Dear friends and family,
My guy and I spent the month of July cooling off in Argentina where we were promised a mild winter (see my first report on line in BITE: My Journal: Kultur Shock in Argentina. More coming soon in the Travel section.) It didn't make sense dragging my favorite Adrienne Landau red winter coat with Mongolian lamb trim to JFK in 99 degree New York heat. Steven and I decided to handle the cold with layers, ski underwear, pashminas, wool socks, baseball cap and my red wool Doge hat from the Folk Art Museum. No one ever even mentioned snow.
Of course Buenos Aires didn't expect snow either. It was the first that stuck to the pavement in 90 years.
Being winter everything was on sale everywhere. What do you buy in Buenos Aires? Polo and riding gear if horses are your passion. Leather coats, calf skin rugs. Fashionista essentials like giant leather satchel totes for less than $200, a shoulder duffle in zebra-striped calf marked $210. That's how peso prices are written, with a dollar sign, but when you divide by three, that nifty little duffle is just $70, so you have to buy it.
I didn't resist gorgeous black suede shoes for $70 too and would have taken the red suede ones too except they didn't have red in my size. I bought lead soldiers, silver serving pieces with wooden handles carved by the first people of Argentina north of Buenos Aires and $3 wool gloves (one of which promptly disappeared so I had to keep one hand in my pocket when it got really cold because I was so annoyed with myself I refused to buy another pair. )
At a party on our first night in Buenos Aires, I met a pleasant-looking guy who said he lived half the time in Miami where he had followed his father into real estate. I told him that during my grade school years my family had always spent December in Miami staying at whatever was the previous year's hot hotel (we were affluent not rich). The Fontainbleau, The Saxony, the Eden Roc.
 "That was probably before you were born." Awful comment. It jumped out of my mouth before I could stop it. "I'm not as young as you think," he said. "I've had everything done. Botox. Everything." He stroked his nicely defined neck. "You should definitely get your plastic surgery done while you're here," he said. "Botox. Restylene. Liposuction. It costs nothing compared to what you pay in New York."
"Give me your doctor's name," I said, thinking I'd at least try some Botox. And it was always there in the back of my mind, must find a day for Botox. But then I lost my courage, decided I needed a doctor I knew as much as I craved the discount.
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We did not fall in love with the fabled Argentine grass fed steak although, after some early disappointments -- beef we couldn't saw with a serious steak knife -- we discovered restaurants with cow we could chew. The empanadas got better and better as we journeyed north. (I'll be posting my Buenos Aires Hot List under "Travel" on the site next week, and a report on visiting the foothills of the Andes soon)
Argentine ice cream was the great revelation. That first bite -- I alternately lick and bite -- of the bitter chocolate gelato at Persicco was a dizzying astonishment. I couldn't remember ever tasting a chocolate ice cream so rich or intense. Well, maybe at David Bouley or somewhere in France, possibly in Rome. Everything about this gelato is right:  intensity, moderated sweetness, texture, the balance of fat and flavoring, in memory on my tongue. I can't remember the last time I actually finished a cone anywhere. Prudence usually conquers gluttony and I manage to toss at least half away. Not tonight. No, I haven't tried the double chocolate at Glom yet just three blocks from where I sit now.. that line outside is discouraging.
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Now I know I'm back in New York. We are tasting Michael White's dramatic new menu at L'Impero but we could be anywhere. "Enjoy" has become a social obligation. The contagion is rampant. By the fourth exhortation to "enjoy," we are giggling and with the fifth, my friend Naomi suggests we make a rule: "Deduct $1 from the tip for each enjoy."
"They should be caned," her husband suggests.
"The FBI should be allowed to tap their cell phones to see if they're using it with casual friends," she goes on.
We finally agree that each restaurant should be allowed only so many "enjoys" a year starting immediately. Twelve thousand seems generous enough. With "enjoy" being the new hiccup, they should all be used up by October.
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As long as I'm consulting gratis on service manners here: How about instructing the waiters and busboys never again as long as they live to say: "Are we still working on that?" Second worst to "Are you still picking on that?" And stop clearing when someone is still eating unless we ask you to. I would rather not know your name. I didn't ask which was your favorite dessert. I think your standup cowlick is cute but hearing, "Goodie. You ordered the best things," is just annoying. Just paste a gold star on my forehead if you must.
While I'm at it, remember the great restaurant guru Joe Baum's rules for ladies room: Every stall must have a hook AND a shelf. (Architects: Clutch bags are back).
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Quickly the two of us are back to eating around with friends, keeping InsatiableCritic current. In my first tasting at Waykiya at Ian Schrager's Gramercy Park Hotel, I found the food too Japanese for me. (Click on Nibbles and Amuses" in BITE.) But that restraint, and the Nobu crew in the dining room, may be just what draw the determined first-nighters, the stick thin pretties, the bold faced faces and bonus babies.
Even if you're not rushing after dinner to redo the loft in scarlet and purple, silk fringe and tapestry, you might feel naked and unfulfilled in your too starkly minimalist black and white digs if this shocking Shraeger design reboot gains ground.
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Believe it or not sometimes the Road Food Warrior and I just eat. Just the two of us. One course. We couldn't remember where Dean's Pizza was the other night.. I could have searched ahead on my website but who knew that would be our mood when we got out of the movie at Broadway and 84th Street? Ratatouille: Clever. Charming. Loooong, Not really for grownups.
"Where do you want to go?" says Steven.
"I don't know Marty. Where do you wanna go?How about ," I reel off a list of our neighborhood favorites. Celeste, Kefi, Ouest, Fiorello, Fairway. And then because it is right there, we find ourselves in Artie's Delicatessan. Is that pathetic? Or what? Even in the stark bright light, the staff's cheerful down-home welcome works. That's heartening. With pickles like these, you can go home again. And the cole slaw in a big giveaway bowl was fine, not too vinegary and no stifling mayonnaise.
I was going to have some soup. Then I thought maybe the stuffed cabbage. But I couldn't remember the last time I'd been in a delicatessen and suddenly I was homesick for my wanton youth. So when the waitress came, I ordered corned beef and pastrami with coleslaw and Russian dressing on rye
Alas the vapid corned beef and the too soft rye bring back memories of glorious deli moments at Carnegie in the Sixties when corned beef had fat and flavor and delicatessens peppered the pastrami in their own kitchens.
Even more traumatic for me: Anne Rosenzweig scurries by our window. Our eyes meet. She waves. I wave. I thank heaven I wasn't stuffing that four inches of sloppiness into my mouth at that very moment. Well, anyway. Now she knows I'm human.
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Another movie. We can't get enough film now that we're back in New York. Delirious directed by Steve Buscemi. Afterward we settle into the bar at Compass where you can eat or drink lots or a little in tiny bar rounds. Steven orders lamb burger with goat cheese on a rather elegant toasted bun with excellent fries. A side of macaroni and cheese is exactly the right size, a measured indulgence of fat and salt with nice crunch but no flavor. My diagnosis: It needs cheddar. But my Greek salad is perfect.
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Does it feel like I'm never off duty? Well.. I can't help it. I'm always hoping for a taste epiphany each time the fork comes close to my mouth.. Each morning I get up thinking this is the day I discover the Jean-Georges of tomorrow. How many years has it been now that I've sought a great classic sour cherry pie? I don't care if the cherries are frozen or even canned.. lead me to a real Michigan cherry pie if you know one.
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Someone in the dining room crew recognizes me as I walk into BLT Market in the Ritz Carlton so a few extras hit our table from BLT chef- mogul Laurent Tourondel. Both the langoustine risotto and the rigatoni with summer squash and Esposito sausage will be on my list of musts when I post a first tasting in BITE: My Journal coming up this week. Yes, the place is still in previews, with a 10% discount till the end of August, a disarming gesture, but I'll tell what to expect.
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I got carried away (as I often do) when I started collecting 10 minute keep cool recipes for InsatiableCritic.com from the great cooks I could reach in the middle of August. I admit it was a blatant steal from Mark Bittman in the new narrower New York Times although I called it a "borrow" and an "homage."
As I eat out more and more, I cook less and less. Whenever I do confront the stove, I fall back on fast food -- scallops, spice-rubbed salmon, pasta sauced with whatever I can find in the fridge -- and right now I'm adlibbing with the best of the summer harvest.. tomatoes every which way. If you go to the site, click on !0 Minute Recipes (under "Favorites"). The exclamation point is a typo I decided to keep as an expression of enthusiasm. I posted my own tomato quickies at the end.
A few days later I had a vision of monster zucchinis multiplying in gardens and on farm stands.. so I started collecting ideas for zucchini makeovers. Do you have a good recipe for transforming the lowly zucchini into a treat? Send it to me. I'll be posting the Monster Zucchini collection on the site at the end of the week.
By the way, are you getting used to the new slimmer Times? I'm totally addicted to print - I often get up at 6:30 so I can sip two mugs of espresso and devote two hours to the irresistible bitch before my trainer arrives -- and I'm happy the Sulzbergers are saving trees and paper and money.
But it does feel a wee bit diminished. Shouldn't they reword the motto? I propose, "Five-sixths of the news that's fit to print." And I like Steven's fix: "All the news that fits, we print."
I hope you'll tell all your food-loving friends to visit InsatiableCritic.com soon and sign up for this newsletter.
Break an egg..Gael
P.S. If you happen to be awake at 7 a.m. Wednesday September 5 and linked to Sirius Satellite Radio, catch me talking about Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess and with Dean Olsher and Betsy Karetnick on Martha Stewart Living Radio.
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