Published by Michael in People on July 29, 2008 at 4:55 pm
As a small child, I was never much as a hopscotch player — a meaningful hand-eye-foot coordination problem at that age rendered me rather ineffective at the game. As I walked past this place this morning on my way to a meeting, however, I could see the five named players playing the game last evening as the sun set and the city streets cooled just a bit. I could hear their laughter and their good-natured bickering over an interpretation of the rules.
Some things simply never change.
I wonder who won?
Hopscotch Court
Location: Elm Street, north of 14th, Over the Rhine
Published by Michael in People on July 24, 2008 at 4:40 pm
One day after my very long day Tuesday, we were invited to a Wednesday night dinner party. The directions were cryptic to say the least. “Turn south on a particular road; after about a mile, turn right into the lane just before the railroad tracks; keeping the tracks to your left, cross the gravel lot heading toward the large steel building; at the building cross over the tracks then make a hard right and hard left turn around the side of the building; at the end of the building, park in the lot just past the fence gate.”
What the directions didn’t tell me were that the path along the side of the building was about 11 feet wide with a huge fall off to the right and with grade level rails in the center of the path, and that the lot was a tiny alcove bordered by the building and many railcars.
Yes, we were in the center of a large railroad yard. We walked a hundred yards or so down the path between two rows of railcars parked nose to tail. At the end of the path was our destination — the beautifully restored 1922 private railcar known as the Chapel Hill.
The Chapel Hill was built in 1922 as the private mode of transport for cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and her then husband E. F. Hutton. In those days, the private railcar was the equivalent of today’s Gulfstream, Canadair or Falcon jet for the rich and famous. The Chapel Hill’s owners have restored her to a fantastic, near original condition. And you may charter her for the private journey of a lifetime.
Our journey was a mere stroll from the lounge to the dining room. A friend and colleague bid on and won this evening in an auction benefiting 7 Days for SIDS. The owners contributed an evening in the stationary railcar, and Jean-Robert de Cavel contributed food and wine for a dinner party of six. We were luck enough to be invited as one of the two guest couples.
Once we stepped into the Chapel Hill, it didn’t matter whether we were in a crowded rail yard or traveling to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach or Camp Topridge in the Adirondacks (two of Ms. Post’s homes and frequent destinations of this railcar). We were ensconced in the simple, elegant luxury that was the 1920s. Our host for the evening was Jeff, one of the Chapel Hill’s owners; and Jean-Robert and his wife, Annette, were our staff. Later, Jean-Robert and Annette were joined by the sous chef and the sommelier from Pigall’s.
We had cocktails and canapes in the lounge. After an hour or so, a series of chimes called us to the dining room. What followed was a jewel of a meal — seven courses paired with wines, mostly from Jean-Robert’s personal cellar (with one contribution from mine). The food, wine, setting and company made for a night I will remember for a long time.
I am supposed to be receiving a copy of the menu and wine pairings. I’ll edit the post to include it.
The menu and pairings:
Maine Lobster and Jonah Crab with pineapple, avocado, and bibb lettuce Stephanie Tissot Vin Jaune 2004
* Warm Indiana Goat Cheese with dried summer fruit and pistachio, duo of arugula,
verjus and fig vinaigrette Chateau La Garde Pessac-Leognan 2003
* Roasted Halibut with Local Zucchini Flower, roasted red onion, and a light truffle cream Domaine Buisson Meursault 2005
* Rilette of Cochon Maison with fresh chick peas and bayonne ham pipperade,
duo of Banyuls vinegar dressing Domaine Jablot Clos De La Servoisine 1er Cru Givry 1995
* Duck Leg Confit Risotto with corn, shitake mushroom, foie gras,
and a peppery grape compote Chateau Gigonan Chateauneuf 2004
* Rack of Lamb with braised tomato, sweet garlic blue cheese flan, mountain rose potato, roulade of eggplant and Merguez, sauce Bordelaise Chateau Lynch Bages Grand Cru Paulliac 1983 download make it happen free
* Assorted Sweets Stephanie Tissot Spirale 2004
Many thanks to Jeff, Jean-Robert and Annette for their hospitality, and even more thanks to the party hosts, Ruth and Fred, for including us.
The following is in celebration of our little train ride to nowhere. Can you tell I am hooked on this embedded video feature?
Published by Michael in The business on July 23, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Yesterday, I hosted a photography session for Just Cured’s new web site at my home. The opportunity came together at the last minute and the story of how it came about is too long and too boring to tell in detail. In any event, when I saw some work by Carmen Nauseef (blog), I jumped at the chance to have her take a few photos for me.
As the idea for this session first occurred very late last week, the weekend was a whirlwind of activity around the house. My wife completed the rehabilitation of the side garden that was destroyed in the construction of the new wall and gave the rest of the gardens and house exterior a spit shine and polish. I gave the kitchen a not-frequent-enough deep cleaning.
My idea was to show Just Cured’s products in a home party setting, and I plan to use the photos in a lifestyle section of the new web site feature serving suggestions, recipes, entertainment tips and the like. I recruited sister number 4 and her daughter and sister number 1′s daughters 3 and 5 as guests of a garden party. The girls were all lovely.
I hope that Carmen got some good pictures. This was my first experience as the client with a photography session like this. As a result I have no feel for the relative success or failure of the afternoon. I did come away with three things I could have done better:
I should have recruited more “guests” to get more variety in the photos.
I should have had an assistant in the kitchen for the afternoon. I didn’t use the photographer’s time efficiently as there were too many (and too long) gaps while I plated or fussed with the products.
I should have been much more organized. As we were working, I began to see the session as very similar to the closing of a legal transaction, an exercise in organized chaos. In the legal world, I neutralized the chaos by insisting on ultra-organization of the proceedings. In the creative world, I was the rube in the room with the Gomer Pyle look on my face wondering what to do next. I remember seeing lawyers with that look and hoped never to feel the way they obviously were feeling. Yesterday, I found out; I felt out of control; and I didn’t like it.
For all my discomfort with my efforts, Carmen was a joy to work with. I appreciate creative, passionate people and like being around them. I am cautiously confident that her photos will exceed my very high expectations.
I knew that I was going to have a great deal of food left from the session and invited a few neighbors by to help polish it off. I wasn’t offering much variety, smoked and cured salmon a dozen ways doesn’t make for a very interesting dinner menu. But the wine was chilled, and the setting of the new courtyard was lovely.
The company was fantastic. As the light faded, the heat of the day dissipated and the conversation became more animated, I relaxed and decided to worry about how I could have improved the day on some other occasion. We ended the evening inside playing “name the artist” from a playlist of 50s and 60s tunes and the other men conducting a tasting of my long neglected collection of single barrel bourbons and single malts.
Our guests made an early night of it, departing by 10:45. I hope they were refreshed and ready to return to work today.
Please remind me to entertain on Tuesdays more often.
Surprisingly, the artist on this one stumped the music lovers in the crowd:
In this city, the highlight of the summer social season for most of the population is not the Opera; rather, it is the run of Church Festivals. I have met people who plan their summer travels around the festivals of the parishes they grew up in or those festivals of the parishes to which their friends belong.
The format is fairly uniform — cheap beer and picnic foods, carnival rides, raffles, bake and other sales and games of skill and chance. Note that this description is from a festival ignoramus. I have spent perhaps six hours total at church festivals over the past 30 years.
And of those six hours, three of them occurred last evening. I attended the performance of the band Snidely Whiplash at the St. Martin of Tours Festival held at Harvest Home Park, Cheviot. For those of you too young to remember, Snidely Whiplash was the arch villain in the Dudley Do-Right series of cartoons on the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show from my youth.
In the present time, Snidely Whiplash is a cover band performing as a hobby of the members, each of whom has another full time gig. The band leader, guitarist and co-lead vocalist is my across-the-street neighbor Tony Scalia. His son, Pete, plays the keyboards and shares vocal duties. For a gang that performs perhaps a half dozen times a year, they are quite in synch with each other and are enormously entertaining.
That’s Pete on the far left and Tony next to him.
The crowd at the festival spanned all categories, from young to old, from hale to infirm, and included people of virtually every economic means. By the second set, the crowd had played enough games and drunk enough beer to be more interested in the live music. People started dancing in place, they way they do when they want to hit the dance floor but no one else has yet headed there.
It took a bit of encouragement from her mother, but one young lady hit the floor before any others. And she wore the asphalt dance floor out. She hit the stage, played tambourine, sang backup vocals and lead a dance troupe of her friends. She was unknown to the band members and virtually all of the crowd when the evening started. By the end of the night, we all knew Caitlin — and will remember her for some time.
Caitlin, keeping time for the band:
Here she is singing a duet with Pete:
When I last saw Caitlin, the band had rolled into a slow medley of Jackson Browne’s Load Out and Stay (Just a Little Bit Longer) and she had asked her mother for the last dance. Caitlin had her head tucked onto her mother’s shoulder, and was sound asleep.
This is for all the Caitlins out there who know how to have fun on a Friday night.
Published by Michael in People on July 10, 2008 at 4:52 pm
“Tell him you will call him back in an hour,” I told the young colleague as I gestured for her to terminate the call. She was into hour four of a call with her counterpart at <insert mega New York firm here> discussing the placement of qualifiers, commas and cross references in a set of disclosure schedules for the deal that was closing in 33 or so hours. It was 11 pm on day 5 of 7 that started at dawn and ended sometime after 3 am, and our flight to the closing location was leaving in 9 hours. Plenty of time for the two of them to negotiate the commas to my satisfaction.
I, however, was hungry. I hadn’t really eaten since dinner late the night before. And the latest open kitchen in downtown would close in 30 or so minutes.
“We are driving, right?” she asked.
“Three and a half blocks on a beautiful late spring evening? No, of course, we are walking.”
“But it is dark and dangerous and there are scary people on the streets,” she complained.
I told her she could walk or not eat. Reluctantly, she agreed to walk.
We passed nary a soul, scary or otherwise, on our walk to dinner. An hour later, hunger sated with really good burgers and fries, we left the hotel bar for the office. As we turned out of the hotel entrance, she yelped and began swiveling her head this way and that. “That drug addict behind us is going to mug us for his next fix,” she whispered urgently.
At the first corner, the “druggie” turned left as we continued across the street. I offered that I recognized the man, that his name was James, and that he managed the stationery store in the arcade nearby. In fact, I had his business card in my pocket. She protested that he was scary (meaning young, black and not like her) and was babbling incoherently. What he was doing was singing to himself.
We walked the next two blocks without incident. As we made the turn south, I stopped her from crossing the street and explained that she would be more comfortable on this side of the street and I wanted to show her something. In the middle of that block is a major bus stop for lines to the city’s less fashionable neighborhoods. The sidewalk was crowded, as it always was that time of night.
I directed her attention across the street and asked what was so frightening to her about those people waiting for the bus. “They aren’t like us and are looking for trouble,” was her reply.
“And that’s where you are so wrong,” I responded, disappointed and intent on making our walk a lesson. “I recognize a quarter of those people, not by name but by face; and they are
like us. They are working hard to support their families, many working two jobs. They have no interest in hassling you; their thoughts are consumed with getting home and kissing their sleeping babies on the forehead, with getting a few hours sleep before getting their kids off to school or themselves off to their other jobs. They are the dishwashers at the restaurants you dine in; the doormen, bell men and housekeepers at the hotels our clients stay in; and the cleaning crews of the high rise office buildings we work in. They may be invisible to you as you go through your day; but they are, just like us, working hard to get ahead or get by.”
This little lesson took place several years ago. I find that I am reminding myself of it often, however, as I frequent my new work neighborhood. One where it is more difficult to remember my lesson. Where the passers-by often are dealers or addicts. Where the woman talking to herself hears the demons talking back. Where the response I overhear to “where ya been” is frequently “a stretch in the county jail.”
Remember, Michael, I repeat, we are all just doing the best we can, as best we know how.
I discovered yesterday that there is something extra special about spending the Fourth of July with people who chose to come to this country. At the party we attended yesterday, the guests included natives of France, Germany, Hungary, Morocco, Turkey and Japan. We missed the company of our Filipina friend and enjoyed talking with the gang’s Brit who phoned from Switzerland.
The guests from around the world got to this place for many different reasons. Some came here to build careers, others were transferred here at the discretion of their employers, a few attended school here and stayed, and a couple followed a family member. To a person, however, they left their homes, families and cultures to make the USA home, forever or for now. I spend a lot of time with some of these people, yet I still find their takes on things “American” to be refreshing and stimulating.
Those of us born here often take for granted our liberty and independence. For us, July 4 is a day off work and an excuse to make loud noises with fireworks. We assume the outcome of the Revolution and the efforts of so many to make this country a reality.
Our fellow guests, several of whom were experiencing their first Fourth of July holiday, assumed nothing. For the first time in years, I heard discussion on the Fourth of the principals of American independence — Adams, Franklin, Jefferson and Paine — and the principles they espoused. We had lively discussion on the manner in which holidays are celebrated in different countries and cultures, and which ways are better.
Our hosts provided a marvelous venue decorated to the nines, and their generosity with food and drink will become the stuff of legend. The tables overflowed with pan fried chicken, burgers and hot dogs, boiled shrimp, baked beans, potato salad, cucumber salad, macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, guacamole, strawberry shortcake (with chantilly cream whipped by the French chocolatier in attendance) and several dishes that I have overlooked — each carefully prepared by our host.
Special kudos to Ota-san for sharing bottles of Clos des Mouches 1985 and Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 1983 from his cellar. Not your typical July Fourth wines to be sure, but surprisingly good pairings with the fried chicken — particularly the Burgundy.
I will remember this Independence Day celebration for a long time, for its fellowship, conversation, food, drink: all of it.
Published by Michael in Uncategorized on July 2, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Over the last several weeks, I have seen a number of things that trouble me at local businesses. Some are owned by people I know a little bit, others by people I do not know at all.
When will you deal with the employee who is obviously stealing from you? The register is two feet away. Is there ever a need for that employee to safeguard your revenues in his/her pocket for the journey to it?
When will you see that the college girls you hire are more interested in entertaining their friends than in taking care of your customers? The slightly older women you hire get it. Why haven’t the new hires? How long will it be before your customers stop giving you a hall pass? This customer is very, very close.
When will you fire the addict who shows up for work high — on the days she bothers to show up at all? Your customers will applaud you, believe me.
When will you recognize that you must increase your prices to survive? The increases in commodity prices are killing you. Yes, it will cost you business from some customers; but you are losing money on every one of those customers as it is.
When will you call out the lazy employee who is taking advantage of you? You have modified this employee’s duties to the point where you can no longer evaluate him against any other group. And he knows it.
I know the economy stinks and many business, large and small, are struggling. I just hate to see you struggle needlessly. I can see these things as a guy who simply pushes your door from time to time; when will you see them?
