[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: June 16, 2008]
After a over a year of non-stop travelling, and some bad spells in the Midwest, it seems I slowed down a little at this summery juncture, and spent some time enjoying New York, and my apartment.
Some things are fun the first time around, like the St Anthony festival down in Little Italy, a street fair on one of the quieter blocks of St Mark's (yes, there were some ten years ago), watching the Tony Awards, and watching boxing at Jimmy's Corner. Actually, the latter never got old, but the fee got too expensive for it to be worth Jimmy's while.
I walked up to St John's the Divine, and around its gardens. I bought jellied pig's foot from one of the Eastern European meat stores in the East Village. I saw the late Susanna McCorckle signing a curious mix of Gershwin and Jobim at the Algonquin's Oak Room. The weekend late show became a regular feature for me, excusing the necessity to eat the sub-standard food: champagne, and perhaps a morsel of cheesecake.
And I went to a significant New York restaurant for the first time: Terrence Brennan's Picholine.
It's hard to believe, but serious cheese was a rare commodity in Manhattan ten years ago, except for the Italian selections at good Italian food stores. Murray's was the lone outpost of choice and quality, and even French restaurants rarely offered a cheese course. American cheese was taken seriously by few.
Thoughtful cheese selections could be found at the Gramercy Park Tavern, certainly, and I am told at Chanterelle. Picholine, however, raised the level with adventurous selections of imported and domestic cheeses, and legendary cheese service from the dashing Max McCalman. Soon, Max was to become a captain on the floor of the restaurant - and has moved on to greater things with the development of Brennan's cheese-focussed Artisanal brand (bistro, store, college, mail-order, etc.).
In 1998, though, you could reliably find him pushing the trolley and making specific selections, often with a raised eyebrow as to your choice of wine. On this occasion, I think my 1995 Guigal Côte Rôtie passed muster. I asked him delve into his American selections, and I tried Wabash Cannonball for the first time - a mild goat cheese of quality, but of which I eventually wearied - and an astonishing cheese from Chicory Farm, Louisiana called Catahoula.
This ripe, washed-rind monster, a kind of creole Epoisses, is no more: but it made me sit up and pay attention to the possibilities of American cheese-making. It probably killed the wine too.
I preceded these delights with a beet salad topped with sour cream and caviar - a deconstructed borscht, I suppose - and chicken cooked in a salt crust served with sauce diable.
And so to bed. Or a bar, possibly.
