Forrest Harvey, Donald Meek, Jean Harlow,
Robert Benchley,
Wallace Beery and Beatrice Roberts in "China Seas"
(1935)
❖❖❖
THIS WEEK
NEW YORK'S GREAT
RESTAURATEURS:
THE DANNY MEYER INTERVIEW By John Mariani NEW YORK CORNER
MISHIK
By John Mariani
THE MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
By John Mariani
NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
CHAMPAGNE STRUGGLES WITH SOCIAL
AND CLIMATIC CHANGES
By John Mariani
❖❖❖
NEW YORK'S GREAT RESTAURATEURS:
THE DANNY MEYER INTERVIEW
By John
Mariani
Ever since opening Union Square Café
in
1985 ate the age of 27, Danny Meyer has been
considered one of the New York
restaurateurs who influenced how hospitality
changed from a legacy of either
snobbism on the one hand and sit-‘em-serve-‘em
on the other. He wanted his
waitstaff to truly enjoy their job and to do
so with a Midwestern cordiality—he
was born and bred in St. Louis, Missouri—and
expected that guests would respond
accordingly. During college Meyer traveled with his
father on business trips and studied
international politics. After giving up
his dream of becoming a pro baseball player, he
pursued hospitality positions
in Chicago and New York, then went to Italy and
France to learn to cook. The success of Union Square Café
propelled him, slowly, to open other restaurants
that became highly regarded in
and outside of New York, including Gramercy
Tavern, Blue Smoke (BBQ), The
Modern at MOMA, Manhatta in the Financial
District and Maialino trattoria.His
opening of Shake Shack almost on a whim
resulted in a national chain of 328 of the
hamburger and milk shake eateries. Meyer is author of Setting
the Tables (2006) about restaurant
hospitality and co-authored The Union Square
Cafe
Cookbook (1994) with his
business partner, chef Michael Romano. He has
served on the boards
of Share Our Strength and City
Harvest. I
interviewed Meyer, now 66, about his career and
the state of the restaurant
industry in 2024.
After your dream of
being a baseball player faded, did the idea of
hospitality become a true passion?
After realizing that becoming a pro baseball
player wasn’t in the cards for me
(snuffed out that dream as a 12-year-old), I
considered becoming a baseball
announcer. Next, I thought about being a news
broadcaster, and maybe even
running for public office. The night before
taking my LSAT (back in those
days, having a law degree was considered de
rigueur to go into politics) I was
out for dinner with my aunt and uncle at Elio’s
on the Upper East Side. My
uncle saw that I was in a crummy mood—after all,
I needed to abstain from
drinking their Chianti in order to be fresh the
following morning. He asked me
what was bugging me and when I said, “I have to
take the LSAT early tomorrow
morning.” He shrugged and said, “Of course, you
do. You want to be a
lawyer, don’t you?” I responded, “No.” Whereupon
he got kind of angry with me,
and asked, “Do you have any idea how long you’ll
be dead?” Me: “No.” “I don’t
know either,” my uncle responded. “But I do know
that you’ll be dead a hell of
a lot longer than you’ll be alive! Why on earth
would you pursue something
you’re not interested in doing?!” I
answered, “Because I have no idea
what else I could do.” "You’ve got to be
kidding,” he answered.
“All I’ve ever heard you talk about your
entire life has been restaurants
and food.” It still didn’t register and I looked
at him blankly. “Open a
restaurant, for God’s sake,” he said!
Turns out, I had been
unwittingly getting quite an education in
restaurants and hospitality my entire
life—as my father designed custom driving tours
in France for a living, became
the first American agent for Relais de Campagne
(later Relais et Châteaux) and
we often had French people living in our home,
not to mention a French poodle
named Ratatouille.
Before
opening USC, what was your
experience in restaurants?
I had scant experience working in restaurants
before opening Union Square Cafe (below).
In fact, I’d only worked in one New York City
restaurant, Pesca, an Italian
seafood restaurant on East 22nd Street, and for
just 8 months. I was the
assistant lunch manager, earning $250 per week,
and it was there that I knew
this business was for me. It was at Pesca
that I met Michael Romano, the
future chef of Union Square Cafe, who introduced
me to the Flatiron
neighborhood, and, crucially, on my last night
of work there (before heading to
Italy and France to cook for three months), had
a date with a waitress/actress
named Audrey Heffernan. Audrey has been my
wife for nearly 36 years.
What did
you feel was lacking in the NY
restaurant scene when you conceived of USC?
In the 1980s, New Yorkers had some stark dining
choices: on one hand there were
classic Italian and French places that typically
started with “Il, Le, and La,”
and that were designed primarily for wealthy
socialites to celebrate,
congregate, and consummate; on the other, there
were the inheritors of the post
disco, post-night club scene: big loud
restaurants designed for people who
wanted to see and be seen, where the food
quality was almost beside the point.
I sensed a big, gaping hole with plenty of room
for a restaurant that offered
excellent food, wine and dining value, with a
dining experience delivered by
friendly, knowledgeable and unpretentious
servers, in a welcoming and warm
environment.
You have
been given a lot of credit for
changing the quality and style of service at
USHG and your other restaurants.
What did you do?
We’ve always focused on hiring people who love
what they do. Cooks and
servers who are passionate and curious about the
products we prepare, and who
are happiest when they help make others feel
better. In the very early days of
Union Square Cafe, our “help wanted”
advertisements sought people "who
have fun taking service seriously.” Over the
years, we’ve taken that same
approach to creating lots of restaurants with
all kinds of different dining
styles: Gramercy Tavern, Blue Smoke (below),
Eleven Madison Park, Tabla, Maialino,
Manhatta, The Modern, Marta, Ci Siamo and even
Shake Shack. I hope that
they all have our “thumbprint.” I hope that no
matter the setting or food, you
can expect to be served by someone who is
genuinely happy to see you,
knowledgeable about our food and drink, and
passionate about helping you to
have an experience that will send you home
raving and wanting to return.
Was the California style of
service an influence?
I wanted to open a restaurant that, if only it
existed, would be my favorite
restaurant. And at that point, my favorite
restaurants were bistros in
France, Italian trattorias and the new breed of
“bar and grills” that were
opening in San Francisco and Berkeley. I loved
restaurants where you could eat
and drink really well, without the stuffiness
and pretension. Even the name,
Union Square Cafe, hearkened to San
Francisco. In 1985 San Francisco’s
Union Square was a far more prestigious address
than its namesake in New York.
Although
I’m sure you have easy access to
investors, you usually take a long while
before opening another restaurant.
Why?
Raising money is not the governor on opening a
new restaurant. It’s having the
right idea for the right location and the right
team members who are ready for
a new step in their hospitality careers. We hope
that any restaurant we open
will endure, and stand the test of time. And as
you’ve seen, with the exception
of Shake Shack and now Daily Provisions, most of
our restaurants are one of a
kind.
Did you
believe that Shake Shack would be
a one-unit place or a national chain?
Shake Shack began as a hot dog cart, which was
conceived as part of a piece of
a public art installation commissioned for
Madison Square Park in 2001. It
wasn’t until the summer of 2004 that we
converted the hot dog cart into a
permanent kiosk and called it Shake Shack.
The goal was to raise money
for the park (a percentage of each sale is paid
to Madison Square Park
Conservancy) and to provide a reason for people
to use the park from morning
till night, thereby helping to keep it populated
and safe. It was never a dream
to have more than one, and in fact, we didn’t
open our second Shake Shack for
nearly five years. We hoped we could shorten the
lines by moving some of the
demand to the Upper West Side. Ironically,
the lines only got longer, and
that’s when we began to plan our third and
fourth!
During
Covid many in the industry believed it
could not
survive after the closures. How has it
changed?
Restaurants got an amazing lifeline when the
city first green lighted outdoor
dining sheds. Even now, when most diners feel
completely safe dining indoors,
the outdoor dining presents an alternative way
to enjoy your favorite
restaurant, and also extends the size of your
dining room, mitigating some of
the sky high rents restaurants often face. Many
full service restaurants that
never sold food for delivery now do so. Some
even ship their food across the
country via Goldbelly. The good news is that
people are more eager than ever to
be social. And with many working from home, the
need for that social
interaction has created a new phenomenon: 5:30
and 6:00 have become the most
sought-after times to dine out, replacing 7:30
and 8:00 as the most prized
reservation times.
Compared
with other industries, do
restaurateurs possess a special resiliency?
I think so. There have been so many times I’ve
seen our industry reeling from
events beyond our control: 9/11, the Great
Recession, Hurricane Sandy,
Covid-19, and we always somehow find our way
back. Sometimes it seems we are
like one of those inflatable clown punching bags
that just keeps popping back
up after taking hit after hit.
Some in
the media and industry say you’d
have to be crazy to open a restaurant today
(see the NY Times interviews
with 30 chefs). Is that true?
Are mom-and-pop restaurants doomed?
Not at all, or they wouldn’t keep
opening! In some ways, I think many of
the restaurants that opened after the pandemic
are in really good shape. They
never had to lay off their staff, as so many did
during the pandemic. And
they’ve signed more rational leases—unlike the
ones signed when the city had
more office workers and foreign tourists.
Today’s leases are based on today’s
actual urban density.
Everyone
is complaining that it’s
impossible to find good workers, from the
kitchen to the front. Is this true,
even if a waiter can make $100,000 a year?
There’s no question that our industry faced an
enormous challenge finding and
retaining talent over the past several years.
But I’m thrilled that our
restaurants are back to pre-pandemic levels of
employment, our dining room
teams are far more diverse, and our turnover
rates are far lower than they had
been. One factor is that with inflation comes
higher compensation
opportunities. It also helps that we offer full
health insurance, family leave
for both birth parents and a 51% dining discount
at any of our restaurants for
all of our employees.
The food
media has been predicting the
demise of fine dining for years, but high-end
restaurants from French and
Italian to steakhouses seem to be packed every
night. Why?
People can only eat so many home-delivered meals
before they once again crave
experience over convenience. We are social
beings, and restaurants continue to
offer the best place—not just to cook, serve and
do the dishes, but to provide
uplifting settings in which people can be
together, making memories with other
people.
The food
media has, often under attack,
turned largely to covering small, ethnic
restaurants and even ignored fine
dining restaurants, e.g., Christophe
Bellanca’s place, Fasano, Cucina 8 1/2,
Peak, L’Avenue at Saks, Mollusca, Duomo 51,
Genesis House, and just about every
new steakhouse. Does this deter you from
opening a restaurant like USC or
Gramercy?
I do believe there is an opening for a
professional restaurant beat that covers
legacy restaurants rather than just those that
are new. Really good restaurants
should be able to stand the test of time, to
develop soul and to improve with
age. Covering only what’s new is like a
wine critic only reviewing barrel
samples of a new vintage. For example, The
Modern, now in its 20th year,
is better than it has ever been, and I believe
our last review was over a
decade and three chefs ago. In terms of
what kinds of restaurants we open
and operate, I am not at all deterred by what
people do and don’t cover. What
matters is whether we have passion for the
project, and whether we believe the
new restaurant has the potential to become an
essential part of New York’s
dining landscape.
What do you have in the works?
We’ve been having so much fun honing our
existing places: Manhatta, Ci Siamo (above),
Gramercy
Tavern, The Modern, and Union Square Cafe are
all playing at the top
of their games. People have fallen in love
with Daily Provisions, and it
has been a thrill to bring it to a handful of
New York neighborhoods. Most
recently we opened in Cobble Hill and in a few
months we’ll open on the Upper
East Side and in Jersey City. It would be
amazing to one day bring Maialino
back to Gramercy Park. We're working hard
to make that happen. People
really miss it!
❖❖❖
NEW YORK
CORNER
MISHIK
259A Hudson Street
347-929-7878
By John Mariani
Photos by Michael Tulipano
The
beauty of Japanese cuisine has never
been in doubt, but if you are innocent of the
idea, head for Mishik, take a
seat at the counter and let executive chef-partner
Markee Manaloto (below), formerly at
Sushi Yasuda and Kissaki, do his best to
showcase
some of the most stunning dishes in New York.
Not that they are
fussed over; most are made before your eyes within
seconds and presented
without pretense on various ceramic plates by
Manaloto or sous-chef Quidong
“Sky” Chen. There are always elements of
contrasting colors, textures and
sheen, all served at the perfect temperature. The
flavors do not so much burst
in your mouth as dissolve sensually, revealing
counterpoints. Whatever umami may be,
Manaloto’s food seems to have it. His is an
Edomae-style sushi omakase, or
chef’s tasting, at the 15-seat counter, with two
options for dining: Omakase of
12 or 16 nigiri pieces, hand roll, soup and
dessert ($120/$165),a
chef’s seven-course tasting ($135) and a
la carte selections. Mishik, opened in
SoHo in January by David Kim, means “beautiful
food” or “delicacies” in Korean.
The restaurant wasdesigned
by Studio Rolling (also responsible for
Mari and Kochi), reflecting a
calm, shadowy but pleasingly lighted ambiance.
There is some music in the
background but not enough to disturb conversation.
There is also a cocktail bar
with a wide selection of house drinks containing
various herbs and spices. Manaloto imports his
seafood from Tokyo’s Toyosu Market and then dry
ages the fish (that is, after
going through rigor mortis). Fish like yellowtail
ages one week and bluefin otoro for
two. Your meal will depend on
what’s come in from Tokyo daily. My wife and I
began
with an appetizer of scallop sashimi with Asian
pear, crispy shiitake and
truffle ponzu, as well as Donburi rice with tuna
tartare, nori seaweed, and jidori
egg yolk. Both had soft and silky textures and all
the freshness
of early
spring. Oddly enough, before the sushi, came a hot
dish of grilled rockfish (kinki)
with broccolini and yuzu
hollandaise that indicated Manaloto
is not chained entirely to Japanese ingredients. Then came the
sushi—lustrous from the lighting overhead and the
contrast on the plate, each
impeccably formed and brushed with soy sauce,
eaten in one bite and leaving you
ravenous for more. The key to great sushi is not
just the variety of species
but the distinctive taste of each; so often in
lesser sushi places all the fish
tastes pretty much the same, so you end up dipping
it in wasabi-laced soy sauce
to give it flavor. At Mishik, each morsel
was unique: There was snow trout (yuki
masu); Japanese tiger prawn (kuruma
ebi); bluefin tuna belly (hagashi
toro); black throat sea perch (nodoguro);
Japanese
striped jack (shima aji);
firefly
squid (hotaru
ika);Japanese
sea bream (madai); Hokkaido sea urchin (uni).
After these came yakiniku,
slices of six-hour koji-marinated
A5 wagyu steak with black
truffle emulsion and choux farci (below);
and a refreshing dashi white miso and fish
bone-based broth. Desserts were light:
Hojicha green tea ice cream and yuzu cheesecake. The wine list is
well matched to this kind of food, and, of course,there is
a long list of sakes from various
noted prefectures. Mishik was fairly
empty when we dined there midweek, so our lovely
waitress was both attentive
and informative throughout the evening. Since we
were two of four people at the
sushi counter, our interaction with both
Manaloto and Chen was as much a learning
experience as a descriptive one. It was odd, however,
that having arrived for an eight o’clock seating,
we were served no food for 40
minutes— oh, how we longed for a crust of bread,
even a pretzel!—a delay
explained by saying they were not yet cooking with
gas and that charcoal is a
slow medium, which didn’t make all that much
sense. I am hardly alone
in
being perfectly happy eating nothing but sushi and
sashimi in their simplest
form all evening, but an evening at Mishik is very
much a highly civilized
dining experience and well worth the price charged
for the omekase meal. As
someone not yet jaded by fine cuisine of every
stripe,I’m
always excited to learn as much as I did
at a superb restaurant like Mishik.
Open for dinner
Mon.-Sat.
❖❖❖
THE MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES By John Mariani
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Katie
immediately called David and told him the
news. David said,
“And Dobell wants me along for the ride?” “Very
definitely. This really is
a crime
story.” Katie was
referring to how the last three stories she
and David had worked on had not
begun as crime stories but evolved into
them, making Alan Dobell’s questioning
whether David would be an asset at the
beginning. Now here was a story that
began with two murders that may or may not
have been related to Katie’s
intended investigation. If they were, it was
a much larger story than the local
newspapers would cover; if they were not,
Dobell was banking on the story
having a unique, sensational aspect to it:
Catholic nuns were not being knocked
off very often. Worth a couple of plane
tickets and hotel rooms, he figured. Katie met
David halfway between her apartment in the
Bronx and David’s house on the
Hudson for dinner at a quiet Mexican
restaurant in Dobbs Ferry, near the Tappan
Zee Bridge. Over
enchiladas and bottles of Modelo they
discussed their plan of action, which
would be for each to pursue different
aspects of the story.Not
knowing if the murders had anything to do
with prior abuse, David would treat it as he
would any other crime
investigation during his career, only now he
would have to depend on Dublin
police to provide him with info and leads. Katie
meanwhile would focus in on the possibility
of it being connected with the
Magdalene Laundries, and if the crime and
the abuse scandals meshed, she would
have an extraordinary story to tell, perhaps
the biggest of her career. “So, do you
have any contacts in the Dublin police
force?” she asked David, aware of his
remarkable reserves of contacts around the
world. “Not
specifically,” he said. “I worked mostly on
the Italian mob cases. The Irish
mob had their own turf—they were called the
Westies because they were on the
West Side in Hell’s Kitchen—and they were
vicious sons o’ bitches. Giuliani
called them the most dangerous mob New York
had ever seen. There were never
more than twenty or thirty of them, but they
even intimidated the Italians, and
the Westies beat the Genovese family out of
control of the graft to be made at
the new Javits Convention Center. “So, sometime
around 1984, Paul Castellano (right),
who was head of the Gambino family, made a
meeting with his opposite, a thug named
Jimmy Coonan (below)—who had
assassinated his
boss, whose name was actually Mickey
Spillane, like the crime writer?—to make
sure the Westies wouldn’t move against
Castellano’s operations.” “And what
happened?” “Story goes
that Coonan met Castellano at an Italian
restaurant and each brought along his
own bodyguard. But just to make sure the
meeting wasn’t an ambush, Coonan had a
squad of his men in a building across the
street with a stockpile of machine
guns and grenades. If Coonan wasn’t out of
the building by a certain time, they
were supposed to start blasting away.Problem was, Coonan accidentally
overstayed his time at the meeting and
when he realized he’d done so, he ran out of
the restaurant just before his
guys started to fire on Castellano. But, you
know how I’ve always told you
these mobsters are dumb as shit? Well,
Coonan’s men had a little too much to
drink and hadn’t bothered to check the time.
Morons. But it saved Castellano’s
ass.” “So what
happened?” “By that time
Castellano and Coonan had made a truce and
an agreement to share some profits
and territory. Castellano never knew about
the guys in the building.” “Are the
Westies still around?” “A few guys
here and there,” said David. “Giuliani put a
lot of them away, including
Coonan, then the Westies were infiltrated by
some Serbian thugs moving into
Hell’s Kitchen, which by then most Irish had
moved out of. The Irish gangs are
much stronger up in Boston.” David finished
his glass of beer and said, “Anyway, because
I had to keep up with everything
about the Genovese and Gambino family
activities, there was some cross-over,
and I got to work with a lot of the Irish
cops in the Hell’s Kitchen precinct.
I’m sure they have contacts in Dublin. Some
of them came over from there, or
their fathers or grandfathers did. They were
a very tight bunch. Tommy
Sullivan’s a third generation cop. I’m sure
he’s got names and numbers we can
use. I’ll call him tomorrow.” David was very
excited to go off on another adventure with
Katie. It gave purpose to his life
in retirement, but he thought of himself as
the luckiest guy in the world to be
with a vibrant, fascinating beautiful woman
like Katie, if only as her
professional friend and protector. Simply growing
up and going to school in the Bronx, both
Katie and David had plenty of Irish
friends, and David had worked with dozens of
Irish cops during his thirty years
on the force. At one time
the Irish formed the overwhelming majority
of police and firemen in New York,
then the Italians gained entry, followed by
the Hispanics and every other
ethnic group in varying numbers that
reflected the neighborhoods they came from
and worked in. Nevertheless,
the Irish stamp on the NYPD was still as evident as
the bagpipes played at
every New York cop’s funeral. In addition,
every police commissioner had been
Irish back to 1900; only in 1996 was a
Jewish-American appointed to the second
most powerful office in the city. So, too, just
as the Popes had been Italian for centuries,
New York’sarchbishops had always been
Irish—every one
of them, since the nineteenth century. The
newest, Edward Egan, had just been
appointed in May of 2000 Being an
Italian cop among so many Irish colleagues
had never prevented David from
rising through the ranks, once he’d proven
himself a first-rate investigator.
Even so, before he was married, he found
himself as likely to be having a few
drinks after work with the Irish cops as
sharing a pizza with his Italian
friends.
CHAMPAGNE
STRUGGLES WITH SOCIAL
AND CLIMATIC WINDS OF CHANGE
By John Mariani
Champagne Harvest Pickers
At a time
when all wine producers are
under increasing pressure from glut, changing
tastes among young drinkers and
climate change, the Champagne industry, with 16,100 winegrowers, 360 houses and
140 cooperatives, is showing cautious optimism about
the future, while acknowledging
change must come both in and out of the vineyards.
At the moment sales are
robust: In 2022 the market grew 1.6%, shipping 326
million bottles, after a
downturn during Covid. (The principal importers
are the U.S., U.K., Japan and
Germany; China now imports more than 2 million
bottles each year.) The image of
the Champagne industry took
a serious hit last autumn during the 2023 harvest,
when five workers died,
apparently from heat stroke in temperatures that
reached 96◦ F, and various
investigators found what were termed “appalling
housing conditions” as
dilapidated, unclean and lacking sanitation
facilities and that wages of 80
Euros per day went unpaid for workers, numbering
120,000 during the two- to
three-week harvest done wholly by hand, many from
Bulgaria and North Africa.
The French newspaper L’Humanité
called it “modern slavery.” The Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin
Champagne, representing the trade and growers,
quickly responded to a
French-German TV documentary on the conditions. "After
viewing the documentary aired on Arte, it is clear
that the situations
described do not represent the image of our industry
and the commitment of the
vast majority of Champagne producers. We strongly
condemn the unspeakable
practices and behaviors denounced in the report,”
the group said. “The measures
announced in mid-October will be concretized before
the next harvest, and
several projects, such as the Charter for the Care
of Service Providers and
tools for social transparency, are already in the
finalization stage." As a result, at this year’s Wine Paris
& Vinexpo Paris, held February 13, the Comité
addressed issues of
increasing their reserves and of social
responsibility with “the introduction
of a new framework for contractual relations between
winegrowers and houses,”
as well as the construction of Qanopée and a new
research and development
center in Epernay in 2025. According to David Chatillon and Maxime
Toubart,
co-presidents of the Comité Champagne (right),
a strategic plan rests on four pillars:
*
Accommodations
* Working
conditions, health and safety of harvesters
* Securing
the supply of service providers
*
Facilitating recruitment
“To
date, the regulatory framework does not define a
temperature above which work
must be stopped,” said Chatillon and Toubart , “but
employers are vigilant, as
part of their safety obligation, to ensure the
protection of these workers'
health . . . granting a rest period when the
employee feels the need, making
water bottles available, or adapting harvesting
schedules where possible.” Such
issues require immediate action, but other problems
are
long term in finding resolution. Ironically, for the
moment, the increase in
global heat is good thing for the Champagne
vineyards, which struggle to get
enough sunshine and heat in cooler years. The heat
creates more sugar in
grapes, which turns into alcohol and richer flavors.
Between 1961 and 2020
temperatures increased an average of 1.8 percent;
Harvesting is done earlier
and earlier, now in August rather than later in the
fall. In 2020, the region recorded its
earliest harvest start date in
history. (At the same
time, spring frosts have taken a
toll.) The fear is that no one knows at what point
too much heat will begin to
alter the grapes, which in Champagne are Pinot Noir,
Chardonnay and Pinot
Meunier. The farmers and enologists are working to
invent new grape
varietals that develop sustainable resistance. One
of the more promising grapes
is the hybrid Voltis, which is resistant to downy
and powdery mildew.
They are also planning to eliminate all herbicides by 2025,
and to achieve Zero Carbon by
2050. This involves a new “eco-design” of packaging to
streamline Champagne bottles, boxes and packages to
reduce bottle weight 7
percent. Contrary to popular assumption, the core
business of Champagne
accounts for less than 15% of its greenhouse gases,
while the purchase of goods
and services—including tourism to the region—account
for more than 50% of the
carbon imprint. The Comité is also continuing the battle
to prohibit by law other countries from using the
name “Champagne” for locally
produced sparkling wines. Currently, the appellation
is protected in 121
countries, but there will be further actions against
abuses, which are
“becoming increasingly numerous as new media and new
technologies emerge.” Just
last November the Beijing High Court ruled in favor
of the Comité in a lawsuit
against a manufacturer distributing a perfume named
“Champagne Life,” awarding
£30,000 in damages. The court confirmed that
Champagne be granted “well-known
trademark” status in China,
protecting the name, including in Chinese
characters, against any fraudulent
use of the name, for any product.”
❖❖❖
A
HOPEFUL SIGN CIVILIZATION IS NOT YET DEAD
"I
was
there with my wife for lunch. . . . and I
noticed there were five young girls. They couldn’t
have been more—they were in
their early 20s. And I watched: For a whole lunch,
none of them talked. They
were all texting on the phone. I said,what’s
going
on here?And
then a
couple weeks later we were there and I saw a
different group and apparently
they had a rule: Everybody put their phone in the
middle of the table and
whoever picked up their phone first had to pay the
bill."—"Meet the
Super-Regular:
Gar Gutman’s been eating schnitzel specials at EJ’s
for 31
years" By Abby Schrieber, New York Magazine
❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's
books below may be ordered from amazon.com.
The Hound in Heaven
(21st Century Lion Books) is a novella, and
for anyone who loves dogs, Christmas, romance,
inspiration, even the supernatural, I hope you'll find
this to be a treasured favorite. The story
concerns how, after a New England teacher, his wife and
their two daughters adopt a stray puppy found in their
barn in northern Maine, their lives seem full of promise.
But when tragedy strikes, their wonderful dog Lazarus and
the spirit of Christmas are the only things that may bring
his master back from the edge of despair.
“What a huge surprise turn this story took! I was
completely stunned! I truly enjoyed this book and its
message.” – Actress Ali MacGraw
“He had me at Page One. The amount of heart, human insight,
soul searching, and deft literary strength that John Mariani
pours into this airtight novella is vertigo-inducing.
Perhaps ‘wow’ would be the best comment.” – James
Dalessandro, author of Bohemian
Heart and 1906.
“John Mariani’s Hound in
Heaven starts with a well-painted portrayal of an
American family, along with the requisite dog. A surprise
event flips the action of the novel and captures us for a
voyage leading to a hopeful and heart-warming message. A
page turning, one sitting read, it’s the perfect antidote
for the winter and promotion of holiday celebration.” – Ann
Pearlman, author of The
Christmas Cookie Club and A Gift for my Sister.
“John Mariani’s concise, achingly beautiful novella pulls a
literary rabbit out of a hat – a mash-up of the cosmic and
the intimate, the tragic and the heart-warming – a Christmas
tale for all ages, and all faiths. Read it to your children,
read it to yourself… but read it. Early and often. Highly
recommended.” – Jay Bonansinga, New York Times bestselling
author of Pinkerton’s War,
The Sinking of The Eastland, and The Walking Dead: The Road To
Woodbury.
“Amazing things happen when you open your heart to an
animal. The Hound in
Heaven delivers a powerful story of healing that
is forged in the spiritual relationship between a man and
his best friend. The book brings a message of hope that can
enrich our images of family, love, and loss.” – Dr. Barbara
Royal, author of The
Royal Treatment.
Modesty forbids me to praise my own new book, but
let me proudly say that it is an extensive
revision of the 4th edition that appeared more
than a decade ago, before locavores, molecular
cuisine, modernist cuisine, the Food Network and
so much more, now included. Word origins have been
completely updated, as have per capita consumption
and production stats. Most important, for the
first time since publication in the 1980s, the
book includes more than 100 biographies of
Americans who have changed the way we cook, eat
and drink -- from Fannie Farmer and Julia Child to
Robert Mondavi and Thomas Keller.
"This book is amazing! It has entries for
everything from `abalone' to `zwieback,' plus more
than 500 recipes for classic American dishes and
drinks."--Devra First, The Boston Globe.
"Much needed in any kitchen library."--Bon Appetit.
Now in Paperback,
too--How Italian Food Conquered the
World (Palgrave Macmillan) has won top prize from the
Gourmand
World Cookbook Awards. It is
a rollicking history of the food culture of
Italy and its ravenous embrace in the 21st
century by the entire world. From ancient Rome
to la dolce
vita of post-war Italy, from Italian
immigrant cooks to celebrity chefs, from
pizzerias to high-class ristoranti,
this chronicle of a culinary diaspora is as
much about the world's changing tastes,
prejudices, and dietary fads as about
our obsessions with culinary fashion and
style.--John Mariani
"Eating Italian will
never be the same after reading
John Mariani's entertaining and
savory gastronomical history of
the cuisine of Italy and how it
won over appetites worldwide. . .
. This book is such a tasteful
narrative that it will literally
make you hungry for Italian food
and arouse your appetite for
gastronomical history."--Don
Oldenburg, USA Today.
"Italian
restaurants--some good, some glitzy--far
outnumber their French rivals. Many of
these establishments are zestfully described
in How Italian Food Conquered the World, an
entertaining and fact-filled chronicle by
food-and-wine correspondent John F.
Mariani."--Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street
Journal.
"Mariani
admirably dishes out the story of
Italy’s remarkable global ascent
to virtual culinary
hegemony....Like a chef gladly
divulging a cherished family
recipe, Mariani’s book reveals the
secret sauce about how Italy’s
cuisine put gusto in gusto!"--David
Lincoln Ross,
thedailybeast.com
"Equal parts
history, sociology, gastronomy, and just
plain fun, How Italian Food Conquered the
World tells the captivating and delicious
story of the (let's face it) everybody's
favorite cuisine with clarity, verve and
more than one surprise."--Colman Andrews,
editorial director of The Daily
Meal.com.
"A fantastic and fascinating
read, covering everything from the influence
of Venice's spice trade to the impact of
Italian immigrants in America and the
evolution of alta cucina. This book will
serve as a terrific resource to anyone
interested in the real story of Italian
food."--Mary Ann Esposito, host of PBS-TV's
Ciao
Italia.
"John Mariani has written the
definitive history of how Italians won their
way into our hearts, minds, and
stomachs. It's a story of pleasure over
pomp and taste over technique."--Danny Meyer,
owner of NYC restaurants Union Square
Cafe, The Modern, and Maialino.
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET
NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Publisher: John Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher
Mariani, Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Gerry Dawes, Geoff Kalish.
Contributing
Photographer: Galina Dargery. Technical
Advisor: Gerry
McLoughlin.