Dear Friends and Family,  

  I'm a big fan of Nation's Restaurant News. Mostly I pick up insights into fast food drifts and trends and what's happening in the kind of family restaurants I am lucky enough to avoid. Lightening up, lowering calories, down-sizing portions, all are heralded, and often by the same chains that are doing triple cheeseburgers wrapped in bacon.  No wonder it's so hard to sell a veggie wrap.
A few weeks ago NRN reported on the "Waffle House Index."  It seems that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) informally gauges the impact of a hurricane by how quickly and with what menu the local waffle house chain reopens it stores.

    If the waffle house is open with electricity serving a full menu, that's level green, indicating limited damage. If it's using a generator and serving a limited menu: level yellow. It's level red if the unit is closed. If all that remains of the local waffle house is a slab, "That's really bad," FEMA administrator Craig Fugate says. That's when FEMA moves in.  

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     Last week I was seeing plums and pumpkins. This week Fork Play tries to capture the colors of the fall grapes arriving at the grocery: green and purple.     

 
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Lincoln, Act 2

       
       It's not unusual for a restaurant to need time to find its mojo. I remember how stolid and boring Le Cirque was when it first opened before it became the brilliant circus for the ladies who lunch on West 65th Street. And how the kitchen grew stronger with Daniel Boulud, and then Sootha Kuhn.  

    Still, I was taken by surprise at Lincoln, Patina Group's $20 million ristorante at Lincoln Center. It had seemed stodgy. Portions small. Staff uncertain and over-programmed.

    Then my attention refocused after a surprisingly luscious lunch in May, with both portions and flavor riding a new high. I came back twice.  Just a few weeks ago I came back for a third tasting and brought a fussy foodie friend along. He was less than eager to join me.  He knew only the disappointing Lincoln of its much ballyhooed opening in 2010. By the time the dessert arrived, he was waving his arms in the air, reviewing out loud, "Fabulous! Delish!" Has Jonathan Benno's new exuberance made Lincoln the best Italian restaurant in town?  Click here to read more and then reserve now before the news gets around. 142 West 65th Street

Bodrum in the Neighborhood

    I haven't tasted moussaka this good since I can't remember. And right in my own upper west side turf. Bodrum opened in 2007 without my noticing. There are several Turkish spots within walking distance that I've never tried. When I crave mezze, I go to Beyoglu (1432 Third Avenue). But a friend who's a regular at Bodrum had suggested we meet there last week. We shared a Margherita pizza from the handsome wood and gas burning oven while we decided what to order: a big Shepherd salad, rather ordinary hummus, and fabulous labne, strained yogurt cheese with walnuts, dill and fresh purslane. Our companion's Moroccan fish tagine was carefully cooked, smartly spiced. Alas, Steven could barely make a dent in his shish kebab with a steak knife. Still, I'd come back for that moussaka and try more. It's reasonably priced - mezze and appetizers start at $5.95, entrees range from $13.95 to $23.95 (Colorado lamb chops). "The owner is always here," Bodrum's booster observed, as we watched Huseyin Ozer hovering over another table. "I like that." I like that too. 584 Amsterdam Avenue between 88th and 89th

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Back At RedFarm

    As an early champion of the dim sum wizard Joe Ng, I couldn't wait to see what he and Eddie Schoenfeld would dream up for RedFarm (529 Hudson Street). I greedily finagled my way into three friends and family tastings. Somewhat embarrassed, I fought to get a check for the third meal. "But the door is open," I protested. "The prices are on the menu."  And I loved it. Loved most of what I tasted. Still, the place is tiny, 44 seats maybe. I stayed away to let the rest of the world stream in.

    Last Saturday night we were back. Couples waiting to get in cluttered the sidewalk out front and sat on the stoop. According to Eddie, the bar two doors away has seen its income go up $1000 a night since RedFarm arrived. I wanted to order everything I liked and everything new too. Katz's pastrami egg roll was a must. And I sucked the sublime broth from inside the pork and crab soupy dumplings - a Shanghai specialty that Ng has mastered. Crispy duck and crab dumplings had little red eyes and luscious insides. I didn't really want to drag them through the curry sauce so I asked for a spoon, savoring that too.

    The kitchen sent out a special, chicken wings - now I'm haunted by chicken wings with bits of pork and fiery red pepper. Steven is amused to see that the noctambulist tall women have found this homey spot.  As the night wore on, the necks got longer and the women more dazzling.  I ate my wings and tried not to hate them.    

    She's a real estate prodigy. That's just her career.  She's also an astonishingly ambitious cook. That's her consuming passion. Beyond a personality that fills the room, she cooks with the kind of runaway ambition I remember in myself from the '60s, when we were a handful of foodies (before that was even a word.)

    Josephine is an amazing anachronism in spike heels. Each guest received a menu by email days before her most recent dinner party: six courses and petit fours. Husband Henry served sake with the hors d'oeuvre: salmon, salmon roe and scallop ceviche on crisps. Of course, that was her own tomato jam in the mini grilled cheese with tomato jam and sunny side up quail egg.

    Seated we began with her homemade soba noodles with pork belly, braised with sake, soy, honey and ginger. There was rosé with the garlic stuffed pompano and its summer salad of white peach, avocado, white bean and crunchy chayote.

    The uni risotto cooked in lobster broth was studded with bits of candied bacon and served with butter-poached lobster - unbearably perfect. I would have asked for a recipe but it's all ad lib, impromptu to taste. Though she did confess to spending weeks perfecting her soba recipe. After the floating island with roasted pineapple there were petits fours.

    I plan to get specific instructions for making The Elvis: milk chocolate ganache layered with peanut butter and banana brûlée on homemade chocolate Graham crackers. If she's willing to come up with a formula, I'll pass it along.   

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Remembering Clementine

    I got a giggle when I unwrapped The Great American Cookbook (Rizzoli $45), an impressively obese revision of Clementine Paddleford's classic How America Eats.
In the 1930s and 40s while writing for the NY Herald Tribune, Gourmet and This Week, she criss-crossed the nation, often piloting a propeller plane, 800,000 miles, she claims, knocking on doors in farms and suburbs in search of American regional cooking.

    She revealed that Long Island ducks were paddling around the imperial aviaries in Peking, as recently as 1872 and gave a recipe for Fried Duck. In East Hampton she spent three days in the kitchens of Mulfords, Osbernes, and Daytons tasting recipes dating from the 17th century. "Oysters are the opening prayer," she reported, giving a recipe for Montauk Berry Duff and East Hampton Crullers.

    I gave this monstrously heavy homage to my intern to read but she was not amused to step into the past. Maybe you need to have grown up with Plantation Goulash and Hearty Chicken-and-stuffing Casserole from "slim, blond Betty Bogue" in Wichita, Kansas, "washing, ironing, cleaning and cooking for a family of five...with time for church and barbecues. I'm not sure who would cook with Paddleford. What cookbook holder could possibly wrestle this muscle-bound volume into submission? But could be you'd enjoy her invasions of World War ll kitchens and her Margaret Mead reportings.  

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The photograph of Lincoln chef Jonathan Benno may not be used without permission from Steven Richter.

Photographs of Bodrum's moussaka, and RedFarm's crispy crab may not be used without permission from Gael Greene.
        
              Fork Play copyright Gael Greene 2011.