Category: Manhattan

Well, well, well. I’m kind of amazed by what happened with the New Hampshire primary – what a horse race. I didn’t think Hillary would throw in the towel. Surprised by her victory – yes; shocked – umm, not quite. Will be very interesting to see what will happen now between her and Barack Obama (well, okay, Edwards isn’t out of it yet).

Oh, wow – The Met’s Philippe de Montebello will be retiring at the end of the year? Carol Vogel for the NY Times writes:

He allowed that his current job would be hard to top. “I’m the most grateful person on earth,” he said. “I’ve had the privilege to run the greatest institution in the world. How much luckier can you be than that?”

For the museum world, one challenge will surely be to start seeing the Met and its long-term director as separate entities.

“The Met is a huge organization, and too many people have been increasingly saying to me, ‘You are the Met,’” Mr. de Montebello said. “I am not the Met.”

NY Times art critic Michael Kimmelman has a nice tribute about Mr. de Montebello.

Marvel’s ending Spider-Man’s marriage to Mary Jane, by making it as if it never happened? Honestly, I’m hardly a comic book reader, but this is the dilemma of any series – how do you keep the tension going in a long-running series? Superman/Clark Kent marries Lois Lane, but is it still fun? (then again, Superman’s super, so to keep things going, the conflict is in Clark’s own internal battle, I guess). Who likes the happy hero?

But, I don’t feel that much more comfortable with superheroes who’s mired in the misery of his (usually “his”) life – Batman/Bruce Wayne’s practically psychotic, if his series or the various versions don’t constantly remind him of his family – the Bat clan. Then again, even though he has his foster dad in Alfred the butler and his foster kids in Robin (in all the variations) and Batgirls (in all the variations), he has his commitment issues with women – he just can’t be happy. At least that kind of makes sense in comparison to being cruel to Peter Parker and Mary Jane; you’d be a little nuts too if you were Bruce Wayne. And, come on – as geeky as Peter Parker was, his sarcasm/wit got him the girl of his dreams. Should we be glad that he’s spared of a divorce?

Okay, clearly I need to find other things to read about on-line!

The passing of Sir Edmund Hillary, who climbed Mt. Everest. The AP obituary made him sound modest but spirited. And, I especially like how Time magazine opened their obit with quite a majesty on how Sir Edmund and Tenzing Norgay got up there at the top of the world.

Inter-disciplinary approach on environmentalism – now, more than ever, can different academicians work together?

“Literature for Soldiers” – interesting article in Newsweek on how the cadets at West Point read literature and the professor who teaches them lit. I’m not that surprised by the depth of their reading – these are bright young people; their education includes some humanities (not just military stuff); and sometimes, literature makes the military stuff no less raw anyway.

From this Christmas, interesting Daily News profile on June Mei, Mayor Bloomberg’s interpreter on his recent trip to China, by Kirsten Danis:

On Mayor Bloomberg’s recent China trip, one woman rarely strayed from his side: a Brooklyn-born interpreter with a knack for languages and a taste for Fox’s U-bet chocolate syrup.

June Mei grew up in Prospect Heights and spoke barely a word of her family’s native Cantonese until she was 8.

“I’m such a New Yorker that I never learned to drive,” she said in her Tribeca apartment after returning from Asia.

Yet she effortlessly spun Bloomberg’s English into Mandarin over the three-day trip – and she owes her skill to childhood asthma.

Mei, the daughter of an ethnic Chinese doctor and his wife who emigrated from Singapore, was gripped by such bad attacks that her mother moved her to a Florida apartment to wait out winters.

She didn’t attend classes in the South, and her mom worried she’d never get through Public School 9 at home.

So at age 8, Mei was sent to live with relatives in Hong Kong and suddenly had to learn Cantonese.

“The Chinese literature class was like I had dropped into a foreign planet,” said Mei, 60.

Mei graduated from high school in Hong Kong and returned home to study history in college and graduate school.

Along the way, she picked up Mandarin – while playing cards with Taiwanese grad students. [….]

And, an item on NJ – with Gov. Corzine away (holiday vacation, it seems; he does remind me a bit of Mayor Bloomberg…), St. Senator Richard Codey is (again) acting governor. Considering how often he has filled the role, as this NY Times article notes, he “really acts like like a governor.” The article amused me, since the very same thought occurred to me too, when Codey signed the bill requiring HIV testing of pregnant women in NJ. Nothing against Corzine (then again, I don’t live in Jersey, even if I’m admitted to their bar), but kind of weird to think that Codey does so much. Eventually, NJ is going to have to have a lieutenant governor, like other states, and not have to make things so… weird.

The concept of Good Riddance Day, wherein people gathered at Times Square to shred crap for the sake of good karma, seems lovely; but on the news, it looked a little… weird.

As the year ends, I may very do a year in review type of thing. We’ll see!

[Catch up posts for Christmas, I Am Legend, and the Stage Crew reunion to follow.]

For some reason this year, much has been made of the traditional Jewish American affinity for Chinese restaurants, especially at Christmas. (See YouTube, Jennifer 8. Lee, and NPR). No one has talked about how much Chinese people like Jewish food.

My dad got me hooked at an early age, as he was good friends with Freddy the bagel guy, and spent many a weekend in the back of the store kicking back Nedicks orange sodas and watching the bagels boil into nice dumplings before being baked to chewy perfection. I probably know more about appetizing than any Chinese person ought to know. The day my sister was born, Freddy came and picked us up from school and took us home. P-‘s neighbors were all Jewish growing up; she can get mean cravings for latkes.

OK, it’s usually nowhere as cheap as Chinese food, and it’s certainly in the same league health-wise,with their wide variety of fatty, high carb and fried foods. However, also coming from a culture of survival, you can count on Jewish food to be prepared with meticulous precision, creatively using ingredients, with nothing wasted that is edible (at least permitted under kashrut laws). Also, having no dairy works out for us lactose intolerant folks.

First stop this past week was at the newly reopened 2nd Avenue Deli (now at 33 St. between 3 Avenue and Lexington, around the corner from Koreatown). Warning: 30-45 minute waits for a table are usual, even at the time I went at 3 PM. I hear the line was 100 deep at lunch time. Good thing that they are now open 24 hours. Our waitress (as well as about a quarter of the staff) was Chinese. My usual – matzo ball soup (lighter in color than Katz’s, but fluffier), and a hot pastrami sandwich. They are exactly the same as before. A meal will set you back $20 or so, but what are you waiting for? The 2nd Avenue Deli is kosher certified by a Conservative rabbi, so while no dairy is served, it is not strictly kosher as Orthodox standards goes, and then there is the issue of being open on Saturday. But hey, we’re Chinese, so that’s something somebody else has to deal with, while we eat. Way Recommended if you don’t need to ask too many questions.

The day after Christmas, P and 4 of her high school friends (all Asian and female) went out with one of their old teachers (who is Jewish) to Grille de Paris, a French restaurant located on Kings Highway in Brooklyn. They are under strict glatt Kosher supervision, and the other patrons were obviously very observant. We sure made an appearance there, although I guess it’s not any weirder than Jewish people in a Chinese restaurant.

Bowls of garlic bread were put out to begin. P had the pre fixe of fatush salad (traditional), eggplant napoleon (tasty breaded eggplant slices somewhat like that for eggplant parm), beef shish kabobs with vegatables, and a chocolate mousse (I shared it – it was a bit sweet, but I liked it – P thought there was too much of the non-dairy creamer in it). I wanted an all mushroom all the time meal, so I had the tri mushroom salad, which was large, tasty and fantastic, french onion soup (was really wishing for the melted cheese) and fillet Wellington (pretty good and full of red wine and mushroom flavor, but under Kosher rules, the meat cannot be bloody, so it has to be cooked to at least what we would normally call medium-well, so be forewarned). A piped stack of mashed potatoes (using obviously real hand-mashed potatoes, not reconstituted potato flakes) was accompanied by a trio of snow peas, peppers and onions which would be familiar in a stir-fry, all well-sauteed. We asked one of the servers to take our picture at the table at the end of the meal. He cracks a joke: “say ‘meat’, not cheese -we’re a meat restaurant”.

While it isn’t Le Cirque, there were plenty of delicious food, and they put a lot of effort in service and presentation (see the photos in the flickr strip). Even though it’s perhaps the only Kosher French restaurant in the city, it’s not a take it or leave it situation – it’s actually not bad. Recommended if you’re avoiding dairy.