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Ruby

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Everything posted by Ruby

  1. NYFire, Love it! Thank you. I noticed the date of the menu - November 9. That's my birthday but I was born wayyyyy after 1913. Rubyyyyyyyyyyyyy
  2. NYFire, Yes, it must be hell for you very often in your firehouse kitchen-especially to see who's not at the table anymore. But I bet your presence and gift - yes you are very unique and special and it is a gift - is a comfort to your colleagues and I bet they look forward to chowing down and being together.
  3. Cooking is therapeutic. A good friend of mine told me she's just like her grandmother when it comes to food because she shows her love for people by cooking for them. I used to love to putter around and buy ingredients at the farmer's market, then to the bakery and Balducci's and then to put it all together in the kitchen. While cooking, I'd put on some old 30s and 40s American and British band music, have a couple of glasses of wine and feel totally happy with the world. The wine helped the therapy and there was no charge for a 45-minute 'hour'
  4. Wow, clambakes and lobster tails and shrimp tempura. Yowza, when Papa Sam (Soprano) went away on business my Mom still made the same stuff: Franks & beans (also called 'specials' cause they were fat; Chef Boy-Ar-Dee beef ravioli (I loved those little bite-size suckers) and Twinkies or Hostess Cupcakes for desserts. Not that Mama was a lousy cook (she wasn't). My Bubby taught her how to make Russian Borscht (Bubby could cook!) that would put any resto to shame.
  5. When invited to someone's home for dinner, I usually bring a decent bottle of wine and perhaps flowers. If invited to a party, I usually bring whatever I'm drinking (wine or Champagne) and also something to eat. When I ask the host(esses) what I can bring, the standard answer is always "nothing, just bring yourself." Well, I never show up emptyhanded. Sometimes I'll bring a bottle of vodka or scotch that I know the host(ess) enjoys. What do others bring? I'm really looking for new ideas or is it just standard to bring wine? Thanks.
  6. Ruby

    Live Bait

    A decade ago is a pretty long time for a restaurant to stick around. The owners of Live Bait were former models and perhaps that's why at the time the wait staff were model types. The Live Bait people also own Coffee Shop on Union Square. Guess they're doing something right. That place is always packed and for me it's nice to be able to grab a fresh-squeezed juice on the run at their outside juice bar.
  7. Robert, I've got Stork Club stuff galore! I have lipstick (Hot Red), powder compacts, the little stork with the top hat that's either a flower holder or holds a perfume flacon. I've got different black ashtrays and they had a large ashtray just for banquets. Sherman Billingsley used to give out items like a gold powder compact for his special customers. It's been rumored that Billingsley used to buy out all the fresh flowers from funeral homes and place them on the club's tables. All this cafe society stuff used to fascinate me. My mom went to El Morocco (she didn't take any ashtrays although she smoked Chesterfields) and I believe there was another supper club called the Colony Club. I really could get into that kind of elegance now. I'm not too familiar with the Blue Angel nightclub but I loved the movie with Marlene Dietrich in it. "Falling in Love Again..."
  8. NYFire, thanks, I love menus. Wow, the Hamburg Amerika Lines - is it dated? How about a sampling of the food on the menu? I also have some old Hawaiian menus that are cool. I collect Hawaiiana stuff too.
  9. Ruby

    no shows

    On the topic of no shows, I can see where this could really hurt a small restaurant even if they overbook tables. How about asking for a personal check as a deposit that would be torn up or handed back when the party of two or four shows up. If someone really wants to bag a table, I can't see why they wouldn't stop by earlier or dispatch a messenger to leave a check with the restaurant. Of course, I'm thinking in terms of Manhattan which is fairly easy to navigate with public transportation. On the flip side of the coin, as someone who's dined out for almost every waking meal in the last 100 years, I can tell you what's happened to me more than a few times: 1) I try to make a reservation and go through voice mail hell or get busy signals or an answering machine. If I'm lucky enough to book a table at a decent hour for me (not 5:30 or 10:30 p.m.) I have to call back at some point to reconfirm and then go through voice mail hell again. On more than one occasion, my party has arrived and the reservationist doesn't have our names listed. What happened? Dunno. Did they overbook and bump us? Where's my free airline ticket? 2) After going through #1 above with the phones, we arrive and the reservation is there. The table isn't ready and we're asked to cool our heels at the bar. Forty-five minutes pass. I'm half crocked by the time the table is ready and have been offered salty peanuts to keep my mouth busy. I don't taste or enjoy the food. To pacify our table, we are offered a free drink. One more and I'll be under that table I reserved! 3) Another scenario is the reservation is there but we are led to tables in Siberia or next to the smoky bar or toilets. Don't like it? Sorry, all our other tables are fully booked.
  10. Ruby

    no shows

    Wow, Dstone, you've got a great memory! That was me who attended a New Year's Day evening performance of The Women where just about everybody on the stage, except for the 12-year-old girl, smoked real cigarettes on stage and ruined my evening. Should I be 'cute' and tell you I got lots of money or free season tickets to the theater? No, I know you're curious so here's what I did. I was all set to go to Small Claims Court but a few days beforehand I had brunch with friends and told them the story. One friend works for the airline industry and he told me he's always being sent down to Small Claims (he's not a lawyer) to represent his airline. I was shocked by that as I thought the principal owners or their attorneys show up. He said they always send him and I'd probably get the price of my two tickets back. Well, that's not what I wanted because I blow more money than that. I would have donated the money to a good cause if I had won in court. What I wanted was to have someone like a hotshot attorney who had advised the Roundabout Theatre Company to not honor my request for a refund. I wanted them down in court - not a poor innocent office employee. So I dropped it. I still think the Roundabout handled this horrendously and I'll never go to any of their productions. End of rant and explanation of outcome.
  11. See where it got her? Oh no! She died from smoke inhalation while trying to put out a fire a few years ago at her Living Foods Center in Boston. When her name is mentioned in the company of people who follow the Living Foods diet, they bow with reverence to her.
  12. I stopped eating live raw oysters and clams some time back. Just lost my taste for them. I don't want to sound alarmist because I know how people love raw oysters and clams but here's a report called "Death on the Half Shell" put out by a group called Center for Science in the Public Interest based in Washington, D.C. that concerns shellfish from the Gulf of Mexico. There's also lots of interesting stuff about taking food safety precautions at home. http://www.cspinet.org/reports/vibrio_vulnificus/index.html
  13. Yes, sprouts are live food. There are a growing number of people who only eat raw foods; some call it live food because (as I read one explanation) if you throw it back in the ground it keeps growing. The live food or Living Foods diet consists of eating lots of uncooked vegetables and fruits, supplemented with raw nuts and seed and sprouted grains such as wheatberries. One of the first pioneers of wheat grass-the stuff that's made into juice-and living foods was the late Ann Wigmore. There is a website if you'd like more info.
  14. I used to collect lots of Stork Club memorabilia until it started getting reproduced (and ruined) like Fiestaware. The Stork Club was located at 3 East 53rd Street, Manhattan, which is now the vest pocket Paley Park. I believe the club began in the 1920s as a speakeasy but the menus I have are either from the 1940s or 1950s. Here is a sampling from the menus and separate wine list. Potage du Jour - Cream of Fresh Brocolli 75 cents Baked Filet of Sole, Lady Egmond $3.00 Alligator Pear with Crab Meat Ravigote $3.25 Broiled Mackeral, Morton Downey $3.00 Broiled Beef Hamburger w/FF Pot. $3.00 Chicken a la Walter Winchell $3.75 Legumes & Pommes were extra: Fresh Asparagus $1.60 Hash Browned Pommes or Parisienne 75 cents Delmonico Pommes 75 cents Bread & Butter 50 cents Fromage: Roquefort 90 cents, Cream Cheese, Bar Le-Duc $2.00 Brie $1.00, Bel Paese $1.15 Coffee w/Cream 60 cents, Sanka or Postum 60 cents Cafe Diable $3.00, Irish Coffee $1.75, Espresso $1.00 Hot Chocolate or Cocoa $1.50 Desserts: Baked Alaska for 2 $7.00, Coupe Nesselrode $1.50 Cherries Jubilee $2.75, Alfonso Mango Ice Cream $1.25, Crepes Suzette, $3.25, Coupe Aux Marrons $2.00, various flavors of ice cream 95 cents. Wine suggestions with fish: White Burgundy or Bordeaux, Champagne, or Rhine Wine Wine suggestions with entrees: Red Burgundy, Red Bordeaux, Champagne Drink list: regular drinks $1.50 Wine List: Cliquot $18 Half Bottle $9.50 Moet & Chandon & Dom Perignon $$25.00 Gevrey Chambertin $8.00 Puligny Montrachet $9.00 Chateau Mouton Rothschild (1957) $14.00 Chateau Margaux (1955) $16.00 Chateau Carbonnieux $12.00 Those were the days, my friends except in those days those prices were a lot of money for someone like a secretary making only $125 a week or an accountant make $10,00 a year!
  15. As a native New Yorker, I'm often asked that if I had to to choose to live anywhere else in the world besides New York, where would it be. My answer is always the same: London, England. To me, London has a wonderful energy similar to New York City yet unique in its very own right. I enjoy the people, places and vibe there as well as outside of London (for example: Brighton). Plus, I love people's accents and they somehow can understand my Noo Yawk accent too! After I answer the first question, the next response I usually get is: "but the food is kind of bland." No, I don't think so - maybe if one wants to date themselves back to overcooked roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. This got me thinking about how much local food, ingredients, and restaurants might color one's decision to relocate besides the obvious ones like a job, housing, etc. So, where would you live if you could live anywhere in the world? How does food play into this?
  16. There's an old saying about trends and supply and demand in general: People want something because Nobody else has it or Everybody has it.
  17. Wilfrid, Lexington Avenue bet. 54th & 53rd Streets - closer to 54th.
  18. The first time I saw 'tall food' was in the 80s at Gotham Grill in NYC. After that, tall food started appearing everywhere for the longest time. The plates got higher and higher and sometimes it was difficult for me to tackle the food without it collapsing on the plates. I loved the visual presentation of tall food and have many photographs that I've taken of beautifully arranged food. At some point, tall food became a cliche and was made fun of by comics and the media, I think in part because the presentations became taller and sillier looking than when they were first presented.
  19. Personally I couldn't give a monkey's but by naming certain people whose comments you would welcome you could be said to be confirming the very arguments of those who worry about eGullet becoming "exclusionary" or whatever. Tony, good catch!
  20. I was at the Pret a Manger East 54th Street shop on the day before its 'official' opening and I'm here to say there is such a thing as a "free lunch." People rushing busily on the street during lunchtime would stop to peer in at the new shop that was opening in a very food shop-deprived area. I popped my head in and a manager from the store invited me in. A young woman escorted me to an attractive case of sandwiches. I chose egg salad. I was then escorted to the counter and offered a choice of soup. I offered to pay and they said my lunch was free. I was delighted by the courtesy and public relations effort. As I turned to leave, another woman behind the counter offered me a free cookie. This shop is definitely welcome and I hope many more open in New York. The food was delicious and tasted very fresh. I've been back since.
  21. Ruby

    The Room

    That doesn't make you boring! Oraklet, if you and your spouse ever decide to visit New York City, send me a private message and I will buy both of you you a Dr. Brown's cream soda and a nice deli sandwich from Katz's!
  22. Ruby

    The Room

    Sounds like three of the things that bother you in restaurants are the same ones that annoy me: dim light, lack of space and intrusive background music. Sometimes I don't know what restaurants are thinking. I like round tables for large parties as it feels more intimate to me and it's easier to hear what everybody is talking about. What have your favorite dining experiences been in the U.S.?
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