The Last Of June: Ten Years Ago

[Pigging byWilfrid:  July 2, 2012]

The last week of June, 2002, found me in New York again, and lunching out.

I've never been a big lunch eater.  My metabolism slow to process restaurant meals, so prefer them late in the evening.  But I made a couple of expections.

First, a treat: lunch in the lovely, bright dining room of the much-missed La Caravelle.  I expect it was a set lunch, because I opened with something described as "salad"  -- I seem to recall it was one of those dainty salads, served in a turret of curled cucumber slices.  I followed, inevitably, with quenelle de brochet, sauce homard.  Another sure sign it was a prix fixe, I took dessert:  fresh fruit with a Monbazillac gelée.

I liked to tumble between the gutter and the stars, so it was big, fatty helpings of cuchifritos for dinner that night.

 The following evening, another landmark in the all-too-brief flowering of the original New York eGullet community, a gathering for beers and sausages at Zum Schneider on Avenue C.

My second restaurant lunch at the week, also taken with some then eGullet members, was at Union Square Café.  Tuna confit scattered with bottarga was followed by a hearty salad with a poached egg and cured guanciale -- yeah, fancy bacon.  Dessert again, my goodness, a raspberry crumble with raspberry fool.  Very British.

Reverting to my more usual dinner time, I spent a pleasant evening at the Restaurant Carlyle in the Carlyle Hotel.  A small, pampering room, with magnificent floral displays.  It was a good restaurant too, ten years ago, although I witnessed a subsequent decline.  Dinner along classical French lines, of course:  country pâté, braised veal cheeks with carrots -- and a bottle of 1989 Nuits-Saint-Georges "Les Cailles" with that, please -- and cheeses.

The week rounds off with some cooking at home.  Palette de porc (okay, shoulder) au forn (okay, baked) -- this is what I have in my diary -- with fresh thyme and roast potatoes.  Bûcheron de chèvre to follow.  A white wine, for once, Cawarra Semillon-Chardonnay. 

Fireworks next week?  Wait and see.