Virtual
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Why We Dine by John Mariani Clearwater on the Gulf bu John Mariani New York Corner Bar Boulud by John Mariani Notes From the Wine Cellar The Woman's Touch in Wine by John Mariani ❖❖❖ WHY WE DINE
After watching the
horrors the people of Boston and the marathoners
suffered this week at the hands of terrorists
and reading that dozens of Boston restaurants
closed up for security reasons, I was reminded
of what I wrote (originally in The Financial
Times) about the days following the agonies of
911. I
thought it appropriate to reiterate my
sentiments as applicable to the current tragedy
in Boston. After the
events of 9/11 it was with difficulty that I
tried to reason whether I should dine
out at yet another fine restaurant while New
York was in flames and people were trying so
desperately to cope with what had happened. Then I
read in the newspapers that the day it happened
Sirio Maccioni (below), owner of New York’s
famous restaurant, Le Cirque in midtown, called
then Mayor Rudy Giuliani to ask how he might
help in the crisis. Giuliani said two
words: “Stay open.” That night Le
Cirque served only 65 diners. Two weeks later,
on a Saturday night, the restaurant served
260. That sentiment has
always carried weight with me, not only because
sitting down to a meal requires the harried mind
to re-focus attention on a basic human
ritual but because it truly helps to
return to a normal need. After hearing of
a tragedy, the appetite may flag, eating may be
the last thing on one’s mind, and dining seems
downright frivolous. But to restore one’s
appetite is to restore one’s strength, as anyone
who has long been sick knows. Six years ago,when I heard
the news that my mother had passed away
overnight, I was tying my tie in a room at the
Crillon Hotel in Paris, ready to go down to
dinner. The news had the obvious effect of
bringing me to my knees, but after commiserating
with my wife, I determined that going down to
dinner would be the very best thing, rather than
stay in the room and weep. We went to
dinner, sure that my mother, who gave me life,
nurtured me as an infant, and imbued me with a
love of good food, a woman who was a great
hostess and loved nothing more than going out to
a fine restaurant, would have insisted I do
so. And so, we ate very well and drank a
very fine wine, toasting my mother as she so
richly deserved. As a food and travel
writer what I do for a living may seem odd (T.S.
Eliot wrote, “We measure out our lives in
coffee spoons,” but I measure out mine in
morsels of foie gras), but, whenever I think of
it as ephemeral to the great issues of the day,
I am reminded of a scene in the play based on The
Diary of Anne Frank, in which the family,
isolated for months in an attic but still
believing they would soon be out, fantasizes
about the first thing they’d do when they return
to the world outside. Anne says she yearns
to go to a dance. The teenage boy wants to go to
a movie, a western movie! And the adults all
start remembering and dreaming of a wonderful
pastry shop, a good stew, a romantic restaurant
with thick linen and fine wines. None, not
one, declares that the first thing he wants to
do is to change the political structure of
Europe. This scene made me
realize not only that deprivation takes away
freedoms of movement but also access to the most
wonderful sights, sounds, and tastes of
life--the very things we live for until they are
taken away from us. Every human being on Earth
who has ever gone hungry thinks first of
survival, then of doing something seemingly
superficial--a dance, a western movie, a visit
to a restaurant. For when all goes well,
when the doctor cuts out the cancer, when debt
is retired, when the debris is cleared away,
returning to normal means returning to those
things that make life worth living During World War II
director Frank Capra made a series of powerful
propaganda films entitled “Why We Fight,” and if
seeing yet again the cheesecake photos (an
interesting turn of phrase) of Rita Hayworth and
Betty Grable in servicemen’s lockers seems
pointedly nostalgic, that does not destroy its
touching allure. “Why We Dine” is as
reasonable a proposition as any other, once we
survive the inevitable rigors and horrors of
life that must be endured. “Animals feed,
man eats,” said Brillat-Savarin, “but only a man
of culture knows how to dine.” So I carry on extolling and
criticizing our world’s food culture, sometimes
whimsically, sometimes with vitriol. For
the importance of dining out, and drinking good
wine, and falling in love under the spell of
candlelight at the dinner table is to enjoy all
that terrorists--especially those whose
religious fanaticism seeks to deprive people of
all pleasure--would seek to destroy. By
indulging in life’s passions we do much more
than live out our lives. We gain strength
in the belief that they are part of the goodness
of man.
Eat well, be well.
❖❖❖
CLEARWATER
on the GULF by
John Mariani View from the
terrace at the Hyatt Regency Clearwater Beach Resort
and Spa Not
too long ago Clearwater didn’t look much like it looks
today. Way back it was home to the Tocobaga people and
was as of 1835 an army outpost during the Seminole
Wars. Native Americans are pretty scarce there now.
Dinner appetizers
run $9-$18, main courses $18-$31.
I also enjoyed dining at the more
formal—as these things go in Clearwater—dining room Caretta (below) at the
nearby Sandpearl Resort. Well, let’s just call it somewhat more posh, with
tall windows overlooking the water—sunsets can get
spectacular around here—curtains, white tablecloths
and dramatic lighting and chandeliers. The service
staff is well-meaning if sometimes lax or,
alternately, intrusive. A much more
casual lunch was had at a local
institution--well, one of a slew of places under the
name Frenchy’s,
with three more locations.
The first of them opened in 1981; Frenchy’s Rockaway
Grill in Clearwater, where I ate, is almost constantly
jammed from the minute it opens and stays that way
throughout the season. I also had
occasion to re-visit one of my favorite downhome Cuban
restaurants in Florida, the enchantingly scruffy La
Teresita in Tampa on West Columbus Drive. Since I ate
there last, they’ve added a big dining room adjacent
to the café (left),
but the menu is exactly the same, so I happily feasted
at the latter. According
to La Teresita’s website, “The Capdevila Family emigrated from
Cuba to the United States in 1962 on the Freedom
Flights to Miami, Florida. Maximino and Coralia
Capdevila fled Cuba wanting a better life for their
boys after Fidel Castro and communism took over. Even
though they did not know the language and they did not
have any resources, they knew that if they worked hard
they could achieve the American dream.”
NEW
YORK CORNER
by John Mariani BAR BOULUD 1900
Broadway (across
from Lincoln Center)
It is impossible to imagine anyone not enjoying themselves to the hilt at Bar Boulud. It has the same ambiance of a beloved bistro in France, only here you get Broadway in the bargain too.
Bar
Boulud is open for lunch Mon.-Fri., brunch Sat.
& Sun., and dinner nightly. Full bistro menu
including pre-theater and after-theater
dining. Prix fixe pre-theater at $45;
brunch is $32; à la carte appetizers run
$13-$19, main courses $28-$39 fixed price $45. ❖❖❖ NOTES FROM THE
WINE CELLAR
The
Woman's Touch in Wine
This article first appeared in Bloomberg News.
❖❖❖
A
LITTLE LEAP TO JUDGMENT?
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❖❖❖
FEATURED
LINKS: I am happy to report
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Gourmet is linked to four excellent
travel sites: Everett Potter's Travel Report: I consider this the best and
savviest blog of its kind on the web. Potter is a
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Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and Luxury Spa Finder,
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"I’ve designed this site is for people who take
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of the day, it’s not so much about five-star
places as five-star experiences." THIS WEEK:
Eating Las Vegas is the new on-line site for Virtual Gourmet contributor John A. Curtas., who since 1995 has been commenting on the Las Vegas food scene and reviewing restaurants for Nevada Public Radio. He is also the restaurant critic for KLAS TV, Channel 8 in Las Vegas, and his past reviews can be accessed at KNPR.org. Click on the logo below to go directly to his site.
Tennis Resorts Online: A Critical Guide to the World's Best Tennis Resorts and Tennis Camps, published by ROGER COX, who has spent more than two decades writing about tennis travel, including a 17-year stretch for Tennis magazine. He has also written for Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, New York Magazine, Travel & Leisure, Esquire, Money, USTA Magazine, Men's Journal, and The Robb Report. He has authored two books-The World's Best Tennis Vacations (Stephen Greene Press/Viking Penguin, 1990) and The Best Places to Stay in the Rockies (Houghton Mifflin, 1992 & 1994), and the Melbourne (Australia) chapter to the Wall Street Journal Business Guide to Cities of the Pacific Rim (Fodor's Travel Guides, 1991).
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET
NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Editor/Publisher: John
Mariani.
Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani, Robert Mariani,
John A. Curtas, Edward Brivio, Mort Hochstein,
Suzanne Wright, and Brian Freedman. Contributing
Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery,
Bobby Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.
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