Whirlwind Week-end in New York, Part 2

Here are some crazy NYC statistics.  In 2010, 48.8 million people visited New York, spending  $31.5 billion.  Each NYC household benefits approximately $1200 in tax savings as a result of the City's travel and tourism income.  There are 40,000 location shoots for TV shows, movies, commercials, etc. in the City every year.  And there are over 23,000 active restaurants in the City, offering any type of cuisine that you can possibly think of.    My criteria for dinner with longtime friends Suzanne and Chris was simple--a place where we would be able to hear each other so that we could actually catch up rather than just enjoy the food and the scene.  Despite the mindboggling number of restaurants to choose from, this is a harder task than you might expect, and Suzanne called me at 6:15 (just as I was getting up from my power nap) to say we had a reservation at JoJo for 7:00.  Forty-five minutes to pull myself together for dinner at a chic French restaurant and get uptown--no problem! 

Jean-Georges Vongerichten is one of the premiere chefs/restaraunteurs in New York, and JoJo was his first restaurant.  Don't think, though, that he's let his attention wander away from this gem.  Suzanne, Chris and I had a fabulous meal that featured butternut squash soup, peeky toe crab, rack of lamb, and an incredible Passionfruit Pavlova.  When you cracked open the meringue, you discovered passionfruit sorbet--it was kind of like a ship in a bottle thing!  As wonderful as the food was, the company of these longtime friends was even better.   Physically and emotionally sated, I headed back to Wendi and Lee's to rest up for Sunday's activities.  (As an aside, Wendi and Lee were off at a truffle dinner at the James Beard House that sounded incredibly decadent.  They even came away with a truffle-themed goodie bag that included truffle oil and a truffle lotion--watch out for those pigs when you wear that!) 

Subway Entertainment

Sunday's schedule was just as busy as Saturday's had been.  I met TJ around 11:00 after having the RA roust him from bed as I waited in the lobby of his dorm being a psycho aunt worrying that he was dead on the street somewhere instead of just sleeping through my multitude of wake up calls.  Our goal was to outfit him for the shock to his sytem that winter will be.  Three hours and two subway rides later (one of which featured music by this accordionist) we found ourselves back in the dining hall with packages containing winter boots, a winter coat, sweaters and jeans.  Having accomplished my pseudo-parental responsibilities for the week-end, I headed to the Lucille Lortel Theater to meet Wendi.

Our theater selection was The Submission.   The premise was quite interesting:  a gay white man had written a play about a single alcoholic African-American mother struggling to raise her kids and had submitted it under a nom de plume that suggested that the author was someone who might have had some firsthand experience with the subject.  When his play is selected to be put on at a theater festival, he hires an actress to play the role of the playwright.  Not surprisingly, things become complicated as the actual playwright struggles to stay involved behind the scenes and the actress begins to feel a deep connection to the play and to enjoy the spotlight as the "author" of the work.

The play made us consider how the identity of the creator of a creative work (be it literature, music or art) informs the viewer's reaction to that work.  Wendi pointed out that adopting a pen name is a well-established tradition--take, for instance, the English author Mary Ann Evans who published her 19th century works under the name of George Eliot in order to ensure that they would be taken seriously.  In The Submission, layering on the issue of race makes this subterfuge politically charged.   The playwright argues that, as a gay man, he has experienced discimination similar to that of the female character in his play and is thus able to understand this aspect of her plight.  The actress who has assumed the identity of playwright begs to differ with this assertion in very strong terms.  Obviously, there's no answer--easy or otherwise--to this dispute but it did make for an interesting afternoon of theater. 

Wendi with new friend on
the streets of NY

Dinner that evening was at a local Indian restaurant and it was yummy.  I always love the papadam with chutney, and the chicken tikka masala and vegetable korma satisfied my craving for some authentic ethnic food that I can't get in Punta Gorda. 

As I rode in my Dial Car back to La Guardia the next morning, it reminded me of my lawyer days when a car service took me home after a late night at work.  The friends I saw over the week-end are from that era of my life, and it's always wonderful to spend time in the City with them.  I'm looking forward to introducing them to my life in Punta Gorda (which keeps me almost as busy as I was during my week-end in New York!)   Changes in latitudes and attitudes--yes, but changes in my friendships--never.   

Whirlwind Week-end in New York, Part 1

LaGuardia Airport at 5:30 on a Friday afternoon is a microcosm of New York City.    The people!  The noise!  The energy!   A bit shell-shocked after months of being away from the City, I wove my way through the crowd to the taxi stand where, amazingly, there was not a single person in front of me waiting for a cab.   A good omen for the week-end if there were ever to be one! 

The pace of my week-end in New York was very similar to the pace at LaGuardia.   I hit the ground running.  After dropping off my luggage at Wendi and Lee's apartment (Lee greeted me with "Welcome back" and a big hug, making me feel like a favored guest at an upscale hotel) and a quick catch up, I was off to meet my nephew for dinner. 

TJ at John's on 12th Street

TJ is a freshman at NYU and it was incredibly strange to see him walking towards me on the streets of New York.   We had dinner at a neighborhood Italian place that Lee has been patronizing since he was a teenager--he thought the sophistication and romance of the massive burning candles would impress his dates--and TJ told me about his impressions of college and the City.  His biggest issue--the distractions.  "Like what?" I gamely asked, not sure what to expect.  "Like Occupy Wall Street.  I'm fascinated by it and have been trying to formulate my position."   Rest assured that this was NOT the type of issue I was grappling with when I was a freshman at Mount Holyoke College in southwestern Massachusetts. 


Mickalene Thomas' "Le dejeuner sur
l'herbe:  Les Trois Femmes Noires" 

Saturday was jam packed.  Wendi takes a fabulous class at the New School called "The Art of Viewing Art."   Each week, her "homework" is to view the art that will be the subject of that week's class.   This week the focus was Lower East Side Galleries and she had a lot of ground to cover.    I only made it a few of the 25+ galleries on the list but saw some interesting stuff.   I particularly enjoyed Mickaelene Thomas' More Than Everything show at Lehmann Maupin.  The exhibit included a variety of styles and mediums, and her collages with updated images of classic art works were my favorite.   Her take on Manet's "Luncheon on the Grass" was a smaller version of a mural that she did for a window at the Museum of Modern Art in 2009 and I can only imagine how striking it would have been in a large format.    "Luncheon on the Grass" is such an iconic painting that I didn't give myself much credit for immediately figuring out the reference.  I did, however, give myself a pat on the back for recognizing the reference to Ingres' "Grand Odalisque" in one of Thomas' other works.  It's good to know that some of the info from all those art history classes lives somewhere in my brain! 

Eliza Grisanti (center) with friends
and family at Bowlmor Lanes

Next stop on my itinerary was Eliza Grisanti's 11th birthday party at Bowlmor Lanes.  (Of course they want you to bowl more since one game is a whopping $13 plus $6 for the ever so lovely shoes! )  Eliza is the daughter of my friends Suzanne and Chris, who were summer associates with me in 1985 (yikes--we must be old!)   When I arrived the girls had been dvided into two teams and there was a close match underway.  It was pretty funny to watch the kids' technique (which relied heavily on the bumpers that protected against gutter balls).  The birthday girl's style was a bit more reminiscent of shot putting than bowling, but it worked.

From there it was back to NYU to meet TJ for a snack at one of the dining halls.  Again, nothing like when I was in college.  This venue has Quiznos, Chick-Fil-A, pizza, ice cream and a variety of other nutritious dining options available until 3 a.m. for a swipe of your meal card.

I arrived back at Wendi and Lee's place around 5:00 just as Wendi was getting back from her gallery tour.  She was ridiculously energetic given the amount of walking that she had been doing.  I was thoroughly exhausted and don't think there's any shame in admitting that I had to take a nap to gear up for the rest of the week-end's activities, which will be the subject of Part 2 of this post.  

The Laboratory Theater of Florida Presents The Laramie Project

On October 6, 1998,  Matthew Shepard, a 21 year old kid attending the University of Wyoming, was kidnapped, beaten, and left to die tied up to a fence post in the countryside.   A jogger found his comatose body the next morning and he was rushed to the hospital.  Matthew Shepard died five days later without recovering consciousness.   The reason this happened was simple:  Matthew Shepard was gay. 

The Laramie Project tells the story of a town coping with the aftermath of this tragedy in the year after its occurrence.  Five weeks after Shepard's death, Moises Kaufman and The Tectonic Theater Project went to Laramie and began a series of interviews with over 200 townspeople.  The Laramie Project is written in a unique style, with eight actors portraying over 65 of the townspeople, including the perpetrators of the crime.  In most performances in which an actor plays multiple roles, changes in identity are made clear by differences in costumes, accents, and attitude.  While the actors in The Laramie Project do make minor changes in their appearances in their portrayals of different characters, you primarily know who is speaking because his or her identity is announced by one of the other actors.   This might sound a bit confusing, but it actually flows quite naturally and you begin to recognize some of the recurring characters as the play progresses.

The play explores the character of a town whose children--because the perpetrators were young men as well--would engage in this horrible crime.  One character laments that Laramie has joined the ranks of Waco and Columbine, with a single occurrence defining its identity.   There is a lot of truth to this statement, as The Laramie Project is frequently performed in high schools, colleges, and community theaters across the country to raise awareness about discrimination and hate crimes.  In fact, Charlotte High School was putting on the play the very evening that I saw The Laboratory Theater's performance.   The Tectonic Theater Project went back to Laramie ten years later and wrote an epilogue play that you can watch at http://laramieproject.org/.  (The Tectonic Theater Project website is worth poking around.  They do some really cutting edge and awareness raising work that is quite interesting to read about.) 

While doing a bit of reading about The Laramie Project, I learned that Congress passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009.   (James Byrd was an African-American man who was murdered in 1998 by three white supremacists who attacked him, wrapped a logging chain around his ankles, tied him to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged him for three miles before he died).  The Act expanded upon the 1969 federal hate crimes law to cover crimes based on a person's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.   The Act also removes the prerequisite that the victim has to be engaged in a federally-protected activity, like voting or attending school, in order for the crime to be characterized as a hate crime.  Many, but not all, states have similar hate crime legislation. 

I would be remiss not to say a few words about Fort Myers' Laboratory Theater of Florida where I saw The Laramie Project.   The Theater is "dedicated to the development of the performing arts through live performances, education, community outreach, experimentation, and the development of ensemble work."  Their current venue is a Kiwanis Hall while they engage in a fundraising drive to build a permanent home in downtown Fort Myers.  Their plan is for the building to have glass walls so that local passersby will be exposed to what is going on there and, hopefully, drawn in.   This year's season includes a wide array of theater, from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to Romeo and Juliet to In the Next Room:  the Vibrator Play to Camus' The Plague.  I found the caliber of performance in The Laramie Project to be high level community theater.  The story was so engrossing, though, that I didn't mind the occasional misstep (although the woman who was constantly fussing with her bangs did drive me a bit crazy).  I applaud The Laboratory Theater for bringing some interesting theater choices to Southwest Florida, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find myself back in a seat in that Kiwanis Hall later this season.    

Destination Sanibel Island, Part 2

I was working in the learning lab this week and a student asked me the difference between an idiom and a cliche.  Stumped once again, I went to my trusty laptop to try and figure out a way to explain the difference.  Idioms are a group of words that, when read literally, don't mean what they say.  For instance, "She got up on the wrong side of the bed" is an idiom.  (It turns out that in days long past, it was considered bad luck to get out of the left side of the bed.  So, if you got up on the left--wrong--side of the bed, you were bound to have a grumpy day.)  Cliches, on the other hand, are terms that are overused (although you can understand what they mean without resorting to a reference book.)  One example of a cliche is, "Timing is everything."  Unfortunately, the timing of the IYC bike outing this week to the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island was just a bit off. 

We made the trek to Sanibel on a gorgeous morning and gathered at the Sanibel Chamber of Commerce.  (Although the temperature was in the 60s, I still think that this sign outside the Chamber is perhaps a bit tongue in cheek!)   We rode from there to the Refuge and headed inside the Museum for a tour and a presentation.  What an interesting place!  As you enter the Museum, there is a computer with an "e-bird tracker" on which visitors can enter a record of the birds that they've seen.   For serious birders, I can only imagine that this is a fabulous resource.  We were then escorted into a small auditorium where a gentleman gave us an overview of the Refuge and told us about some of the birds that come to the Refuge.  The story of the Red Knot was truly amazing.  Red Knots fly from the Arctic Circle to the Refuge in Sanibel WITHOUT STOPPING!  The birds lose approximately 50% of their body weight during this journey, and spend three weeks at the Refuge fortifying themselves before continuing their trip to the southern tip of Argentina.   During the course of this 10,000 mile migration, they fly between 400 and 500 miles a day.  (And my arms feel like they are falling off after a four minute song in my body pump class!)  Sadly, the Red Knots arrive at the Refuge a bit later in October, so we missed their migration.

We learned a little bit about "Ding" Darling as well.  Ding was a Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist and avid conservationist.  Notwithstanding the fact that he lampooned the policies of FDR, FDR appointed him as director of the predecessor to what is now the US Fish and Wildlife Service.  In the 1940s, Darling learned that the State of Florida was intending to sell off 2200 acres of Sanibel's mangrove wetlands for 50 cents an acre.   Darling interceded and leased the land, creating the basis for what is now the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge. 

There was lots to see at the Museum, but we needed to head out if we were to have any hope of seeing birds lingering for a late breakfast in the mudflats.   We rode over a one way gravel road that winds through the preserve, peering into the wetlands to check for birds.  (I see from this picture that we somehow ended up riding in a "V" formation much like migrating birds!)  We did spy a Roseate Spoonbill flying overhead, but that was about as exciting as it got.  I suspect if we had been there a few hours earlier, we would have seen a nice assortment of the over 220 species of birds that reside in the refuge.    Leaving our homes well before the sun rose was not, however, in the plan. 

At the end of the outing, I'd had a nice ride (clocking around 17 miles) and some good conversation with friends, enjoyed a delicious lunch at Doc Ford's restaurant, and found a great place to explore in the future.    All in all, another day well spent!

A Taste of the Florida Keys

I'm sure it won't come as a shock to hear that the seafood in Florida is delicious.  Maralee McGowen of Harbor Seafoods, one of our local seafood purveyors, recently started giving cooking classes as a supplement to their retail business.  Great marketing idea, and a great way to spend an evening!   After perusing the schedule, Dorrit and I decided to take a class called "Tour of the Florida Keys."

Maralee welcomed us into the shop, which had been set up with two high tables with a good vantage point of her cooktop.   One thing that made the evening so much fun was that there was lots of interaction among the six students.  In fact, Maralee often had to make an effort to get a word in edgewise!  Our classmates included two gentlemen who seemed to be quite the chefs.  John owned a breakfast and lunch place back home in Massachusetts and it sounds like he still does a good amount of cooking for his wife (and, on occasion, her eleven siblings and their families).  Patrick is a transplanted New Yorker who, among other things, was related to the late Phil Rizzuto.  (Go, Yanks!)   We shared a table with them and got a pretty good sense of their life stories.  I somehow suspect that they came away knowing nothing about either of us, but that's fine with me. 

Back to the reason for being there--the food!  The class featured recipes adapted from the cookbook Flavor of the Florida Keys by Linda Gassenheimer.  The first course was Shrimp with Ginger Lemon Glaze with fresh cilantro and is definitely a keeper.  (In fact, Maralee gave us all doggie containers of the glaze to bring home.  Dorrit recreated the butterflied shrimp and I seared some scallops to serve as the vehicle for the glaze and both were delicious.)    The recipe for the glaze (which is actually a cross between a glaze and a sauce) can be found at the bottom of this post.

The next course was Island Grill Tuna Nachos.  This was actually my least favorite of the dishes since it was a bit fussy and the sauce didn't really add anything to the incredibly delicious piece of sushi grade tuna that Maralee used for the dish.   Maralee's husband Tony joined the class to tell us a little bit about how tuna makes it from the ocean to the fish case.  Tuna boats can power for as long as three days to get to their fishing grounds.  Once they arrive, they throw out over 50 miles of net with more 1000 hooks (and radar buoys so that the boat can find them).  The fishermen are lucky if they end up with fish on 10% of the hooks.  When it's time to haul in the catch, they pull in about three miles of net at a time.  Once the tuna are on the boat, their tails and heads are cut off and their blood is drained because it makes the fish bitter.  When the boats arrive back at the dock, potential buyers make a tail cut to check the fish's color--the redder the better--and fat and oil content.   It is really quite a process, and hearing this gave me a better understanding of why tuna is so expensive. 

The entree was Salute's Snapper Salad.   The snapper was dipped in a panko-cashew breading and fried in oil.  Then it was topped with a salsa made with pineapple, red onion, red pepper, jalapeno and some spices.  It was accompanied by a salad with avocado and tomatoes topped with a citrus dressing.   This was a great light dish that left us with room to enjoy the Key Lime Cake that Maralee had made in advance.  (We also got to bring some cake home!)

All in all, a fun and tasty evening, and quite the bang for the buck.  For $35, we had some lively conversation, ate some delicious food and came home armed with recipes to try the dishes on our own.   Now if I could just get myself from the stage of gathering recipes to making them......


Ginger Lemon Glaze

2 1/2 c. water
2 c. rice wine vinegar
1/3 c. lemon juice
1 1/2 Tbs. powdered ginger
2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1/4 c. combined lemon and lime zest
2 Tbs. corn starch
1/2 c. water

Place the water, vinegar, lemon juice, ginger, zest and red pepper in a suacepan. Bring to a boil. Mix the cornstarch in a small bowl with the water. Add to the saucepan and bring back to a boil over high heat. Cook until the glaze is thickened. Makes at least 12 servings. Can save in the refrigerator for several days (and it gets more kick!)

Destination Sanibel Island, Part 1

Several lifetimes ago, I worked as a summer intern in Washington for Senator Paula Hawkins (R-Florida).  (The "R" is one clue that this was long ago and far away!)   One of her legislative assistants was a guy from Fort Myers who swore that Sanibel Island is the most beautiful place in the world.   Despite the fact that Punta Gorda is only about an hour away from the Island, I hadn't made my way there until I went with Dorrit and Bruce on a Groupon Coupon kayak outing earlier this week.  I will definitely be back! 

First, a word about the modern day phenomenon that is Groupon.  Like many people, I was first introduced to Groupon by what has to have been the most politically incorrect Superbowl ad of all times.  Nonetheless, I'm a subscriber, and I quite enjoy getting my daily offers, even when the deal is something I'm not the least bit interested in. Groupon prides itself not only on its deals, but on its "signature write-ups" of the offers. One Groupon employee called them "absurdist poetry" in a recent Vanity Fair article.  Here's the lead-in for the kayak deal:

"As with the lycanthrope and the centaur, two ancient beast/man hybrids, the word "kayak" comes from the Greek word meaning "half man, half boat." Unleash your aquatic side with today's Groupon at Tarpon Bay Explorers on Sanibel Island."

Really, how could we resist that pitch, especially when it was only $13 for two hours of kayaking? 

We arrived at the Tarpon Bay Explorers around 9:00 after negotiating almost bumper to bumper traffic in Fort Myers, which we definitively decided we did not miss in the least.  We were fitted with our kayaks--a double for Bruce and Dorrit and a single for me--and headed out into Commodore Creek Mangrove Trail.  The creek has 17 markers (sort of like cookie crumbs in case you get turned around) as you weave your way through the mangroves before reaching an open bay area.  There are lots of opportunities for viewing birds since the water is very shallow.   As always, the herons were a personal favorite.  The fish were going crazy that day and were jumping all around our kayaks, at some points leaping at least three feet into the air.  It makes me smile every time! 

Being one with nature gives you the opportunity to contemplate deep thoughts.  We continued a conversation that we had started a few days earlier, "If you had superhero powers and could either be invisible or fly, which would you choose?"  As you imagine, this is not a choice that you want to make lightly!   (For the record, I opted for having the ability to fly.)

Since, as we know, I make it a priority to offset any benefits of exercise by eating as soon thereafter as possible, we found a great spot to have lunch after we got off the water--the Island Cow.  In addition to being a really cute spot and having delicious food (Dorrit and I shared crunchy grouper tacos), there was a great photo opp that Bruce, good sport that he is, agreed to pose for.  (At that point, he was wishing that he in fact was a superhero with the power to be invisible.  Just one of the hazards of hanging out with me!)   

We capped off our day with a walk on one of the local beaches.  The tide was so high that the beach was almost nonexistent in parts so we walked through the surf.  There was a nice breeze, which the royal terns turned their bodies into to enjoy.  Altogether, another highly enjoyable day in Punta Gorda and its environs.