FORK PLAY July 13, 2010
Fridge Regrets. Antia Lo is Back. Plein Sud.
Picnic C.O.D.
Dear Friends and Family,
I can't believe I bought a refrigerator without seeing it first. How could I be so stupid? Or gullible? Over a year ago I realized our second-hand fridge, delivered so grudgingly by a previous landlord, was dying. It dripped rusty water, gobbled electricity, piled on frost. I added "new fridge" to a list of projects that desperately needed attention if I ever found a few hours between deadlines and dinner.
Three weeks ago I felt a breath of air. My assistant researched the best reasonably-priced energy-saving models that would fit my space. Most were too tall. But I didn't have the emotional stamina to take everything out of the overhanging cupboard, find a carpenter to raise it, then put everything away, washed, of course, because you can't put back dinner plates you haven't used in 20 years without washing them.
And it needed to be on display somewhere I could go look at it. No sight unseen surprises for me. The best deal would be a HotPoint on sale that week at Home Depot - "very highly rated" - or for a few hundred dollars more, an equally well-rated GE, manufacturer of the HotPoint by the way. I called my landlord thinking he'd be glad he didn't have to take care of it. He didn't return my call.
Steven and I took a taxi to Home Depot near Bloomingdale's. I'd never been in a Home Depot. We found the appliance department, refrigerators ringing the room like Beefeater guards at Buckingham Palace. It was deserted. Eventually a salesman in his bright orange apron sauntered over, heard my story, and entered my two model numbers into his computer.
"Can we see them?" I asked. He poin ted to a runty HotPoint and the Al Pacino of GEs. "This is not the model you're looking for but it'll give you an idea," he said. Both were on sale with free delivery if we bought that day. After procrastinating for more than a year, I liked that. "Tell me please why I want to pay two or three hundred more for the GE when GE makes the HotPoint?" I asked. "Well, the GE has glass shelves and some extra fittings," he said.
"And the Hot Point has wire shelves. I like glass shelves because if you spill something it doesn't drip down," he said. As if he knew how clumsy I can be reaching for the yogurt in the morning before my coffee? He had me.
It was supposed to arrive Wednesday. Then the landlord called to say he wanted to buy the fridge and had a friend who would give him a deal. He agreed to get the same GE I had chosen - the one with the glass shelves. I called Home Depot and cancelled our order.
"Your GE doesn't have glass shelves," our landlord called to report the next day. "I checked myself with Home Depot."
"But the salesman said it had glass shelves," I insisted, Googling furiously. He was right. The peewee GE - the only one small enough to fit our space -- came with wire shelves. I called Home Depot and spoke to our salesman. "How could you tell me it had glass shelves?" I asked. "You misled us. How could you?"
"You cancelled your order I see. Write a letter if you want to," he said. "I don't have to talk to someone who talks while I'm talking."
So that's how we got the crummy hunk of metal with its rattling shelves that sits in my kitchen next to the counter where I eat my breakfast and read the Times. It's my fault for buying an appliance without actually seeing it. I will try not to look at it as I reach for the yogurt. Our landlord has already added a charge to our rent for this excuse of a fridge. The good thing is that while I was at work, Steven and our cleaning woman emptied the old fridge and threw out most of the half empty jars and bottles and ketchup packs that I was saving just in case.
I should let them loose on my closet next.
***
Our colors today are Georgia peach and eggplant.
***Anita Lo is Back
The restored Annisa is not the bare Zen sanctuary in  creamy hues it was before a devastating late-night fire exactly a year ago. But it still has a serenity that makes you lower your voice as you come in from Barrow Street. There is still the small bar up front and 13 tables on a raised platform. But now banquettes are a rusty red. An ornate mirror hangs angled to attract good energy and prescribed objects are displayed or hidden, following the dictates of feng shui. Co-owner Jennifer Scism conducts the dining room at a dignified adagio, though t he servers are not all equally in tune. Still, it's light enough to see the food and I can speak without straining to be heard. So civilized. So grownup.
And Anita Lo, unlike so many male star chefs, is actually in the kitchen. Supernatural vibes may be superfluous given how quickly her bold invention is provoking murmurs of shock and pleasure from our foursome tonight. To read more about what we ate, click here.
***
Plein Sud Embraces Tribeca
Am I just imagining it? Frederick Lesort's Plein Sud on the hip of the Smyth Hotel in Tribeca seems to be shockingly smiley-faced, welcoming, wanting to be a hangout for the neighborhood, affordable, accessible, all that current bistro jazz. It's definitely a departure for Lesort, who rubbed our noses in Euro-chic snobisme in the 90's at Jour et Nuit when Soho was trendy, before it became a shopping mall.
Just a year ago Frederick had nothing. He'd closed both Frederick's Downtown and Frederick's Madison. "Not  even going into bankruptcy helped," he said. Now he's switched into humble mode, quietly opening Matisse, a little bistro for the locals on Second and 51st, and Plein Sud. All things to its Tribeca neighborhood, it's a bar, a café, a spot to sit for coffee or pick up breakfast to go and, yes, of course a restaurant with French brasserie staples - crispy frogs' legs with sauce gribiche, creamy duck liver mousse, the inevitable salade frisée with lardons and a poached egg, even boeuf bourguignon. Click here to decide if Plein Sud is your kind of hang.
***
Picnic C.O.D. "Let us send you a picnic," her email said. Marlana Pressley. Creator of That Picnic Place - a picnic delivery service - proposed to offer you, my readers, a 10% discount on your next order "because every day is not a picnic but it could be." Ninety dollars for a picnic for two seemed stiff to me even though it includes a blanket, a game, tax and delivery anywhere in the 5 boroughs (parks, homes, offices and hotels) and you get to keep the spiffy picnic basket.
But I decided to let them bring me lunch. I could choose two sandwiches or a large salad and I took both - always the critic. That's my job! The picnic basket arrived promptly, early actually, along with the blanket, a shopping bag of my extras, plastic cutlery and a child's card game of Go Fish. No butler. No French maid. You have to unpack it yourself. Alas lunch, was not unlike what you could get from a better-than middling deli: An abundance of Cobb salad with dry white meat chicken, bacon, avocado, tomato, needless sprouts and blue cheese dressing. An expatriate Cuban that was highly assimilated - good deli meats, wimpy cheese and a pickle on sourdough rather than a pressed panini.
For my vegetarian assistant I ordered mozzarella with fresh roasted red peppers and sun-dried tomatoes on a rustic square that no self-respecting peasant would ever own up to - it was dry and overwhelmed its filling. Enough to drive a vegan to Shake Shack. I chose lemonade and Arizona iced tea for our two beverages (they arrived chilled), and Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips and Lay's Potato Chips for our snacks.
The Death by Chocolate cake was pretty good. Don't count on me to judge the little round sour cherry tart with its lattice top because I so desperately wanted sour cherry anything and somehow - totally missed its cruelly abbreviated season. A tall cup of fruit was $4 extra - melon, strawberries, everything as ripe as it should be when you're wooing a critic.
Is it worth $90? I don't know. Are Jimmy Choos worth $800? Is the 2011 Mercedes Benz SL Convertible worth $198,750? For shopping and delivery alone lunch might be worth $90 to you. Especially if someone else is paying.
www.thatpicnicplace.com
***
Photograph
of old refrigerators courtesy of Flickr. Photographs of Annisa's sable, Anita Lo, Plein Sud's pasta, and That Picnic Place's picnic may not be used without permission from Steven Richter.
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