The family that eats together stays together

Big Daughter insists that our family eat together several times a week. This is a good thing, and I credit her father, and his family, for setting this standard. During our recent summer visit to Belgrade and the Dalmatian Coast, we all ate dinner together almost every evening, always with her grandfather. It was family time in the most basic sense. Little one was encouraged to try a little bit of everything. Given our disparate NYC schedules, we usually find three nights to eat together, again at Big Daughter's request. A few nights each week, little one and I usually decamp to my E. Village apartment. Located adjacent to Tompkins Square Park, it's become both a country home, so to speak, and a place of refuge. Big Daughter is living at home, while she attends Eugene Lang, which is part of the New School. In a reversal of roles, I travel across town, while she stays put. Given her long-time schedule of two months of every summer vacation in Belgrade, this is understandable. Carl grumbles that Big Daughter will remain with us when married. I suspect he's actually happy about the idea. In fact, most weekday mornings are quite exciting, as Carl and Big Daughter prepare for work and school. But back to dinner. In our family, I occasionally use dinner as a way to celebrate recent accomplishments. This summer, despite numerous obstacles, I maintained financial stability at my program. To honor my efforts, Big Daughter has been offering me dinner. Her company, and that of her younger sister, is my greatest treat. In that spirit, I suggested that we meet at Perbacco, an Italian restaurant at 234 E. 4th Street between avenues A and B, on Monday evening. This restaurant has generated significant buzz. It is also close to the E. Village apartment. Big Daughter was initially suspicious about the amount of food we'd be served. She correctly noted that small portions are the norm at many of my choices. I reassured her that Perbacco's menu is quite extensive. Dinner is important to Big Daughter in the way that breakfast is to me. She was waiting outside of the restaurant, when we arrived, and little one was happy to see her. The hostess did not smile as she seated us against the back wall, next to two women in the middle of their meal. After I returned from the ladies room, Big Daughter had switched seats. She wrinkled her nose, and mimed that little one's feet smelled. Little one was none too pleased, but did not react. Instead, pen in hand, she concentrated on playing hangman, a favorite dinnertime activity. I sat down on Big Daughter's almost empty Spanish latte from Think Coffee, and narrowly escaped a coffee bath on my new bag, constructed of Japanese rice paper, in a deep shade of pink. Shortly afterwards, a young couple was seated next to us. They were torn between discussing their medical training and eavesdropping on our conversation. Perbacco is an anomaly. It is a neighborhood restaurant, and slightly funky to boot, yet clearly maintains a very sophisticated pedigree. Coming out of the kitchen, I observed plates of food artistically arranged, yet deconstructed on the plate. Our waiter had a strong Italian accent. Down-to-earth and welcoming in manner, he rattled off the specials. When I selected the dinner special of pumpkin ginger soup with crumbled panchetta, he nodded approvingly. When asked to choose between the cheese croquettes and the Emilian style parmigiana cheese pie, he suggested the croquettes. Without asking, he said "no olives, right" as we ordered the fusili pasta with tomato sauce with mozzarella for little one. He, and Big Daughter, gently steered little one away from a rich-sounding ravioli. Big Daughter and I settled on the Parmesan creme brulee. She selected the chicken entree and I also ordered a glass of red wine. A basket of bread sticks, resting on top of small slices of bread arrived, along with a small dish of olives in olive oil. I ate most ofthe bread sticks, while Big Daughter took surreptitious sips of the red wine. The young couple next to us discussed problems at their hospital. Little one urged us not to "call out" the words, as we guessed according to her clues. She cried when Big Daughter yelled out "cat." Big Daughter discussed affairs of the heart. It was clear that she is truly loved, as evidenced by the recent gift of an adorable stuffed monkey. Little one likes to hug this monkey, when she gets home from school, and before she leaves in the morning. The fusili arrived first. The silverware was wrapped in a white, cloth napkin. As I handed little one a fork, the knife fell to the floor. It just missed my big toe. Almost immediately, a waiter arrived bearing a clean knife. While little one ate half of of her fusili, Big Daughter nibbled on pieces of melted mozzarella mixed in the pomodoro sauce. The croquettes surpassed our expectations. Served on a small salad of cubed celery, pears and walnuts, the soft and crunchy tastes complimented each other. We shared the Parmesan creme brulee, and left almost nothing in the dish. The slightly caramelized crust was a great counterpoint to the creaminess of the cheese. After a few bites, I was full, but began eating my soup. The manager, who was keeping a close eye on diners, encouraged me to slide the panchetta, scattered along one edge of bowl, into the soup. It looked like crumbled salt, and added texture and taste. Since Saturday, I'd been craving soup and I was glad I waited. The waiter explained that the garnish of small seaweed-like strands floating atop the soup, were actually thinly-sliced, fried eggplant skin. Big Daughter compared Perbacco to Moto, our favorite, Chicago-based, new-age foodie restaurant. She ate almost all of her chicken, which was rolled into small, tubular shapes. On the edge of the plate, sat an undulating ribbon of carrot, which I kept thinking was pasta. Little one and I shared the dessert called Chocolate Variable. As per the waiter, it was a series of chocolate bites paired with different counter-tastes. There was a tiny, ethereal birds nest, filled with a chocolate mango and sea-salt flavored mousse (we found this so-so), a dark chocolate passion fruit semifreddo (we liked this), a doll-size chocolate coffee-bean cake (we loved this), white chocolate with jasmine tea bom-bom, (we didn't like this), and some square shavings of dark chocolate with olive oil and lavender, which little one consumed on the inhale. On our way out, we encountered the hostess, still unsmiling, outside of the restaurant. Across the street, the restaurant E.U. was mostly empty. In the early evening darkness, their table votives flickered in a ghostly manner and I thought of Edgar Alan Poe. After we kissed goodbye, Big Daughter began walking back to Tribeca, and little one and I made our way to e. 8th street.

Tried and True (or maybe Tired and wondering about truth)

Little one has finally fallen asleep. As she drifts off, she likes to place her finger in my belly button, which was our main connection when she was in utero. Big Daughter has skipped uptown to have dinner with Young Sir C, who finally finished work. While waiting to leave, she joined little one on the couch, to watch the tail end of a Disney movie. This meant that bedtime loomed farther on the horizon before becoming a reality. Carl is at the gym. After I arrived home, he correctly pointed out that bedtime would become a struggle, once I was present. There were a few false starts while little one settled down. First, she needed to tell me about the new music teacher and the morning trip to the fire station; "they had three alarms, and finally we left." She's concerned about how to save our three cats in event of a fire and Carl had assured her, we have four sets of hands between us. Lying next to her, I was able to reflect on the intense energy of the day and once she fell asleep, tiptoed off to write about it. A mistral blew into work today-perhaps summer's end? - and wreaked havoc on technical and human systems. To add insult to injury, my fancy new Iphone kept weaving in and out of service, as I made my way through the East Village, from the J train stop on Essex/Delancey to Cha An, my favorite Japanese tea room at 230 E. 9th street, between Second and Third Avenue. Perhaps the full, harvest moon interrupted all basic connections. Nonetheless, I was grateful for the brief moment of silence. Cha An is reached by a flight of stairs to the second floor, which offers a particular, and reassuring sense of order. At the top, there is a curtain, divided in two parts, and I enter a calm interior with a decor of soothing dark wood. There is an unseen boundary between the tea room and the outside world -which lies literally at the bottom of the stairs. In recent weeks, I've rediscovered a simple solace at Cha An. I generally sit at the front counter, adjacent to a long wooden bar. A large rice cooker sits squat, and the waitresses move about preparing tea orders. Further back, two chefs, one male, one female, prepare the food in an open-air kitchen. Midway through my meal, the female chef ate her dinner at the far end of the counter. The sound of her laughter floated over me, as I occasionally looked up from the newspaper to watch a large mixer whirring round. In recent weeks, I've been ordering six mini appetizers and tea. Last week, I chose a pot of Keemun tea and received an elegant, yet gentle selection of the following: crunchy green beans, a piece of salmon, one piece of curried shrimp, pickled eggplant and a simple, tangy cabbage salad. Directly in front of me, was a large glass cookie jar filled with green tea cookies in flavors of chocolate and green tea. As I paid the bill, I ordered one green tea chocolate cookie to go and nibbled the corner. This afternoon, I opted for the summer special, the Okayu set, and selected a Ceylon Pekoe tea, with milk and sugar. The set included rice with a cold bonito broth, cold mackerel with ginger, seaweed, pickled cucumber, and a perfectly tiny, wrinkled -and exquisitely sour -pickled red plum. The rice was a beautiful pinky white, with small pieces of chopped yamu (Japanese potato), sesame seeds and greens floating about with two frozen cubes of fish broth on top. The ice cubes slowly melted, as I was eating and the bracingly fresh flavors provided a tremendous sense of well-being. Taste can be so transporting that angst is forgotten. As I interspersed the rice with tastes of the small appetizers, multiple flavors literally "popped" on my tongue and I forgot the day's upheaval. A trip to Japan is becoming a serious reality (Lady L. are you listening?) In past visits, dessert was an amazing black sesame flan with a crunchy wafer - a small sea studded with texture. Today it was a millefleur pastry, with a symmetrical, yet miniature scoop of raspberry ice cream, studded with chunks of fresh raspberry, and crowned with architecturally-balanced wafers. Finishing my dessert, I suddenly realized that I didn't have enough cash. The waitress merely smiled when I mentioned a quick trip to the bank. When I came back, my tea was slightly cold, next to the scattered sections of the New York Times. I took one last sip, gathered the paper, asked for a green tea chocolate cookie to go and headed out with a clear mind.

Phantoms and the magic of US Open Tennis

Since last week, Carl has been holed up in Queens at U.S. Open Tennis. At this time of year, he's like a cowboy who's finally found his horse after a long absence. I hope that there's no symbolic subtext to that statement, but he does literally gallop to the Open via the No. 7 train. Once again, Carl is a phantom. He slips out of the house during the coolest part of the early morning, and returns late at night, after the sun's intense heat has subsided. Naturally, little one, Big Daughter and I -along with many others- traveled out to Flushing Meadows in search of both Carl and tennis. Due to him, we are under the spell of Tennis with Carl. Nine years ago, I had never watched a tennis match. Big Daughter was also unaware, due to her annual summer trip to Serbia. She too is entranced, and remembers meeting top-ranked Jelena Jankovic (a Serbian player) while we vacationed, several years ago in South Beach. I'm stymied by my recollection of charging around the Open with a six month old. How I did that, I have no idea. For me, the advent of the Open heralds the end of summer -and is about time passing. Invariably, the breeze blowing around the grounds has a touch of coolness. It hints -ever so slightly - of fall and winter coats and seasons changing. At the same time, I liken being a spectator at the matches to being at the beach, with the court as ocean. This year, a general malaise permeated my usual adventurous tendencies and I was woefully uninspired about food field trips. Hence my local explorations around 111th street. A few years ago, I dragged Carl to an amazing Mexican restaurant at 89th and Broadway, in the shadow of the elevated tracks. We were the only "gringos" there and I was thrilled when they brought over plates of sliced radish, along with slices of lemon for the Coronas, as we waited for our tacos. In other years, we've stopped in Jackson Heights for Indian buffet, at Delhi Palace, 74th street and Roosevelt, just past the Jackson Diner. It's been incarnated multiple times, but the food is solid North Indian and fresh. Between matches, we've also walked over to the Lemon Ice King in Corona and Empanada del Parque at 108th street. Not only are the empanadas amazing, there's a great picture of Jackie Onassis on the wall. Over the years Carl and I arrived at two primary understandings. Namely, that I can eat between matches, and it's not a bad thing to sit in Court side seats. We are not the bourgeoisie, though we breathe the rarefied air of those with money to spend. Yes, it does feel different to sit in an B Loge or Court side and I like it. People watching the fans -not just the tennis players -is always fun. All kind of hats are utilized by a large percentage of both male and female tennis watchers. So is preppy clothing, i.e. a lot of conservative-looking men wear pants and shorts in faded pastel colors, mostly pale orange. Fashion at the U.S. Open is another topic entirely and encompasses a complete mix of styles -the fanny pack to the Birkin bag -and everything in between. Shallow as it may be, I do think carefully about my own outfits -downtown with some sophistication and maximum coolness -since it's so hot in the direct sun. But back to food. This year we skipped our usual field trip to Flushing ( places like SpicynTasty and funky little bakeries with great fried bread and dumplings). I was content to concentrate on eating at a few of the myriad Ecuadorean restaurants. A family favorite was the Queens Coffee shop, located at the corner of 111th, adjacent to the subway stairs on Broadway. After several pre-tennis meals there, I became intimately acquainted with Humitos (a very satisfying tamale with a sweet filling of cheese and corn), a soupy beef stew with lots of potatoes, sides of sweet plantains and a typical Ecuadorean-style green salad with ceviche-like topping of tomatoes, onions and cilantro. Being so hyped about his favorite event, Carl would deny hunger, and then finish my beef stew and all the rice. One day, I tried a blackberry shake with milk, and was instantly refreshed. Another day, I wandered over to a local bakery, just one block up Broadway. I snooped around a bit, and then bought a cheese-filled empanada and several crispy pretzel-like cookies. The empanada was steaming hot and mostly cheese with the lightest outside casing. The cookies were similar to Taralluci, the Italian cookies made with olive oil and fennel (that we recently ate at One Dominick at 6th Avenue/Dominick street on the edge of Soho. Similarly, these cookies weren't sweet, and were satisfyingly crunchy. Little one tends to stick with her favorite, sunny-side eggs. Big Daughter opted for the Spanish Omelet with sweet plantains (and then said it was a bit too rich). If I'm lucky enough to watch tennis with Carl, I can usually finagle a foray to one "fancy" restaurant at the U.S. Open. This year, I was interested in trying the Wine Bar, an open air Italian cafe. It debuted with great fanfare by the giant Scoreboard located near the East gate. The owners are a well-regarded chef and his wife, who own an Italian restaurant, Spiagga in Chicago. After sitting court side, and watching James Blake and Venus Williams quickly dispatch their opponents, we wanted something light to eat. There were just two open seats, placing our backs in the path of the afternoon sun. I ordered two salads, one with mozzarella and tomatoes, and the other with shaved artichokes and hearts of palms. Several patrons were drinking a glass of Rose, so I ordered one and promptly added ice cubes. Patrons could watch the staff preparing food in the center of the cafe. There was an anti-climatic, European feel to the place, which contrasted with the revved up, carnival-like atmosphere of the main food courts and the crowds. Carl was pleasantly surprised by the quality and taste of the food and we both took a sip of the Rose. After a few sips, we felt the combination of the sun and the Rose, the Open was working its magic.