When the Cat's Away

Saturday night, we went out to dinner with our friends Patty and Jeff who had come to New York to move their daughter Sarah into her new apartment not far from us. Their dog Quincy, a friendly golden retriever, came with them and hung out with Buck. They got along very well, too well.

When we returned from a wonderful dinner, we found that the dogs had had a party in our absence. No booze or anything like that, but they opened Quincy's food container and ate the contents. Fortunately, there had only been a couple of days worth of food inside. Buck was the one that suffered though. Marty did, too. Buck has a sensitive stomach to begin with. Eating a different brand of food gives him the runs. Poor Marty. He felt so responsible about the mess on the sidewalk he went down with newspaper and a watering can to clean it up. What New Yorker would do that?

Quincy's back in New Hampshire and Buck is fine. How they opened the container is something they will never reveal.

My Zagat

There was an article in The New York Times this week about new restaurants opening this Fall. I don't have enough time or money to visit them all. There are so many restaurants in our Upper East Side neighborhood that we rarely go to to other areas of the city.

We have our favorites. Often, when friends stay in our apartment without us, they ask for recommendations. These are my choices, listed in no particular order.

We rarely go out for breakfast but The Green Kitchen on 1st and 77th is a typical diner. Like many diners around here, you can get an inexpensive meal or spend more on waffles, paninis and lobster. The setting is typical diner though, so we tend to not want to spend extra on food in a boring atmosphere. As far as I can tell, there's nothing green about this place, but perhaps the kitchen is painted green. Service is efficient.

For lunch, Johnny Foxes on 2nd Avenue between 80th and 81st serves great burgers and other bar-type food. It's inexpensive, and has a great happy hour which I've never been to. Service is spotty at lunch.

We have so many dinner choices here. My favorite Italian restaurant is Caffe Buon Gusto on 77th between 2nd and 3rd. The pasta is excellent, and they have half-priced bottled wine on Monday-Wednesday. The atmosphere is nice and the service is great.

Beyoglu (no website I can find), a Turkish restaurant on 81st and 3rd, is a great place to go for felafel, but it's also a fine choice for dinner. The menu choices are well-priced and feature lamb and other meats in yummy sauces. My vegetarian niece found options, too. There's a lot of beautiful tiling and dark wood. Service is very good.

The Atlantic Grill on 3rd between 76th and 77th specializes in fish. One of the best restaurants in my neighborhood, it's also one of the most expensive. We recently went during restaurant week and it was a good value at $35 prix fixe. They have a terrific sushi bar. Seafood bisques and fish entrees are superb. The service strains under the volume of diners. It's also quite noisy. For a really nice meal, this is the place to go.

What we lack, believe it or not, is a good Chinese restaurant. There used to be a good one nearby but it went out of business. We're surviving.

Take-out is a whole other story, one you'll have to wait for.

Cloud Atlas, the Movie

If you check my profile you'll see that one of my favorite books is Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It's a wise and intriguing novel consisting of six separate stories, two of which take place in the past, two in  the present and two in the future.

No one, not even the author thought it could be made into a movie. But the Wachowskis, sister and brother film makers who helped create The Matrix series, saw the possibilities. Together with Tom Tykwer, they fought to make the film a reality. In a genius move, they convinced Tom Hanks (who didn't need much convincing) to play the main character in each of the six segments of the book. Hanks is the perfect Everyman. Still, I can't wait to see how this is achieved.

Cloud Atlas is being shown at the Toronto Film Festival, and opens in theaters October 26. I have to see this movie, and perhaps reread the book.

What New Yorkers Do

On Thursday, Marty accompanied me to a minor surgical procedure on 53rd and Third. My doctor's instructions were to elevate the affected leg as much as possible for the next 48 hours. We planned to hop on the 6 Train but passengers were scurrying out of the trains like ants on fire, deciding that at 20 minute wait was too much to bear.

We walked over to 1st Avenue to take the bus. Bad idea. The buses were full and not stopping. We hailed a cab, but after 30 minutes and 4 blocks abandoned that idea and decided to walk the remaining 20 blocks. Normally, 20 blocks would be nothing, but I'm sure the surgeon would not have approved.

There were police everywhere, in cars, on the street, parked on motorcycles. Must be something big. Maybe Obama's at the U.N. No, it was Michelle and Barack making a few pit stops in Manhattan to raise money/awareness/polls/shop for souvenirs.

The next morning, there was a shooting at the Empire State Building and midtown was closed like a pit bull's jaws. No trains, buses, cabs--not even a skateboard. Fortunately, this didn't effect us. We (me, Marty, our nephew Mark and his wife Brie) were able to walk over to the 2nd Avenue Deli on ironically on 1st Avenue to enjoy Old-World kosher delicacies like pastrami on rye, matzo ball soup (balls the size of tennis balls) and potato pancakes with applesauce. The waitress brought us shot glasses of chocolate soda to end the meal. L'chaim.

The plan was to pack the car and go to the country for the weekend. The car, however, had been side-swiped and the side mirror ripped off since last we'd seen it at the end of Alternate-Side Parking. There was a note on the car that said a Penskee rental truck had done it and driven off. They gave the partial plate as XX4138. We called the police, we took photos, we cut the wire from the dangling side mirror. We waited. We called Penske and put in a claim. We called our insurance company. I called the police back. They were very busy drinking coffee and eating donuts and would be with us asap. We decided to drive off into the now-rush hour streets and sit on the FDR Drive for a while.

We arrived at our house 3 hours later and drank cocktails while watching the Yankees beat the Indians 3 to 1. Last night, Marty dreamed the car had been totaled during the night. It hadn't.

Weekend With the In-Laws

Esther, Lenny, Frances, Doug, Me, Buck

 
Mariel and I drove up to Jeffersonville Friday morning. Actually, Mariel drove because I'm still recuperating from cataract surgery. My mother-in-law, Nana, and sister- and brother-in-law arrived late afternoon and I made eggplant Parmesan for dinner. Peel it; don't peel it. Thin-sliced, thick-sliced. Salt and rinse; leave it alone. Olive oil; vegetable oil. Fry; bake. As Frankie said, I did it my way. And it was delicious.

Mariel enjoying quiet time

On Saturday morning, Mariel and I walked to Yoga. Marty and family made a traditional bagels-lox-cream cheese-tomato slice-onion slice breakfast. I apologize if that punctuation looks funky. I should've used back slashes.There was also sable and whitefish salad. Saturday night we grilled lamb, steak and shrimp, served with fresh corn, insalata caprese and red wine. My friend Doug joined us and we had martinis.

Sunday morning was filled with more copious eating, mainly a dill, cream cheese and lox omelet. At this point, I just had a bowl of cereal and milk. Some of us went to the farmers' market in Callicoon where I bought lettuce, real tomatoes, Swiss chard and radishes. We went to visit Harry at his country club job and then all went out to dinner for a delicious Italian meal at Al Buona Fortuna.

Harry, Mariel Matt play Settlers of Catan

Harry and his friend Matt arrived at 2 am after they finished the evening shift. More BLCC for breakfast. Now the whole family was here except Mark so we had a big dinner involving leftover lamb and steak, bbq chicken, grilled salmon al pesto, baked potatoes with sour cream and fresh chives from my paltry garden, tomato salad and green salad. There was nothing special for dessert so I made banana and apples Foster with whipped cream.

Nana, Marty, Buck

Tuesday morning, the sound of Marty's cell phone ringing woke us. An idiot from work was calling Marty even though he's on vacation. Harry was leaving for college at 9 anyway so we had an earlyish breakfast with half the crew. By now, I don't need to tell you what was served, although I had something else. More breakfast, more goodbyes. Mega clean-up.

It's really quiet and peaceful now, We're sitting brook-side and working on our computers. I plan to get back to my book in a bit. In case you're wondering what we're having for dinner, it's something healthy and easy to make: grilled white pizza and green salad.
  

Read This Book

I love Dave Eggers' books. My kids even like him. His newest novel, A Hologram for the King addresses the issues of global economics, the complexities/absurdities of modern Saudi Arabi, and modern technology. The King is King Abdullah, the city, Jeddah. The story is told by an American businessman, Alan Clay, who's lost everything and is trying for a last-chance miracle in the desert.

The writing is spare, which I both appreciated and lamented. So many modern novels seem so repetitive to me, like the author's being paid by page. Because I enjoyed the new Eggers book so much, it was too short. This isn't a criticism, just the way I feel.

Alan Clay, who is rather pathetic, has a huge mass on the back of his neck that he is convinced is cancer. One night, under the influence of strong locally-made alcohol--booze is illegal in Saudi Arabia, but everyone drinks it--he sticks a steak knife in it. He ends up at a clinic in Jeddah where a doctor declares it to be a lipoma and schedules surgical removal.

Why does Saudi Arabia, with its unimaginable wealth and ambitious plans to grow its economy to even more incredible levels, resemble Florida, or any other coastal southern area that uses a look of pink? It's not on my travel wish-list.

The book ends with disappointment for Alan, but also a measure of hope. You'll have to read it to find out how he does it.

Water Polo 24/7

I'd never heard of water polo until last week. I thought polo was played on horses. Water polo is much less dangerous and much less interesting, in my opinion.

Synchronized diving, synchronized swimming, swimming--the Summer Olympics is filled with wet sports or things in the water such as rowing, steeplechase and horse jumping. Let me know if I've left anything out.

I like some of theses sports, I really do. I hate to swim, but enjoy watching others engage in this strenuous activity. I watched Michael Phelps interviewed by Bob Costas, and truthfully, I'd rather watch him swim than compare himself to Michael Jordan.

Gymnastics is exciting; beach volleyball less so. I watch the Olympics for Track and Field. It's the sport I know the most about. I watched the men's 10,000 meters the other day and it was thrilling.  Question: why is it they show 6 minutes straight of water polo but only several minutes of  of distance running before cutting to a commercial? They even cut away with 3 laps to go, the most exciting part of the race. At least they showed the last 2 laps in which Mo Farah of Great Britain and Galen Rupp of the USA won gold and silver. I was literally jumping up and down. 

Sunday morning I got up early and watched the women's marathon. I have no problem with commercial breaks in a 2:20:00 race. It too had an exciting finish, gold and silver for the Ethiopians and bronze for the Russian. 

I didn't see any of the sprint semis or finals live. They happen outside of prime time. Okay, they show Usain Bolt win over and over, but that's because it's a sub 10 second race and everyone can pay attention for that long. I wanted to see the steeplechase because I know someone running in it who my son Mark has actually beaten in a high school race. Nope. No mention. It's really fun to watch though, with obstacles and water pits installed along the track.

The 5000 meter? It's another of my favorites, but either I've missed it or they'll be showing water polo. The mens's marathon is the final event and I know that it takes place next Sunday at 7 am. I'll be there. Unless they're interviewing the men's water polo team.