at the sign of The Pink Pig

How low can you go? St Mark's Place Burger Wars:

http://newyork.nearsay.com/nyc/east-village-les/restaurants-st-marks-place-burger-wars

Richter's Works on Paper

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid:  October 27, 2010]

I've struggled somewhat with Gerhard Richter's paintings over the years.  The photo-paintings can be memorable - dramatic - but one's response can't help but be colored by the informational content of the original photo from which Richter worked.  Is one's response to his Baader-Meinhof series, for example, an aesthetic or a political response?  Does it matter?

On the other hand, I've found his steely abstractions, for all their blurring and scraping, worth a second or third look.

Crocktoberfest: Judging the Pork

[Free stuff by Wilfrid:  October 26, 2010]

If the National Pork Board asked you to taste and judge some slow-cooked pork dishes, what would you say?  Exactly.

Which is how I found myself in the (covered) rooftop garden of Hudson Terrace on a recent evening, full of pig and liquor, staring over the Intrepid in the general direction of New Jersey. 

Quick Bites: A Pastrami Croissant At Milk Bar

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  October 25, 2010]

I always get the pork buns, don't you?  Even at $9 a pair, they rarely disappoint.

So I thought I'd try one of the savory croissants for a change.

Back From Brussels: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  October 25, 2010]

You left me last week in old Brussels, digesting a splendid carbonnade.  My last morning in the city was memorable - in fact altogether this was one of those days that stays with you, not for any dramatic reason, but because it was just right.

Mehtaphor: Alma Mehta

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  October 18, 2010]

In everything but name - contrived enough to deserve the contrived pun of the headline above - Jehangir Mehta's evolution from East Village broom cupboard to swank Tribeca restaurant-lounge is a resounding success.

So far, anyway, because I visited - in critical company - about a week after opening.  This is just the time when restaurants are not supposed to be reviewed because they are ironing out kinks in  menu, execution and service.  But who is going to turn down a good review?

Miles's London Calling: Demand Your Money Back

[The Cunning Tower by Kim Davis:  October 18, 2010]

And it looked so promising.  Published this year by Atlantic Books, a door-stoppping near-500 page survey of London's counterculture, from the bohemian 1940s through the underground 1960s and early '70s to punk and the post-punk 1980s.  From Nina Hamnett to Damien Hirst, the gang's all here.

Thankfully I didn't pay for it ($25, no less).  If I had, I'd want my money back.

MoMA Does Abstract Expressionism: This Time It's Big

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid:  October 18, 2010]

I sometimes feel like I've written more about Abstract Expressionism on this blog than about pork or hamburgers.  It is in no way a forgotten episode in the history of modern art.  Never will be if MoMA has anything to do with it.

From the informative but cramped Greenberg v. Rosenberg showdown at the Jewish Museum in 2008 to the spacious 2008 show at the Haunch of Venison in the same year, I think I've done the dribblers and gesturists justice.  And let's not forget MoMA's own Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection show, a generous selection of AbEx's from a private donor back in 2007.

But bigger and better, of course, is the way to go.

London-Edinburgh-Brussels: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  October 18, 2010]

Ten years ago, with an arthritic foot and a copy of Dreiser's Sister Carrie, I was on the overnight to London Heathrow yet again.  In preference to dinner on the plane, I had made myself a fricassée of partridge before leaving.

Up-To-Date Vandaag

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  October 12, 2010]

Today, nobody seems to talk about Holland much.  Especially not about Dutch food.  But I have so many memories of Holland from days gone by.

 

Admittedly, not so much memories about restaurants.  More about gigs at the Melkweg, late night drives around Amsterdam looking for fast food and settling for raw beef sandwiches.  Getting lost in Rotterdam.  The long ferry ride from the UK.