Comestible victuals

When I moved to New Jersey several years ago, I was struck by the lack of good restaurants near our house. We live in suburbia, and apparently there is no demand out here for anything of a higher caliber than Applebee’s or TGI Friday’s, and while those types of restaurants have their place in society, it bores my palate to tears. So I am incredibly surprised that in the past four days I have dined at not one, but two establishments that have woken my tongue back up and made me enjoy eating once again.

The first restaurant was in Delanco, New Jersey, a little out of the way spot called Cafe Europa, which was introduced to me by a friend and colleague who has grown up here in NJ. A bunch of us went there, and not only was I impressed by the homey atmosphere (there were tables, of course, but also couches and a fireplace), but the food was outstanding. I find that there is no taste at all in the food those chain restaurants pump out; in contrast, this place produces plates created with care and attention to detail. And the price was very reasonable; most of the good restaurants in suburbia can only stay open by charging exorbitant prices. These guys have been open a little over two years, and I hope they stay open much, much longer, because I’m definitely going back there.

Tonight I went to a restaurant in New York with another friend. Whenever I meet this particular friend for a meal, we have our standard favorite hang-outs, and we both admitted we were getting stuck in a groove. So we decided to branch out tonight and go somewhere new. I picked Sueños because it had a good review in New York Magazine. It was a little pricey, but SO worth it. The restaurant itself is gorgeous (including the crazy mirrors in the bathroom!). Our waiters were attentive but not overbearing, and the food..oh my goodness, the food! The executive chef, Sue Torres, really knows what she’s doing. I definitely would recommend that if you are in New York for any period of time, you get your collective butts over to 17th St. & 8th Ave. and have yourselves a truly tasty evening.

Good party

I’m recovering today from a night of gluttony. Last night a good friend of mine got married, and I sang at her wedding. She and her fiance had a pretty long ceremony (she’s Episcopalian and he’s Catholic, so they got married in the Episcopalian church, but with a marriage ceremony complete with communion) and they really did it up with the reception.

Since we had an hour and a half between the wedding and the reception, Ray and I went to the local dive bar with a few friends to have what we thought would be cheap drinks. I actually just wanted to go because I hadn’t had lunch and was hoping to get some fries or something to tide me over until dinner. Turns out two pints of Guinness cost us $13! At a dive bar???? What a waste of money, considering we were going to a party with an open bar. Oh well.

When we did get to the reception, cocktail hour hadn’t officially started yet, so we were ushered into another cocktail room where they had drinks, an antipasto bar, a crepe station, and some sort of carving station. Couldn’t get much better than that, I thought, as I loaded my plate up with shrimp scampi crepes (yum!) and an assortment of olives and marinated eggplant. When the official cocktail room was opened, however, we were stunned to find a veritable cornucopia awaiting us.

To our left entering the room was a stir-fry station, where you could pick vegetables and sauces to be stir-fried together on a wok as you watch, Ã la Mongolian BBQ. To our right was a guy playing piano and electric piano, alternately, in a sort of lounge lizard style (I guess the electric piano had different instruments programmed in). Straight ahead was a huge circular antipasto display, the same as in the other room only more varied, including fruit and some incredibly tasty cheese and crackers. Along the left wall were all the cold things one could ask for: regular bar, martini bar, oyster bar. Along the right wall were all the hot things one could ask for: carving station, mussels in marinara, shrimp fra diavolo, and many more things I can’t possibly remember.

All around the stations were spectacularly carved melons, displaying a scene of a fisherman sitting under a tree, a swan, hearts, and many more. The wedding itself didn’t have a theme, per se, but it was just beautifully decorated.

I almost gorged myself during cocktail hour, especially since I heard someone say this was all we were going to get. But I stopped myself, and it’s a good thing, too, because once they let us all into dinner (announcing it by having one of the wait staff wander around banging on a mini xylophone, very clever), I realized that what we had eaten was just the appetizer.

We started off with a salad, very tasty blend of sour and sweet with some sort of lemony vinaigrette paired with sugared walnuts. Next came a peach sorbet (to cleanse the palate), and then they brought out the main course: Chateaubriand or shrimp (or both). Obviously I had no beef, but the shrimp was smothered in butter and garlic, just the way I like it. We were served coffee before the cake cutting, and then after the cake was cut, we were ushered back out into the cocktail room where they had set up stations for waffles, more crepes, wedding cake (of course), a chocolate fountain, fruit, cannoli, etc. There were more drinks, too: a sambuca station was set up as well as some sort of hot chocolate type drink, ostensibly with alcohol in it (I wasn’t drinking at that point in the evening, so I can only guess).

All during dinner we were entertained with a live band who were absolutely fantastic. Very energetic and very tight. They had their routine down, and it was excellent. I didn’t dance at this party, mostly because I was having issues with my dress and Ray kept reminding me that every time I dance at weddings I complain about my knee and my ankles afterwards. I had a blast watching the guys go crazy, pulling out The Lawn Mower, The Sprinkler and even The Shopping Cart all over the dance floor.

So now I am home, trying to keep it easy and finish digesting all I ate last night. I didn’t even drink that much, so I’m not too hung over, but it was a long night, and having to get up early for church didn’t help things.

Sated Stomach

I had an incredibly long day on Sunday. First, of course, there was the two church services that I sang in, after which I had to race to a last-minute funeral to sing at (I got booked for the job at 10:30 the night before!), then off to a fundraiser for the Philadelphia Singers.

I had the whole day planned out: in between the two morning services, I would dash over to Wawa and get a sandwich that I could eat in the car on my way to the funeral. However, when I got to Wawa, I opened up my purse and realized that my wallet was missing! Frantic, I searched my car, rooting through old Dunkin’ Donuts bags and empty water bottles, until I remembered that I had taken my wallet out to pay for take-out the night before and put it on the dresser at home instead of returning it to its rightful place in my purse.

I called Ray and woke him up, and he sleepily agreed to come meet me after church and give me my wallet so I wouldn’t be driving around New Jersey and Pennsylvania without driver’s license or registration. When I walked out of church, there he was, parked next to my car, and he sweetly asked if I’d like to have lunch with him. If I didn’t have to be in Center City within 30 minutes, I would have taken him up on his offer, but alas, I had to dash off, forgetting to stop for my sandwich at Wawa.

I lucked out and saw someone pulling out of a prime parking spot less than a block from the church where the funeral was happening (praise to you, Mighty Parking Gods!). When I was hunting for my wallet in my car, I had also unearthed a box of Larabars, which I actually keep in my car for such rush-around-from-place-to-place occasions as these to keep from starvation. I snagged a couple and headed for the church.

The funeral service was nice, but smelly…not from the body (she was in an urn, sensible woman), but from the incense! It was a high Anglican mass, complete with communion, and it lasted pretty long because there were a lot of people who wanted to get up and say something about the deceased. I guess she was a pretty nice lady who touched a lot of lives.

As a result, I only had a few moments to chill out in Starbuck’s before I made my way to my third singing gig of the day. What a glorious end to a stressful day. I spent four and a half hours conversing, singing, and most importantly, eating an eight course meal at Deux Cheminees…what a treat! No more starving for me, let me tell you. I haven’t eaten an eight course meal since my stint as the 1891 socialite, Helen Astor Roosevelt, at the Astors’ Beechwood. It’s nice to be a little indulgent every once in a while.

Magic Candy Bowl

One of my roommates loves to shop for bargains. He’s always cutting coupons and waiting for sales at the supermarket, and when something does go on sale, he buys the whole shelf of that one product. So usually the day after Easter and the day after Halloween, we are inundated with candy bought at bargain-basement prices.

I hate having candy in the house. It sits in the candy bowl, mocking me and my plans for weight loss. Ray is always snacking on candy, which just annoys me more, and sometimes I find myself with my hand halfway into the candy bowl before I realize what I’m doing. And I just had a visit to the nurse at my gym to get my body & strength measurements, to find out that not only have I not lost weight or changed my body mass in the last six weeks that I’ve been to the gym (and I’ve been going 5-6 times a week, I’ll have you know), somehow I seem to have lost strength. How is that even possible?

So on Halloween I took the evil candy bowl and put it outside the house with a sign taped to it, saying, “Please Help Yourself. Happy Halloween!” When I brought it back inside at the end of the night, it was empty. Hooray, I thought. Finally I am free from the constant temptation of candy.

But when I got home from work a few days ago, I noticed that the candy bowl was full, once again, ostensibly with on-sale post-Halloween candy. I curse you, post-holiday food sales! I curse you, magic refilling candy bowl! You are the bane of my everyday existence!

Hobnobbery

I’m pleased to report that your erstwhile heroine has spent in the last two evenings in the presence of the rich and appreciative. On Sunday, I sang at a fundraiser for the Philadelphia Singers, which, as I’m sure most of you know, cancelled half their season abruptly a month or so ago. One of the board members offered up her house (dare I say mansion?) for the event, and it was quite a swanky affair with some of the best food I have ever tasted in my life. I never thought I could have a mouthgasm from a grape stuffed with toasted coriander seeds. I’m going into fits of rapture just thinking about it.

Last night I sang at another fundraiser, this time for Music Theater Group, a wonderful little off-off-Broadway theater company in New York. I had performed in a workshop of a chamber opera called Arjuna’s Dilemma there several years ago, and have been involved in that show ever since; this summer, Doug Cuomo (the composer) asked me to sing in a recording of the piece, which was a huge honor, since I got to sing with two of the members of Anonymous 4. So when I got the last-minute call to sing a snippet of the piece at this fundraiser, I jumped at the chance. This fundraiser was in a penthouse in Manhattan with a gorgeous 360-degree view of the city by moonlight. The food was not quite as good as Chef Fritz’s creations, but I certainly wasn’t put off, by any means.

One thing that struck me about both events, though, was how incredibly appreciative all these people were of the arts. At the Philly Singers fundraiser, it was great to be able to see everyone’s faces during the performance and watch them get caught up in the music. And for the Music Theater Group fundraiser, although I couldn’t really see the audience because of all the lights, I was stopped after the performance by many people who exclaimed how haunting the music was, and how much they would love to hear more about the piece.

It just proves to me that there are still people in this world who love watching the kind of stuff I love to do. There are still those who understand how rich and meaningful music and theater can be to people’s lives, and who are willing to support it. Granted, that bunch of people may be dwindling these days, but there’s still hope. I still believe art has a place, a very important place, in society, and I am not the only one who thinks so.

I just hope more people with deep pocketbooks can continue to help us starving artists out so we can continue our craft.

Potluck

I got invited to a potluck dinner the other day. I’ve been recently wanting to find new friends, people my age who live close by, since all my friends are currently scattered across the globe. So when I received the invitation, I jumped at the chance to hang out with new people.

I made my famous lasagna (those of you who have eaten it know that’s a good choice to bring if you want to make friends), decided not to change from my work clothes into something more casual, and drove to the address I was given. When I got to the house, I saw that it was actually a condo in a fairly new development where everyone has their own numbered parking space and the visitors all have to park in a lot in the center of the development. Let me rephrase. All the houses looked exactly the same, and I started humming “Little boxes, little boxes,” the theme song to Weeds.

The condo was very nice, if a little small. Both the hosts were dressed very nicely, as were almost everyone else. I started thinking that maybe I should have dressed up from my business slacks and blouse. But one thing that hit me very strongly was that this was a group of WASPs. No doubt about it, you couldn’t get more WASPy than this group, save myself (marginally) and one guy who I think might be Puerto Rican.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with WASPs; quite the contrary, I really enjoyed myself at the party. I was just struck by the homogeneity of the group. This was a stereotypical gathering of privileged white people, complete with stereotypical food that people brought: a ham, potatoes, salad, cheesecake, etc. I think my lasagna was the most “ethnic” food that was there. Again, the food was good. The conversation was good. It was a great success, that party. And yet…I just wish there was a little more diversity in the group. Everyone was just too…NORMAL.

Ice Cream

I’m not much of an ice cream afficionado. To be perfectly honest, it’s not ever something I crave or go out of my way to get. But yesterday, after wandering around Philadelphia in 90-degree weather with two daughters of visiting friends of mine, ice cream seemed just the thing.

We went to Philadelphia’s Please Touch Museum, which was a great success with them both. Although I have to say, we were lucky they didn’t have any school groups there, because it was hard for me to keep track of them both just with the 40 or so kids that were running around. We ate pizza at a local pizza joint, where Amelia (the blonde in the picture) insisted that she would only eat cheese pizza, and then when she got the pizza proceeded to scrape the cheese off and eat only the crust and sauce. After lunch, we spent a little time in the playground outside the museum, but it got way too hot to really play for any extended period of time.

We then decided to get a little history and took a tour of the Betsy Ross House. They weren’t as much interested in the history of the place (everything behind glass windows, nothing you can actually touch) as the were in the living history characters wandering around. Ah, it took me back to my Beechwood days. We watched a sword-fighting demonstration and a rifle-shooting demonstration. Chloe (the brunette) got a crush on one of the colonials and had to have her picture taken with him. And Amelia was fascinated by a knot-making demonstration by a sailor.

We got our ice cream at the Franklin Fountain, a 1900’s style soda fountain that had really good ice cream. As I said, I’m no afficionado, but to this novice tongue, the ice cream went down smooth and sweet. The girls, of course, were in heaven, and Chloe got most of her ice cream on her face rather than in her mouth, but that’s what napkins are for, right?

Interesting Cake

Today was a crazy day. We had an Evensong at church, so I did two services, was done at 12:30, and then had to be back at church for Evensong at 2:30 (even though the performance wasn’t until 5). Since we had about 2 hours, the tenor, who lives literally around the corner from the church in this beautiful historic Victorian house, invited us soloists to lunch at his place. He made salad and quiche (excellent quiche) and we all brought stuff, too (I copped out and stopped at the store for cut up veggies and hummus, but that ended up being a good appetizer. Our soprano soloist made kugel from her grandmother’s recipe and pumpkin dip, which ended up being the perfect dessert.

Tomorrow I’m heading off to DC for two days. My friend Shirley is coming to DC, and I figured I could take a couple days off and play in DC with her. I’ve also got lunch plans with E. while I’m there.