FORK PLAY 27 March 26, 2008
Fatties. Quick and Easy. A Bronx Detour.
Dear Friends and Family,
I was saddened to see the Times exposing our town's food-world's fatties last Wednesday. It's one thing to psychoanalyze our departed governor. Did he have a desperate need to do himself in? The Times knows. But exposing innocent fatties? It's painful enough watching your chin disappear in the bathroom mirror without being publicly undressed and having to answer to the Times for deep-seated emotional conflicts about food that drive a perfectly gorgeous person to surround her or himself with 75 or 100 extra pounds.
I definitely do not agree with Mimi what's-her-name who told reporter Kim Severson: "Most of us who are in this profession are here as an excuse to eat." I didn't need a license to eat. I was thrilled when Clay Felker called 40 years ago asking me to be the restaurant critic on his just-launched New York so that I could eat what I was already blissfully eating while someone else paid the bill. I've had my own ups and downs, but lately, a certain creeping contentment, a five-day-a-week trainer and passing my nearly full plate to my pals seem to keep me reasonably in shape (my waistbands are elasticized, just in case.) Every once in a while I stop eating anything white for two or  three weeks and double my stationary bicycle time.
Do you have a trick for staying at your best weight? How about a favorite low calorie recipe? Email me.
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Dim Sum for Weight Watchers
Any question of how far China has come in its leap toward first world eminence can be dispelled with news that Weight Watchers plans to launch there. "Obesity is becoming a real issue in China," CEO David Kitchhoff is telling financial analysts, "..and we have an opportunity, and I feel an obligation, to provide lifestyle-based solutions."
Out with Peking duck. We'll have Peking carp. And "sauce on the side, please" with my steamed egg fu yung." When your Beijing banquet hosts shout "Gam Bei," drink up, you'll be chugalugging vitamin water.
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Quick & Easy: Goodbye Closet Clutter
A new publishing friend, guessing I probably wouldn't be likely to pick up Hearst's supermarket weekly, Quick & Simple, sent me the April 1 issue with Paula Dean on the cover in a triumphant fatty appearance. Also on the cover was a teaser for "The Diet Trick That Makes You Feel Fuller Longer." I am sure Paula's all-butter pound cake, rivaling Paula herself for homespun appeal, would make me feel fuller. Inside I find the quote aimed right at me: "You can be right all the time or you can have friends." "Health-by-Number" could save many lives if so many of us were not in denial. 2: the number of tablespoons of sunscreen you need to apply every two hours; 35: As many inches as are allowed for a healthy waistline; 500: the number of extra calories you'll need to burn each day to lose one pound this week."
But I won't fire my treasured cleaning woman ("Tidy Yourself Trim") even knowing the calorie counts of mopping or drying floors by shuffling around the living room, my feet on a rag. I could not have guessed how 54 pages could so touch my life. And I am not kidding. I actually cleaned out my medicine chest as instructed. (And accidentally threw out a lotion I didn't recognize that my doctor just prescribed costing $326.)
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Peeves and No-Peeve Pizza, Mia Dona Revisited
I asked for your restaurant peeves, they just keep coming. See a few of the newest plaints on my website. Go to BITE, scroll down from the drama at Trattoria Zero Otto Nove, where Arthur Schwartz took us to his favorite pizza parlor in the Bronx. You may think the New York magazine "Robs" were there too, since in one of those it-must-be-in-the-air happenings, Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld are also sending readers to this fantasy of a pizzaria in Salerno in this week's issue. Check out chef Eric Ripert's pilgrimage to meet the Dalai Lama.
It took a second visit to really appreciate Mia Dona because everything began to taste muddy on our first foray when chef Michael Psilakis with his usual exuberance sent out too many slightly overwrought dishes for us to try. More disciplined a few weeks later, I could appreciate the fabulous pastas, the brilliant fried rabbit with vinegar'd chips and a sensational mixed grill that easily feeds two. And such gentle prices are a serious nod to hard times. Psilakis thinks it was fate that guided his path the day he was racing between restaurants and spied his long lost pasta cook selling umbrellas. Click here for a more detailed version of my Mia Dona column in the magazine this week - and find Donatella Ariapia already struggling to handle the crowds with grace.
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Have a Sip of Wine..and a Few Minutes of Me.
Our winemaker friends Susan and Bob Summer will be pouring their prestigious Ascot Reserve Merlot and Ascot Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon at the new Sherry Lehman April 2 from 2 - 4 p.m., 505 Park Avenue near 59th Street.
As for me, I'll be on the WOR Morning Show with Valerie Smaldone Thursday at 7:40 a.m. Better be wide awake because it's just ten minutes. Don't want to miss it.
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Photos of dim sum and Arthur Schwartz in his favorite Bronx pizzeria may not be reprinted without permission from Steven Richter.
Fork Play by Gael Greene, Copyright pending 2008 |
