FORK PLAY DECEMBER 29, 2008
Chinese Glimmerings. Brasserie Dim Sum. Shangplay. Watch Out. Citymeals Now.
Dear Friends and Family,
The surge of Chinese tourism and the big spike in the city's Chinese population - not to mention all the adopted Chinese daughters - many of them tweens and teens by now - has not been matched by a Chinese restaurant  revival that comes anywhere near the golden age of Chinese restaurants in the late 70s. It could be I'm missing serious thrills in Chinatown and Flushing because I'm not getting enough reconnaissance reports. I did love Sweet and Tart enough in two visits to send you there last summer. But now we do have an exciting glimmer - I'd like to think it's the glow of a imminent renaissance - in the elegant universe of Susur Lee's Chinese evocations at Shang and Chef Joe Ng's dim sum artistry at Chinatown Brasserie.
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Dim Sum Paradise
Honoring New York's Christmas lunch tradition, our hungry friends were the first to arrive at the Brasserie. Ava  and I canceled tea after we discovered it cost $4 a pot. "We don't pay for tea in Chinese restaurants," Ava told the waiter - and then we immersed ourselves in luscious dumplings, flaky little pastries, won-ton-wrapped goblins, my essential turnip cake and taro-shrimp cakes sculpted to look like swans. Want to know more about what to order in dim sum heaven? Click here for Chinatown Brasserie.
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A Stage for Susur Lee
I'm too fragile right now for riotous celebrations, too much champagne and noisemakers and a bender of people I don't know on New Year's Eve. Actually, my idea of a perfect New  Year's Eve was always caviar, champagne and great cookies in bed...or even dinner...and then... cookies. I recall loving being fussed over by Henri Soulé at Le Pavillon and then the letdown of not being able to get a cab in the snow. I was married then to the adorable Kultur Maven. We trudged along 57th up Fifth to the park, my feet getting soaked in his favorite black suede strappy shoes. And then...deliverance. A horse and carriage. Yes, the baby-faced driver in the top hat would take us home! Twenty dollars. Oh dear...could we afford it? We'd just spent a fortune, almost $100 for dinner. I always think twice about money but the gallant KM didn't hesitate. We climbed in and wrapped the tattered velvet blanket around our frozen fingers and numb toes vowing to get richer and more wanton in the New Year.
This year we've reserved with friends at Shang on the Lower East Side. I already know the musts we have to eat again from two impressive tastings earlier: the Singapore slaw, chickpea and sweet onion fritters, sashimi of the porgy like madai, steamed and crusted potato dumplings, lobster and shrimp croquettes. I know it's a gamble that we'll be able to find a cab on Allen Street afterward. But if we're stranded, we'll spend the night. It's the Thompson LES Hotel, after all. I'll have a black satin teddy in my coat pocket just in case. For more about why you want to try Susur Lee's food at Shang, click here.
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A Sure Fire Prediction
I can promise deals, deals, deals in restaurants from now on. How about a $20.09 Prix Fixe New Year's Day dinner at Fishtail (135 East 62nd Street) or David Burke's Townhouse (133 East 61st Street). Could you have imagined it? Chose a Fishtail Tower for Two, lobster dumplings, calamari mac 'n' cheese, whole roasted pompano, swordfish and more.
 Then stop stewing over financial bruising and take comfort in Winter Warming Sundays at Ed Brown's eighty-one, starting this Sunday. Choose broccoli soup with bacon and rye croutons or pumpkin risotto with pepitas to start, then duck meatballs with creamy polenta and spinach or spaghettini with baby clams, garlic and chilis for $29. Add warm Valrhona chocolate cake with vanilla bean ice cream, for $35. (45 West 81st Street)
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You've Been Fired. Now Focus
It doesn't really help much to know that you are only one of thousands. When you get the ax, it stings. You don't have to be a raving diva to feel betrayed and for a while you might even dream they will realize it's a mistake and be  sending a car with roses to say sorry. Wonderful emails from friends and New York magazine readers all over the world did make me smile. I was especially touched by a new ad from Gourmet Garage that went up on the Insatiable Critic site Sunday. It's actually a love letter.
And a woman I met at the Citymeals Power Lunch for women, Dr. Dee Soder of CeoPerpsective.com, sent such precise instructions for surviving "the early stages of transition" I thought I'd share them.
Letting friends know your new address and telephone numbers (if you worked out of an office) seems obvious but you need to tell them again and again - maybe make it part of your sign-off on emails. She also suggests writing graceful little notes to colleagues and friends saying goodbye and spreading the news. Ask, "What would Jackie do?" or, "How would Obama act?" She suggests "leaving out acrimony, joy and anger." (Guess I flubbed up on the anger part. Forgive me, Jackie).
But the advice that really hit home are her commandments: "Duplicate keys," and "Be extra careful walking and avoid multi-tasking for a while." She explains: "Accidents and silly mistakes are extremely common for a couple of weeks or so... you are distracted and apt to leave your phone, lock yourself out and more."
Thank you Dear Dee. So far I've held onto all three sets of keys (I just have to remember where I hid them) and I've got both pairs of glasses and my cell phone (only left it behind twice). I am fiercely careful not to trip in potholes. Eyes focused vigilantly on the pavement, I bumped into two people last time it rained. One was a friend and insisted on buying me flowers. But I didn't fall. It seems like a positive sign that I've even set up some lunches with people who I hope will tell me what I want to do next.
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A Meal That Sends Hope
 I hope you won't mind my taking a moment to remind you of our invisible elderly homebound neighbors and their austere existence. So many of you are among the thousands of New Yorkers who help Citymeals-on-Wheels feed the city's 17,000 aging and ailing shut-ins who can no longer shop or cook for themselves. Isolated in their frailty they may not comprehend the threat of cutbacks in funds for nutrition and the elderly as we do.
Visiting some of the seniors Citymeals helps feed on the Upper East Side just a few weeks ago, I was struck as always by how dependant they are on our help. I see men and women, mostly women to be sure, for whom a meal delivery and a friendly visitor are the high points of the day.
At 85, Lila is so twisted and bent from osteoporosis and other ailments she can no longer pull herself up on her walker and needs help from a part-time home health aide getting into her wheelchair. Though Lila lives on the first floor of a brownstone - with a window where she sits watching the street - she will never manage that single flight of steep steps on her own again.
As a writer I can identify with Edward, who lives surrounded by books and souvenirs of worldwide travel. He is a writer too and worked in public relations for half a dozen New York museums. At 86, he still sees museum friends and works at his computer every day, writing a memoir of his life in the art world. At first he didn't want to accept home delivered meals because he felt he was not struggling financially, but now he finds himself deeply attached to the young social worker from his senior center who cheers him on.
As our donations dwindled this fall and some of our most generous friends suddenly found themselves unemployed or with savings decimated, we were fearful and held meetings to prioritize what meals we could cut. But even reeling from their own losses, many of our supporters have come through, sending a caring check and even a second. I hope you will want to join these generous New Yorkers. Be co-conspirators with us in sending hope in a meal that is a lifeline for an aging neighbor to live out her final years in the surroundings that are home. For more information, go to Citymeals.org.
Sending you warm wishes and delicious thoughts.
GAEL
Photos of Joe Ng, Chinatown Brasserie's pastry hedgehogs, Shang's Singapore Slaw and Ed Brown at eighty-one may not be used without permission from Steven Richter.
Fork Play by Gael Greene. Copyright 2008
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