assisting clients to get back money from fraudulent law firms.
           

Epstein himself started rumors that he was an intelligence agent. He trafficked with Saudi Arabians in arms dealing. At Towers Financial he tried his hand as a corporate raider, but it turned out to run a Ponzi scheme that lost its investors over $450 million; Epstein was never charged.  In the 1980s his biggest, most prominent client was Leslie Wexner (below), chairman and CEO of  The Limited, Inc. and Victoria’s Secret, becoming a director of the Wexner Foundation and Wexner Heritage Foundation and president of Wexner's Property.  In 1996, Epstein set up a tax dodge on  St. Thomas named  the Financial Trust Company.
         Katie realized that it was quite reasonable to assume a wheeler dealer like Epstein could make millions and stash profits in the Virgin Islands but to become a billionaire as a consultant seemed way out of reach. And unless he had investors behind him, his bid to buy New York Magazine in contention with the city’s wealthiest tycoons seemed improbable—especially since he’d already that year put tens of millions into a hedge fund that invested in illiquid securities that was already sliding downward.   
         The folder also contained clippings from magazines and newspaper gossip columns about Epstein’s involvement with very young girls, and that Ghislaine Maxwell was his “confidante” and the one who solicited the girls for his parties and jaunts off to the private island. She was always identified as the daughter of “disgraced British publisher and Labour MP Robert Maxwell,” born Jan Ludvik Hoch (right), who in the 1960s led a flamboyant lifestyle close to the one Epstein was now living. Maxwell’s yacht was named the Lady Ghislaine, and in 1991 his body was found floating in the Atlantic after having apparently fallen overboard, though suspicions ran to either suicide or murder, both possible scenarios for a man who in the end was  backed into a financial corner. His sons failed to hold what was left of his businesses together, which had largely been milk cows from a pension fund. Ghislaine  always insisted it was not in her father’s character to commit suicide and believe he had been murdered.
         Born in France, she was her father’s darling, lived with the family in a 53-room mansion and had been a social gadfly in London, where she founded the Kit-Cat Club. She escaped any indictments for her family’s frauds, moved to the U.S. on an £80,000 annual income and easily made entrance into New York’s party scene, where  she met Epstein and began an affair with him.  By the mid-1990s, now referred to by Epstein as his “best friend,” Ghislaine took on more and more importance in his life as the “Lady of the House.” It was she who brought Prince Andrew into her friend’s circle.
         Katie was not immune to the titillating appeal of all such details, but if she were to be doing a story solely on Epstein, it would just be a repetition of what Vanity Fair had already dug up. Plus, she had promised that she would not ask Epstein about any of that. She prepared her questions and Faxed then over to Ghislaine Maxwell.

 

 © John Mariani, 2024