I loved to go out to dinner, I love to cook, I love to eat. I’ve been going to restaurants since I was a zygote. My earliest dining experiences were at Tower Deli on Kingsbridge Road, Diana’s (Italian) and Hom & Hom (Cantonese) on Fordham Road, and Stella D’Oro on Broadway (yes, they used to have two restaurants next door to their bakery).
Over the years, I’ve spent a small fortune on restaurants. The bigger my job, the bigger the tab, as client entertainment grew in importance. So, yes, I loved restaurants.
But restaurants didn’t always love me back.
The Italian fave in Brooklyn that my dollars supported in its early years accounted for nada when I was told they were no longer taking reservations. Rather, it was suggested by the co-owner that I queue up in the street at around 5 p.m., for a shot at a 6 p.m. table. Ummm….no!
At some hot Manhattan restaurants, I was asked to wait for hours at the bar. I had reservations but there was no table for me. Other times, prices soared while service and quality sunk to “meh” levels.
Another issue: between the impact of age (and lower metabolism), eating out with friends and family three times a week, and client breakfasts and lunches. I gained weight like a sumbitch.
“I ate a baby!”
Then, Covid came. You may have read about it. Lockdown. No gyms. No more restaurants. I was cooking three meals a day for a long long time.
A funny thing happened. I had more money in my checking account. My blood pressure went down (way less salt in my diet). I started losing weight (like a sumbitch; 55 pounds since Covid, and counting).
These days, I go to restaurants once in awhile. Just modest local places. I no longer travel far and wide to chase the hot, new, must-go, boite. I no longer plan reservations weeks in advance and/or settle for off-peak dining times (if I wanted to eat at 10 p.m., I’d travel back to Barcelona). When I do go, I eat way less, for I’m no longer used to restaurant portions. I’ve become one of those who split appetizers — and sometimes even entrees. And I order more club soda, as opposed to two, three, four drinks.
At home, I buy more quality protein, veggies, and fruit from local purveyors. I shop at wine shops that offer quality. As a result, I no longer open a vein for three-to-four hundred percent markups, the restaurant alchemy that transforms a $15 bottle of serviceable-but-hardly-great Sicilian red into a $60 investment. As we used to say back in the day: “fuck that shit!”
So when I see an article like this, I can only chuckle. “Restaurants Aren’t What They Used to Be (and That’s a Good Thing)”
I mean, boo-hoo. I get it. Rents are high and margins are low. Newsflash: every industry paradigm is in flux. Figure it out, but don’t expect me to cry for you. I gave you decades of hard-earned cash. In return, I got indifferent waitstaff, screaming babies at 9 p.m. in “nice” restaurants, and wayyyyy more sommelier shade than I ever deserved.
“Hi, my name is Todd. I’ll be your server tonight!”
The pandemic gave us many life lessons. Don’t waste a minute of time. Keep your loved ones close. Jettison those who give you grief. Support your passions. Eat and drink merrily, for tomorrow….
But consider the joys of home entertaining, and of portion control. Find and frequent quality, local purveyors of protein and produce. Watch Jacques Pepin videos and learn some kitchen technique.
A dear friend — a gifted consultant and writer — reminded me of Hemingway’s short stories the other day. “So, what are you reading?” he asked. I told him I can’t really read other people’s fiction while I’m writing because I go all “chameleon” and morph my style into the style of the person I’m reading.
“Do you like Hemingway?” he asked. Of course! He was my North Star back when I was a kid saving up for a manual typewriter of my own. (I got one, an Olympia, on 23rd Street’s Typewriter Row, back when that was still in existence. That typewriter was smooth as silk.)
“Listen to this, then,” he said, reading from a Hemingway story that described a brown trout quivering in the silty stream, turning this way and that.
The story was marvelous. I read the Hemingway story and ten others. I was catapulted into a reverie of fishing tales, for I loved freshwater fishing as a kid and on into my 40s. At that point, after moving to Brooklyn, I added saltwater fishing to my repertoire. There’s a photo of my son and his first striped bass, above. Saltwater fishing meant more stories; more cool equipment and accessories to learn about and purchase.
Herewith, after a head-soak into Hemingway-land, a few fish tales (tails?) from the old mental hard-drive:
— Grandma Mimi Catches a Fish: We are deep in the woods surrounding the Ashokan Reservoir. I am with my eight-year old son, my wife, and her mother, Mimi. Mimi has never gone fishing. I show her how to cast, where to cast, how to bait the hook (“Marty…YOU do it, please!”). Patience was not Mimi’s strong suit. We spread out and cast. Two minutes later, Mimi screams. “I GOT ONE, I GOT ONE!!!” Sure enough the red and white plastic float is way underwater and her rod U-bends. I show Mimi how to reel it in. With my left hand, I reach for my net. “SLOW!” I admonish. “SLOW!!!!!” Mimi didn’t do “slow” but this one time, she listens. We see the fish as it struggles. It’s a nice one. A largemouth bass. “I CAUGHT A FISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Mimi screams as I carefully remove the hook from its lip. “CAN YOU BUST???? I GOT ONE!” she says, all the way home that afternoon. It was a very good day.
— That’s One Sharp Knife: I’m a little kid with my dad and his friends. We are fishing in Putnam County. It’s a long time ago. I-684 wasn’t even a gleam in Rockefeller’s eye. We are stomping around the reservoir in search of a productive spot. We come upon a young guy. Army age. A local. We could tell. He has a beat-up pickup truck and wears work boots. rolled up dungarees and a red-checked flannel shirt. The guy is taking a break. He leans against his truck and whittles with a hefty fixed blade knife. I stare at the knife, for it is as big as the knife I’d seen on the TV show about Jim Bowie. “What?” he asks me. “Is it very sharp?” I stupidly ask. He rolls up his sleeve. He hocks up a loogy with a throat scrape that sounds like a road grader. He clams on his forearm. His other hand grips the knife. He shaves the hair clean off his arm and looks at me. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s sharp.” We soon find another spot to fish.
— Willie the Cop Beats the Crap Out Of His Son, My Friend Billy: Willie was a veteran fisherman. He took it seriously. So seriously that if rain came, he would open the trunk of his ’53 Ford and supply the gang with rain ponchos. The fishing would continue. On this particular day, me, my friend Billy, and my dad and Billy’s pop (Willie the Cop), had no luck. Willie puffed on his White Owl. He was getting pissed, for he picked this spot and swore to my dad that it was productive in past weeks. Me and Billy were little kids. And we got bored. We walked away from our dads’ casting spot and went downstream. We started kicking at a sunken log. For us, the fun of fishing was over for that morning. Finally, we managed to kick the log free. It floated onto the stream. We watched with horror as the current took it down to where a couple of other men were fishing. Our log tangled the men’s lines. They cursed. Willie saw what was happening. “DID YOU DO THAT???? WAS THAT YOU???” he screamed at Billy. He slammed his rod down onto the mossy shore. He ran to his son. A hail of punches pelted poor Billy. I backed up. After all, Willie was a cop. Billy started to snot-cry. Willie didn’t let up. My dad sauntered over. One eye was on his friend. The other was on me. “C’mere,” he said, motioning me towards him. “Get over here.” For once, he wasn’t enraged. He wanted to decouple me from the maelstrom. “It’s gonna rain soon. We’ll go and have lunch.” But it was not to be. It did start to rain. But Willie the Cop pulled rain ponchos from the trunk of his Ford. The fruitless fishing continued. Me and Billy were soaked, sad, and scared. Billy’s dad was out of control and even my giant father was loathe to stop him.
— Wake Up Maggie, I Think I Got Something To Say To You: It’s late September and we really should be back at school. I’m with college friends and the semester just started. Richie (alev hasholem) got his dad’s oxblood Chevy Impala and takes six of us fishing near Purdys, NY. To get to Purdy’s, you exit the highway when you see the sign for Plevka’s Grocery. We get Ring Dings, pretzels, coffee, and Twinkies at this little shop for breakfast. We find our spot near the East Branch. Richie pulls the big boat of a car off the road and glides to a stop on a canted pine needle carpet. It’s an unnecessarily precarious angle, parallel to the heavily wooded shore. I mention this to Rich. He shrugs. He is eager to fish. The last song on the car’s AM radio was “Maggie May”. The tune fit the cool, end-of-summer morning. We fish, and eat Twinkies. We drink coffee and pee on trees. In time, we give up our fishing, empty-handed. We joke about stopping to buy some fish to show our friends that we caught something. We pile in the car. Richie guns the engine. The car slides down the sloped shore. The rear flank of the car is headed into a pine tree. As one, we yell, “RICHIE!!!! STOP!!!!” We get out to survey the situation. It is grim. The car is his dad’s pride and joy. Richie gets back in the car and cuts the wheels. Again, he tries to rev his way out of ruin. No luck. I convince him to put the Powerglide in neutral, release the parking brake and steer, as we push the car out of danger and aim it uphill, at a suitable angle. Richie sees a pathway to the road. He starts the engine. “SLOW!!!” I scream, for Richie is curiously like Mimi. Patience is not in the lexicon. He feathers the gas pedal and coaxes the car up to the safety of the asphalt. We pile back in the Impala. Summer was most definitely over. Richie turns on the radio. This being the era of Top 40 playlists, the song that blares is “Maggie May”. Disaster averted. As one, we sang: “I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school Or steal my daddy’s cue and make a living out of playin’ pool Or find myself a rock and roll band that needs a helpin’ hand…”
“All I needed was a friend to lend a guiding hand…”
Oh, and that’s what happens when I read someone else’s fiction before I write. In this case, I got Hemingway’d. Worse things could happen, I suppose.
