MARIANI’S

  JULY 3, 2004                                                    NEWSLETTER

                                            Hamburger stand. Imperial County Fair, California, 1942     Photograph by Lee Russell

                                                                           Happy 4th of July!

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Incredible India by Suzanne Wright

NEW YORK CORNER: The Modern by John Mariani

QUICK BYTES

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Part One
by Suzanne Wright

India assaults your senses—all of them. India is loud, pushy, dirty and chaotic.  It is both more and less than I’d expected, ricocheting me from elation to despair and back again, a country immeasurably rich in sights, history, cuisine and spirituality.   English-speaking India is the world’s most populous country and the largest democracy on the planet, and there is splendor amidst the squalor.
     I spent the month of January traversing mostly the northern regions of the country, arriving just days after the devastating tsunami that ravaged parts of southeastern India (there was a palpable malaise in the country not unlike ours, post-9/11).  The weather was cooler, but foggier and smoggier, than I expected at night, although the days were warm enough for sunbathing.
     There was a frantic lethargy to much of my touring; maddening and isolating at the same time. India has a kind of fraying beauty; former opulence gone to seed.  Nearly everyday I experienced sensory overload. Although my body was rarely tired, I was often mentally exhausted.  To wit:  there was the absurdity and futility of looking for a trash can.  Not wanting to litter, I searched in vain for a receptacle until my guide snatched the trash from my hand and flung it to the ground.  Mounds of rubbish were everywhere I looked.   It was depressing to see skeletal cows eating garbage as they lumbered down the street, safe from slaughter because of Hindu laws, but living out a wretched, homeless existence.  It was devastating to have small, filthy children in tatters tear at me for a rupee. I felt like I had to shut down a part of my humanity, a chamber of my heart, when cripples and children begged and clawed at me. Often the inside of my mouth felt gritty, yet  I marveled at how gorgeous the women’s complexions were in spite of the pollution.  Indians’ eyes  range in color from amber to hazelnut to dark chocolate to coal, even startlingly green.
     Every day, people sifted through heaps of used clothing on one side of a city street, while teenage girls queued for colorful glass bangles sold from carts on the opposite side. The sound of “bakshish” imploring me for a tip, rang in my ears, from public bathrooms to public gardens and everywhere in between.
     But most Indians are exceedingly polite—you’ll be “Madamed” or “Sahibed” to death.  Everyone will inquire about your “good name.” At hotels, you’ll be earnestly handed a comment card to fill out (and you won’t get your credit card back until you do).

     My favorite memories are a combination of unexpected events and less-visited spots I stumbled upon.  In stylish Bombay (an unlikely blend of Miami, Los Angeles and New York), I was lucky enough to happen onto a wedding, a festive and garish production that rivaled a Bollywood film in its celebratory excesses, where I was wholeheartedly welcomed with food and drink. 
   Speaking of Bollywood films, I went to a grand theater in Bombay, paid for a “deluxe” air-conditioned seat in the balcony and took in the musical Swades (right).  Turns out you don’t need Hindu language skills (or subtitles) to understand the plot—a three-hour plus spectacle about a boy who meets a girl, falls in love and…well, you know the rest.  What was especially amusing was the non-stop chattering on cell phones by the youth throughout the screening.
     The central train station of the city, Victoria Terminus, is an amalgam of architectural styles built by the British in 1887.  Just after 11 a.m. on weekdays, dabawallahs deliver freshly cooked food from thousands of suburban kitchens to office workers in tiffin boxes, aluminum cylinders fitted together. Coded, then carried in handcarts, they rarely, if ever, go astray.

Where Old Meets New
      In Dhobi Ghat I loved the briny scent that clung to the air as I watched men unload baskets of eel-like silver fish improbably called "Bombay duck" from the Arabian Sea, and women hung them to dry in what is basically a fishing village  smack in the middle of the teeming city, which reminded me that Bombay was once seven islands connected by causeways. Dhobi Ghat is an amazing sub-city of washermen, with sheets and clothing pinned above concrete wells (right). After seeing so many of them, I quickly learned that the swastika painted on so many shops and houses is an ancient Sanskrit symbol for prosperity. And the banners advertising STDs?  I learned it wasn’t about sexual diseases, but rather denoted that the facility offered “Standard Trunk Dialing.”
    The former Portuguese colony of Goa is unlike the rest of the country. Old Goa is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, chock-a-block with Catholic cathedrals, convents, churches and the tomb of St. Francis Xavier.  I was greeted with a garland of marigolds and a coconut drink at The Leela, a posh, sprawling resort complete with a lagoon and golf course.  Located on the quiet, southern tip of the beach, with talcum-soft beige sand and palm trees, it could have easily been mistaken for the Caribbean.
     Not surprisingly, given the romantic setting, I was the only single.  I ate my fill of prawns masala in rich paste of coconut milk and curry, washing it down with palm feni, a potent liquor.  I tried a sirodhara ayurvedic treatment from Kerala, a state even further south, to “balance my energies.” A sharp-smelling herbal oil was poured in a fine stream on my forehead, but has the opposite effect: it made me twitchy and uncomfortably greasy.
     I logged a lot of time in airports.  The India government has implemented extreme security for both domestic and international flights.  I was frisked and my bags were checked and rechecked and tagged, and my boarding passes were verified and re-verified every time I flew. The pat-downs are segregated by sex, and women were patted down behind a black curtain by same-sex guards. On Republic Day (similar to our Independence Day), the Delhi airport was closed for an hour and a half while the president attended a parade.
      The Taj Mahal (right), the timeless beauty of this monument to love in Agra, was most arresting at sunset, even as I was beset by begging street urchins and vendors selling trinkets and postcards.  Somewhat stodgy Delhi (think Washington, D.C.) is a series of eight cities ruled and ruined by sultans, slave dynasties, horse traders, moghul kings and British Raj as Sarah McDonald writes in her witty and poignant book Holy Cow.
     There are days worth of sights in the capital:  the ram-rod straight, elegant bearing of bearded and turbaned Sikhs; the old mosque, Jami Masjid, India’s largest; Raj Ghat, Gandi’s tomb with its eternal flame; the sandstone walls of Red Fort; the Persian-style Humayuns tomb in the center of Nizamuddin, a Moghul mausoleum constructed in the mid-Sixteenth century by a grieving widow;  Lodi Gardens, where walkers, joggers and picnickers congregate; Chandi Chowk Bazaar with stalls of flowers, fruits, vegetables and clothing; Connaught Place, surrounded by colonnaded white buildings, a reminder of colonization; the solid, pudgy Ambassador cars manufactured by Hindustan Motors that look like they belong in a 1950s film.

Planning Your Trip
The country’s official tourism web site, www.incredibleindia.org, is a good resource for researching and planning a trip. I used IndoAsia Tours, which helped me finalize my itinerary and inter-country transportation and provided for a private car and guide in each city (this is called FIT, or Foreign Independent Travel). One caveat:  be very clear about what you want and expect during the planning stages before you leave the U.S.   Visit www.indoasia-tours.com for more information.

"Incredible India, Part Two," will appear shortly in this newsletter.

NEW YORK CORNER
by John Mariani

THE MODERN
9 West 53rd Street
212-333-1220
www.themodernnyc.com

      To say that Danny Meyer is one of America's master restaurateurs and hosts is merely to repeat what has become a cliché.  From his first venture, Union Square Cafe, to Gramercy Tavern, Tabla, Eleven Madison Park, and Blue Smoke, he has always thought deeply, planned wisely, never let his reach exceed his grasp of a place, hired chefs who have become icons in their own right, and all the while set standards of American hospitality for everyone in the industry.
      Now he has taken on his most ambitious project yet and what may well prove to be his masterwork--The Modern, a series of restaurants within the new $245 million Museum of Modern Art.  Designed by Peter Bentel, who did several other of Meyer's restaurants, The Modern has four components: Cafe 2 is a cafeteria that offers mainly Italian charcuterie, pastas, soups, and salads. Terrace 5 is devoted mainly to desserts.
       On the ground floor the Bar Room (below) is a huge space with a marble bar backed by lighted colorful bottles of spirits and wine; off to the side is a misty wall-sized photo by Thomas Demand.
     Dining in the Bar Room is certainly a lot different from most other museum cafes, which are so often rank with the smell of rancid mayonnaise and burnt coffee--the exceptions being the restaurants in the Bilbao Guggenheim and the Museum of Art in Puerto Rico. Executive chef Gabriel Kreuther is not catering to those seeking a club sandwich and penne with tomato sauce (although those are available upstairs in Cafe 2).  His is a serious menu of seasonal dishes, a little smaller in portion size than in the Dining Room, but every bit as savory, from a cassolette  of potato and marrow with smoked beef tongue ($11) to Arctic char tartare with daikon and trout caviar ($14), from foie gras torchon with Muscat gazpacho and crab croquettes ($19)  to an Alsatian baeckeoffe of lamb, conch, and tripe ($12).
     Kreuther is Alsatian, which imbues his food with his own personality, and he made his mark in Manhattan first working at Jean-Georges, then at the Ritz-Carlton on Central Park South, where his elegant cooking was testament to the endurance of big city haute cuisine. Upon taking the job at The Modern, he told Nation's Restaurant News, "[The idea of modernism] opens a door to creation but also a more sleek and streamlined presentation with a more purist side.  You take things off instead of adding them in."  Which is all to the good, because towards the end of his tenure at the Ritz, his cooking was becoming more extravagant and complex; it is now more artfully focused, and, after a few early jitters--a bit too much salt, too-fond a hand with smoke--the menu is now refined and quite exquisite without being precious.  Garnishes are quiet and sauces interactive with the main ingredients.
     The Dining Room lies beyond a glowing white glass wall from the Bar Room, and its decor  is  a work of genteel minimalism that puts one in mind of Mies van der Rohe's (who he never designed a restaurant, but  did do the Seagrams Building, within which his associate Philip Johnson designed The Four Seasons.)  Bentel was able to draw on the talents of various MOMA curators, including Paola Antonelli of the architecture and design department, for museum-quality accouterments and comfortable Danish modern furniture.  The room looks out on a unique sight indeed--the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden (above, left) originally designed by Philip Johnson, with works by the foremost artists of the Twentieth Century.
      Here, served by some of the most congenial professionals in Meyer's brigades,  including managing director Ana Marie Mormando and sommelier Stéphane Colling (another Alsatian), you know immediately you are in no other place but New York.  It is a place most people will dress up for (though the actual dress code is pretty lax), and you'll see every stratum of New York, American, and world society here, from the artistic community, fashion, gastronomy, publishing, and finance, all basking in the glow of perfect lighting.
       There is a three-course menu at $74, and you'll be hard put to choose among wonderful appetizers like Kreuther's sweet pea soup with barley, aged Comté tuile and savory whipped cream, a tartare of yellowfin tun and diver's scallops tinged with Yellowstone River caviar, and sautéed foie gras with fruit chutney, pain d'épices, and a reduction of Trappist ale.  For entrees, there is orange-dusted Pennsylvania lamb loin with braised shank and Swiss chard, cucumber, and melon, and roasted wild boar chop with rutabaga choucroute, red currants, and a potato terrine.  Chatham cod comes crusted with spicy chourizo sausage, served with a white coco bean puree and harissa oil.
       For an extra $14 you may have a cheese expert wheel over  a cart of about 20 different cheeses, all in perfect condition. Choose as many as you like, with excellent breads.
    Desserts are stunning without being overwrought, from hazelnut dacquoise with milk chocolate chantilly and a densely chocolate tarte with vanilla ice cream.  The wine list is about 500 labels strong and growing constantly.

       Early reports on The Modern, which opened last spring, were somewhat less enthusiastic than might have been expected from a project of this scope, especially one from Danny Meyer's company.  But that scope indeed was the problem early on: too big, too many disparate elements, too many people, too much media hype.  Now, after nearly six months in operation, Meyer and The Modern have stabilized into what it was supposed to be, a symbiosis of contemporary taste and style, as beautiful today as it will undoubtedly be in years to come, and Kreuther's kitchen has come into the summer season with more depth and assuredness.  It is time to go--or go back--and be amazed by a restaurant of such proportions and dreamy aspirations.

HOW TO PASS THE TIME IN THE YUKON

"What we saw in the Downtown Hotel in Dawson City, Yukon, was the queerest thing we ever did see.  We watched people drop a pickled toe in their drink, raise their glasses and knock it back as the toe slid to their lips.  To join the Sourtoe Cocktail Club, the drinker's lips must touch the toe. . . . We were told that [the drink] was created [in 1973] when a miner's toe was found preserved in a jar of alcohol.  Since that day almost fifteen thousand people from around the world have taken the challenge of drinking down their brandy or beer along with the petrified appendage.  They have a certificate to show for it, and their names are listed in the official Sourtoe log book.  The first toe used for the cocktail lasted roughly fifteen years, until someone either stole it or swallowed it.  Since then, some members of the Sourtoe Cocktail Club have willed their toes to the hotel."--Phyllis Hinz and Lamont MacKay, The Cooking Ladies' Recipes from the Road (2005).

UNLIKE THE CRAP THEY SERVE PATIENTS THREE TIMES A DAY

Dr. Toby Cosgrove, head of the Cleveland Clinic, has recommended that the hospital's on-premises McDonald's outlet leave because he says their menu is not "heart-healthy food."

MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly.  Editor/Publisher: John Mariani. Contributing Writers: Robert Mariani,  Naomi  Kooker, Kirsten Skogerson,  Edward Brivio, Mort Hochstein,  Suzanne Wright. Contributing Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery,  Bobby Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.

 John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire, Wine Spectator, Bloomberg News and Radio, and Diversion.  He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink (Lebhar-Friedman), The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink (Broadway), and, with his wife Galina, the award-winning new Italian-American Cookbook (Harvard Common Press).  

 Any of John Mariani's books below may be ordered from amazon.com by clicking on the cover image.

copyright John Mariani 2005