vip in the city, page 23

Last night’s nasty weather continued and worsened into this morning, making my trip out to Long Island a very messy one indeed. If rain on your wedding day is supposed to be lucky — or is that… ironic? — NI will be blessed with enough fortune for a lifetime.

The Coral House on Milburn Lake was just a five minute drive from the Baldwin station off the LIRR — actually a walkable distance if it weren’t thunderstorming and I were not wearing a cocktail dress and heels. My taxi driver, upon being given the destination, told me that he had been married at the very same venue, three decades earlier. He said it was the best day of his life.  Awww!

The wet weather did cause some last-minute scrambling: the ceremony, which had been slated for outdoors, was moved inside to a room with views of the duck-filled lake instead. As we waited for the ceremony to begin — I learned later that the limo with the bridal party had gotten lost en route to the venue — a playlist of love songs was piped in through the speakers… a rotation of hits that seemed to have remained unchanged since the early 1990s, including Extreme’s “More Than Words,” Richard Marx’s “Right Here Waiting,” and Bryan Adams’s “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You.”

Shy flower girls:

Though the weather outside was frightful, it turned out to be a lovely afternoon, if not exactly what I expected. At one point during the vows, NI’s voice began to quaver, setting off a chain reaction of sentimental tearing, beginning with the groom. That gets me every time. Just as I felt my own eyes start to well, a cell phone went off loudly in my row, breaking the mood. D’oh! For a nanosecond, I panicked at the thought that I was to blame — I’m positively OCD about silencing the ringer during such moments — but soon it became apparent that the source was the purse of the woman seated directly to my right. One of those obnoxious, jangly tunes, too… not that the ringtone makes much of a difference in the middle of a marriage ceremony. Several indignant heads swiveled in our direction. Only honor kept me from pointing out the true culprit. (Her crimson cheeks and mad fumbling told the true story anyway — all of which was caught on video.)

Much food, and even more dancing followed. Is “The Cha-Cha Slide” the “Macarena” of the 00’s?

By late afternoon, the skies had cleared for brilliant sunshine, and buoyed by champagne bubbles, I was encouraged to venture the walk back to the railroad station to catch the train back to NYC, heels or no.

After our successful foray into the Japanese chicken wings last month, JG and SC thought that an expansion of the mission was in order. The call went out to the usual suspects, and we were on for Wingfest 2007 this Friday night.

SC and I had quite a time trying to calculate the appropriate number of Tebaya wings that would be required to serve 20-25 people. 6 apiece? 10 apiece? Wine, I know – standard for a dinner party is one bottle for every two guests… more if the night runs long, or if your friends are lushes – but chicken wings were a mystery to us both. Plus we had to consider the accompanying supplemental orders of juicy karaage and stomach-expanding potemochi, and one very large pot of JG’s famous cheese grits.

Unfortunately, with all the figuring, SC had failed to take into account the inevitable last-minute cancellations, which were in turn further compounded by one sudden and very nasty bout of bad weather. We ended up with a serious surfeit of chicken.

This is what a pile of 150 chicken wings looks like:

Potemochi (pan-fried glutinous potato flour cake):

Karaage (boneless chicken thighs marinated in ginger, garlic, japanese soy sauce, salt and pepper):

What to do but dig in?  We did, valiantly.

A couple hours (and several glasses of wine) later, the steadfast few remaining were rewarded with the mad spectacle of SC’s long-built up feat of eating. While SYB kept strict time, I watched my friend make astoundingly efficient work of ten chicken wings.  After an initial rough start (for which I felt partly to blame), she came close enough to the finish to earn a cool $50 from an impressed BI. Not near the pace of Patrick “Deep Dish” Bertoletti, who earlier this month downed 4.1 pounds of chicken meat in 8 minutes, but a respectable showing nonetheless, considering that the challenge was undertaken on an already full stomach. Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas had better watch her back.

Papabubble, the cult-favorite candy chain from Barcelona, opened the doors to its very first stateside outpost with a Saturday night party at its new Nolita shop on Broome Street. The event generated ample buzz for the artisanal sweet shop, known for its beautiful and gourmet-flavored candies.

The original Spain store was started in June 2003 by young Australians Christopher King and Nigel Chouri; in addition to their popular shop in the Barri Gòtic (Gothic Quarter), Papabubble has locations in Amsterdam and Tokyo. The handmade sweets are made in store the “old-fashioned way”: fascinated customers are invited to watch as molten sugar is poured onto slab marble, and after being flavored with premium-quality essences, is rolled, folded and finally extruded into long logs, which are hardened and then hand-chopped into bite-sized pieces. The small vividly-colored pieces of sugar sculpture are sold by the glass jar or in refill bags, and are almost too pretty to eat. Almost…

This citrus variety tasted clean and bright: tangy, but not mouth-puckeringly so, and without the cloyingly artificial flavors that mar lesser candies. Completely addictive, too. I realized I’d overindulged when by day’s end, the roof of my mouth had that tell-tale rawness I hadn’t experienced in perhaps two decades. (Thanks for the sweet surprise, SYB!)

As we approach the homestretch of our CSA — community supported agriculture — season, I wanted to share here some of the more interesting items we’ve received in our deliveries this year. Purple was a theme these past few months, starting with our purple bell peppers from the summer. (I was initially very excited about those, but just so you know, the purple fades to green when the peppers are cooked. Still tasty, though.) Beautiful purple Opal basil (a cousin of sweet basil) came next, followed by purple potatoes (makes pretty hash!) and this week: purple cabbage and purple cauliflower. I’d never seen the latter before; the vivid head looks almost as fake as a dyed carnation, but is apparently all natural. The purple color is caused by the presence of anthocyanin — a component also found in red cabbage and red wine.

Early sign-ups (with early discounts) for the 2008 season are available at most CSAs beginning this week. For those unfamiliar with the program, CSA members purchase “shares” of an annual harvest directly from a local farmer in the winter months when cash is most needed for seeds, equipment, repair, and other inputs. In this way, the farmers are relieved of much of the risk of small-scale farming through the guaranteed market created by the community’s commitment to a season of support. In return, members receive a portion of the farmer’s weekly harvest during the season: usually mid-June through late November. They share both the risk of bad weather and crop damage, and the rewards of the bounty from a good season. Members avoid costs for advertising, processing, packaging, storage and long-distance transportation, and receive an abundant assortment of just-picked, local, organic vegetables, herbs, and, if desired, fruits, for less than the market price.

By participating in CSA, members support a more equitable food distribution and help to create a more environmentally just, economically fair and healthy society… in addition to receiving fresh, locally-grown — and sometimes, pretty cool-looking — produce.

Check the JustFood website for details on a group near you.

I had been looking forward to the Met’s new production of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly since it debuted in New York last year. That premiere, which also served as new general manager Peter Gelb‘s inauguration, was attended by a host of celebrities and broadcast live simultaneously on screens on the Lincoln Center Plaza and in Times Square.

Anthony Minghella, Oscar-winning film director of The English Patient (1997) was responsible for the new staging of the oft-performed opera, which went on to win the 2006 Olivier Award for “Best New Opera Production” for its run at the London Coliseum. This Met season, with a new cast, it opened to a mixed review from The Times, but Minghella’s production — considered by a few critics to be too much style over substance — has garnered enough praise that he has been commissioned by the Met to write the libretto and direct a new work by composer Osvaldo Golijov that will make its debut in the 2011-12 season.

The sets are certainly beautifully spare and elegant, and the costumes (by Shanghai-born fashion designer Han Feng) are striking, but the most extraordinary part of Minghella’s concept is its incorporation of traditional Japanese Bunraku-style puppetry. To portray Butterfly’s lovechild, Sorrow, three black-clad puppeteers from London’s Blind Summit Puppet Theatre manipulate a lifesize doll: two operating some combination of the doll’s head and hands, and another responsible for its feet. It’s a carefully choreographed dance that somehow manages to convey eerie realism and remarkable expressiveness despite the fact that the puppeteers are fully (if discreetly) visible to the audience the entire time.

In this production, similarly black-clad figures are also responsible for moving some of the props and set pieces… which leads to the “incident” of this blog post’s title. As the curtain rose on one such person sliding a large rice paper screen across the stage, I jokingly turned to my companion and whispered, “Ooh, since when are there ninjas in Madama Butterfly?” He chuckled politely — hey, I didn’t say it was comic gold — but a young woman seated directly behind us, obviously overhearing my comment, scornfully spat out “Pfft! STUPID!”

Wha-at?! My eyes widened in shocked surprise. I may have even gasped, as much over the unexpected hostility as the disproportionate response to my light-hearted quip, but before I could deliver a comeback, the orchestra started up. I spent a good portion of Act I seething in silence, and as soon as the curtain came down for the first intermission, I turned to my companion once more to squawk incredulously, “Did she call me stupid?!”

His response, which I took as confirmation, was to shake with uncontrollable laughter.

Hmph. She is lucky that I’m not this guy.

When Morrissey‘s June concert dates at MSG were postponed due to the singer’s viral infection and eventually canceled, I took it as a sign that I was just not meant to see my onetime favorite artist again. Certainly not reunited with Johnny Marr — that’s Professor Marr to you; Moz reportedly turned down an offer of $75 million(!) to tour with his former bandmate. Much as I loathe the whole reunion-for-cash idea — World tour! (“Media whore!”) “Please the Press in Belgium!” — that’s one concert I would have made sure not to miss. Cruel fate, being born too late to attend a Smiths concert; this year marks the 20th anniversary of the band’s break-up.

Morrissey solo, though, I’ve managed to catch in concert many times over the years, which is probably why I’d pretty much forgotten about this most recent lost opportunity until a press release announced that Morrissey would be returning to New York to make up for the missed dates in venues specially chosen for being “small and intimate.” Five dates in late-October at the Hammerstein Ballroom… which I suppose one could consider intimate as compared to Madison Square Garden. But the kicker: “these shows will be the last Morrissey will do for the foreseeable future.”

Hmm, vague hints at a farewell tour, without crassly promoting it as such… well played, marketers! But even so, at $60 a pop plus Ticketmaster fees, it was not enough to lure me back into the fray. Let’s face it, I hadn’t even bothered to pick up the last album. Back in 2004, Moz’s comeback concerts at The Apollo were among the hottest tickets in town, selling out with remarkable swiftness, and sending fans new and old into a frenzy all over again. (We saw him at Radio City that year.) But as these most recent concert dates drew near, it became embarrassingly apparent that five dates may have been a bit ambitious. The die-hard fans, of course, still snatched up their special 5-night packages for all NYC dates ($200), but the other tickets languished at the box office. It made me a little sad; even if I personally hadn’t been moved to fork over the $70+ dollars for the privilege of standing in a crowded concert hall for a couple of hours, the man is still a legend.

Ticket prices were slashed repeatedly, at one point to a mere $20. We picked up ours for opening night the week before the concert… not for $20, but we won’t begrudge Moz a little extra.

Back in the day (i.e., the early to mid 1990s), I would have made sure to arrive early and stake out a spot up within hand-grasping, gladiola-hurling distance to the stage. No longer. Over glasses of red at The Chelsea Mercantile, we plotted our arrival time to entirely skip opening act Kristeen Young (good move: she was ousted from the tour later in the week), hitting the concert floor shortly before 9PM, just as Moz came on the stage.

“Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” kicked off the 90 minute-set, during which we never made it to stage closer than this. (Better pictures here.) But I was fine with that.

Moz sweated through several shirts on stage — this black tee says “Je Suis Morrissey.” At one point, he dispensed with the tops entirely, performing bare-chested, and looking fitter than I would have expected for a man approaching 50. (Not everyone approved.)

Our concert’s set list was an interesting mix of new(ish) and classic; it was not until JK pointed it out to me afterwards that I realized that Bona Drag went entirely unrepresented tonight.   Pity.  (“Interesting Drug” and “Disappointed” were trotted out in the later shows.) Moz reached even further back than that, though, culling several tunes from the Smiths-era catalog: “Stretch Out And Wait,” “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me,” “Shoplifters Of The World Unite,” and of course “How Soon Is Now?,” which closed out the show to mad cheers.

This is the last song I will ever sing
No: I’ve changed my mind again
Good night, and thank you

Soho Repertory Theatre is a small theatre company, known for its development and production of non-traditional works. The company mounts at least two mainstage productions and two to four workshop productions a year in its 70-seat theater on Walker Street. This season, to promote their new pieces, the company launched “99 cent Sundays” for all mainstage productions, which is to say that one day a week, every seat in the theater, normally priced at $25, would be sold for less than a dollar. It was a deal too good to pass up. Soon enough, we had a full group on board for a trip to the theatre.

The production this month was avant-garde writer/director (and 1996 MacArthur Award winner) John Jesurun’s contemporary adaptation of Sophocles’ Trojan War play “Philoktetes.” In addition to his writing and directing duties, Jesurun designed the set for the work, which was distinguished by his minimalist staging and integrated use of cameras and video projection. I didn’t attempt any photos during the actual performance, but you can check out some images here.

The play, for those a bit rusty on their Greek mythology, surrounds the fate of Philoktetes, a heroic archer who was left stranded by his fellow soldiers on the island of Lemnos, after a serious snake bite on his foot eventually festered, rendering him insufferable and foul-smelling. (I don’t know why, but every rendering I’ve heard or read of this story seems to emphasize the malodor, so I’m including it here as well.) A decade later, when an oracle reveals that the Greeks will not be able to conquer Troy without the weapons of Hercules (inconveniently still in Philoktetes’ possession), Odysseus and Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, return to Lemnos to retrieve the man they abandoned years earlier. (Awkward!)

I recalled an article that appeared in The New York Times in March about how Sophocles’ play was being used as a teaching tool for medical students at Cornell. Faculty found the depictions of illness and the reactions of friends and family to the sick person psychologically accurate today, and particularly relevant for doctors in training.

Jesurun’s rewrite was originally commissioned in 1993 by actor Ron Vawter, founding member of The Wooster Group. The action takes place on a bare stage lit with projected images on the floor and back wall. Over the course of 75 minutes, the three protagonists/antagonists meet and verbally spar. The plot takes something of a backseat to Jesurun’s vivid language, most of which fell into poetry slam-esque rhythm. I had a bit of difficulty following the trajectory with all the subtext of war, morality and homosexuality. Plus there was a distracting funk wafting through the air, which we decided later (much to our dismay) was not part of the intended effect. The Variety review suggests that “[i]t’s worth letting the experience of “Philoktetes” sink in for a while before trying to dissect it.” True that: it wasn’t until I read the reviews — generally solid — that I was able to better grasp what we saw that night.

Maybe experimental theatre isn’t really my thing.

For more straightforward drama, check out the Astoria Performing Art Center’s terrific production of “Proof,” David Auburn’s Pulitzer-prize winning play about mathematics. The proof in question just frames the action, though — one need not be able to discern i from π to appreciate the play. (Auburn himself did not advance beyond college-level calculus.) More universally, “Proof” is about the intertwining of genius and madness, the burdens and betrayals of family and lovers. See it especially if, like I, you missed the Broadway production which played to near-unanimous critical acclaim in 2001, earning three Tonys. Tickets are $15 each in advance via the website, or $18 at the door — Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through November 18, 2007. Blog entry about our November 4 visit to APAC coming soon.

Through the 1990s, the main occupants of West Chelsea were gas stations, parking garages, and big-box warehouses. As the city’s real estate market heated up, art galleries priced out of SoHo began trickling in to the lower-rent spaces in this primarily industrial neighborhood, eventually forming a new gallery district in the far West 20s. Established galleries like Gagosian and Mary Boone shared the streets with smaller, emerging galleries and artists, all drawn to the large, lofty spaces with plenty of natural light. There are now a staggering 360 galleries in Chelsea, up from 124 just eight years ago.

(Such variety can be overwhelming. How to know what’s worth checking out on any given day? Our friend DB puts together a handy cribsheet of his recommendations.)

This weekend, High Line Open Studios presented the Chelsea High Line Open Studios Art Walk. For three days, the public had exclusive access to the private studios of artists and designers working within two adjoining warehouse buildings on West 26th Street — vertical “art malls,” where each floor was partitioned into several working studios and exhibition spaces.

Sunday afternoon, B and I picked up our maps at 508 West 26th street, and proceeded to the main building at 526 West 26th Street. An elevator operator ferried visitors between the floors where artists would announce their participation with event flyers posted in the hallway. Inside, the space had the feel of a converted office building, with long, fluorescent-lit corridors, cement floors and institutional grey-painted walls. The studios themselves varied widely in size and configuration, to say nothing about the artwork within: small and large-scale canvases, photographs, collages, sculptures, light installations, videos…

Over the course of the next couple of hours, we wandered through dozens of working studios, and had the opportunity to meet and talk with a few of the creators themselves, many of whom seemed both excited by all the attention, and rather unused to all the company.

Today in Union Square, House & Garden was hosting free chef demonstrations as part of their week of “Design Happening” events.  (Curious timing:  two and a half weeks later, the magazine announced they would cease publication in December 2007.)  The website touted a promising midday lineup of neighborhood chefs: Liza Queen of The Queen’s Hideaway, Jonathan White of Bobolink Dairy and Bakeyard, Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern, Josh Dechellis of BarFry, and Jason Avery of Pera Mediterranean Brasserie.

The weather, though, looked significantly less promising. By morning rush hour, dark clouds hovered overhead; whether the forecast rains would hold off until after lunch remained to be seen.

Oh well. It’s just water. Mostly.

DeChellis was born in Bogota, Colombia, raised in Clinton, New Jersey, and is best known for his innovative fusion-style cooking, which he honed at now-closed Union Pacific (where he was sous-chef under Rocco DiSpirito.) I’ve been a fan of DeChellis’ since his days in the kitchen at Sumile in the West Village, so I was pleased that his cooking segment coincided with my midday break.

We arrived at the south end of the park just as he was beginning to demonstrate his “BarFry salad,” one of the few non-fried menu items served at his newly opened — and well–reviewed — tempura palace. Making full use of the Greenmarket’s beautiful produce, DeChellis employed a variety of lettuces and shaved vegetables — many of which were familiar to us from our weekly CSA shares from Stoneledge Farm. (Ah, great use for mizuna and celeriac!) Hewing closely to his signature flavor profiles, he also incorporated Asian pear and shiso; the minty plant (leaves of which he passed around for sampling) with its distinctive piney/licoricey aroma was the one salad ingredient not available at the Greenmarket.

DeChellis gamely talked us through the paces of creating and plating a perfect salad as he answered questions from the audience.

As he wrapped up his presentation, a server appeared with white waxy paper bags of DeChellis’ special recipe popcorn. Those who know me know of my deep fondness for kettle corn, and this was like a gourmet, Asian-spiced version of that: sugar, salt, toasted sesame seeds, crushed pumpkin seeds, nori powder, nori flakes and Korean chili powder. Outrageously addictive!

And voilà — the DeChellis BarFry salad:

A few weeks ago, I received in the mail an invitation to attend the opening of the new Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams flagship in SoHo. I’ve been anticipating the store’s arrival since I first learned of it earlier this year, and since I have an appreciation for the line’s “Comfortable Modern” aesthetic – heretofore only available locally at ABC Carpet & Home – I thought I’d stop in to take a peek. One RSVP plus one later and we were all set to go.

I admit I was curious, too, to see the inside of Andre Balazs’ 11-story tower, known as One Kenmare Square. To Balasz, anyway. Almost everyone else knows the building as 210 Lafayette. Richard Gluckman of Gluckman Mayner Architects designed the rippled glass façade, which was unveiled in January 2006 to somewhat less scorn than has been heaped upon the similarly curvy Astor Place’s Sculpture for Living. Balasz, whose other properties include New York’s Mercer Hotel, The Raleigh in South Beach and the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, originally had planned to build the first of his Standard Hotel chain on this site (originally a parking lot), but revised his concept when economic conditions changed after 9/11.

I guess I wasn’t really sure what to expect of what essentially amounted to an after-work ribbon cutting. Certainly not a velvet rope, swirling floodlights, a green carpet (it’s the new black! Er… red!), four women working the check-in table and black-blazered door security.

A long bar was set up along the back wall of the ground level space as a team of black-clad servers circulated through the crowd with multi-tiered trays of hors d’œuvres: mini-burgers – always a crowd pleaser – papers cones of pommes frites, vegetable dumplings, mini-lobster rolls… Most striking of all – aside from the novelty of a full blown party inside a furniture showroom – was the sheer beauty on display. Not only the furnishings — 12,000 square feet on 2 floors — but the attendees, men and women! (And I don’t think it was just the champagne goggles.)

I was sad to have to tear myself away for far less glamorous endeavors.