Table for One: In Search of Regulars at New York City's Restaurants

My apologies to everyone who has been patiently been asking for more. I've had this story written and waiting to be edited for a few weeks now, so here it is finally for you to read. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed my experience.

Bello Sguardo, Upper West Side
Amsterdam Avenue, between 79th and 80th Streets

"There's hardly enough light for you to read!" she said, offering me a candle wrapped in crimson paper from her table. "Well, that's not going to help any."

Indeed, there wouldn't be enough light for me to read my book, even so early at 8pm on an August night in New York City. The lack of adequate lighting completely defeated the purpose of my mid-week dinner out by myself. After a day of wandering around Central Park and the Upper West Side, I decided to end my day over a lone dinner to read my new book, enjoy a glass of wine and a caprese salad, and savor the lingering heat of day that evening at summer's end.

There is something about dining alone in New York that makes this very lonely practice rather acceptable. Every restaurant in the city has its regulars, and I'd wager that a large percentage of these regulars dine alone. Perhaps it is the comfort of returning every day to the same restaurant; the staff becomes like family, the customer's preferred table like his own dining table at home. But even amidst kissing couples, lively families, and groups of women on friend dates, a crowded restaurant can be rather comforting to those who dine alone. This is why, on that particular night in August, I decided to forgo scrolling through my cell phone contact list and
request a table for one.

That night at Bello Sguardo, a fine enough Mediterranean restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue, I found a bit of unexpected companionship. I was able to read only about a paragraph of my book (Picture Perfect, by Jodi Picoult) when my fellow diner interrupted to engage me in conversation. I found myself entranced by this woman, who told me an story more compelling than the one I read on paper -- the story of a woman's life, where love, family, creativity, and compromising truth and belief in oneself lead her here, next to me, to share my Table for One.

Stella, as she will be called for the sake of anonymity, is a regular at Bello Sguardo. With her jet black hair cut short in an incredibly elegant and stylish bob, she looked like an Italian Cleopatra on whom the waiters doted with a sort of maternal reverence. After she convinced me to order the Chopped Salad in place of the Caprese ("You'll get one tomato and a slice of cheese with the Caprese. The Chopped Salad is more interesting, or so it seems to me."), I ordered a glass of delightfully smooth and inexpensive Chablis, closed my book, and settled back for a simple meal and unexpected companionship.

Stella, like any good regular, called herself a very picky diner. Her meal, for example, was not on the menu. It was rather an accommodation by the restaurant's staff to suit her taste for that particular evening: mixed green vegetables, two rounds of eggplant parmigiana, and a spoonful of penne pomodoro. There hadn't been enough sauce on the eggplant, and she asked the waiter for more. "But you'll have to go downstairs to get it?" she asked, showing her knowledge of the complete topography of the restaurant. The waiter insisted on getting it for her, and so she agreed to have more sauce. Later she told me that she was hoping for string beans rather than mixed vegetables. She also complained --to me only -- that she should have been given Parmesan cheese. She resolved that just for tonight she wouldn't to be too picky.

I was curious to know why this attractive older woman would be dining alone. She was rather statuesque; her dark hair fell closely to her cheeks, as if to frame the features of her beautiful face. She wore the timeless combination of black and white clothing, and her manicured nails were polished a deep purple, just a few shades darker than her lipstick that painted her pouty lips. The only ring she wore was a simple, black band (made of plastic, she later confessed) on the pinky of her right hand.

When the waiter came to take my order, she encouraged me to ask for more feta cheese with my salad. I didn't, for once ordering straight off the menu without asking for changes. When I turned back to her, she looked both amused and disappointed.
"You didn't ask for more cheese..." she smiled.
"Oh, I didn't want to make a fuss. And those people over there look like they have the same salad with a nice bit of cheese on it."
"My children always say I'm too picky," she said, cutting a bite of eggplant with her fork. "I didn't realize I was picky. But I do think that the more I go to a place, like here, the more picky I become."

We talked for a bit about what made her picky: taste in food, taste in clothes, ("I have a pair of leather coolats with silk lining that I bought from Bergdorf Goodman's for $500. And that was in 1986, and I can still wear them... Ten, twenty, twenty-one years later."), and most importantly -- taste in men. She asked me what my past and present boyfriends had to say about my tendencies for pickiness. I laughed, and told her that it was less a question of my boyfriends' commenting on my pickiness, but rather a question of my friends who constantly comment on my pickiness when it comes to picking boyfriends. She chuckled, and then asked me to try to describe my perfect man.

For Stella, her perfect man had been her husband: "When I met him, I ran home and told my mother, 'I met my husband!' I knew right away." She looked nostalgic, and her eyes began to sparkle with dewy tears. "When I first saw him, he was sitting there with his hand on his chin, biting his thumb. His profile was so beautiful, chiseled like a statue."

Stella's husband was the brother of her good college friend, and Stella, after hearing about this brother all throughout college, finally concocted a plan to meet him. Their first meeting was a success, and after a year, they were married. "He made me feel safe and we just knew it was to be. We worked out the questions, and there were no doubts."

She told me about how her husband was a writer who composed beautiful poems to her, two of which she recited to me. Together, they had two children (two boys and a girl). "All I ever wanted were babies," she told me frankly. For her, a career was secondary to having a family. However, once the children came of age, Stella pursued the career of an actress. As a young girl, she did stage shows, but when she was older, she switched to film. "I did all the New York films," she told me humbly. "Serpico, Taxi Driver... I was in all of them. Back then, it was easy to get a part as an extra -- and I could take my babies to the set."

As her story goes, Stella entered the business rather "connected." She was discovered on stage by a fellow who told her to join the Italian-American division of the Screen Actors' Guild. As a bright young thing, she eagerly brought her new friend home to her father. "My father eyed him up and down, gave him a little upward nod. He did the same. It sealed the deal and I was in," she told me, touching my arm. "But when he left, my father screamed: 'What are you doing with a guy like Angelo?? Do you know who he works for?!?' But it didn't matter. Back then for us Italians, everybody worked for somebody."

We spent the whole evening wrapped in conversation about love, careers, food, and family. We touched on subjects that made her cry, we talked about things that inspired me to keep going for what I wanted and needed. At the end of the meal, she moved on to espresso, and asked her waiter if she could smoke. When he casually told her that she could not, she retorted by saying how she saw a friend of his smoking outside a few nights earlier. The waiter clearly couldn't argue with that, but out of politeness, Stella stood up and lit her smoke just on the border of the terrace. Like a star from an old film, she took long drags between thoughts, resting her elbow on the back of her opposite hand. "I think I'm starting to figure you out," she told me. And then she described me in almost perfect detail, and set me on course with a plan.

Once her espresso was finished, it was time for us both to go. We paid our checks (hers considerably less than mine -- another perk of being a regular) and we stood up to walk a bit together up the Avenue. We paused for a few moments at a sidewalk bench, and she lit up another cigarette "for digestion." As the ten o'clock hour neared, Stella turned to me and thanked me for my company, and excused herself to walk home alone into the summer evening.

Stella left me with some important advice, as well as other stories about her life which I guard for the sake of keeping the confidence with which she trusted me by recounting them. Of the many things I came to understand over that dinner with Stella, the most important lesson she seemed to stress was that we do not always have all of the answers. She encouraged us to live life with a little bit of recklessness in order to follow what the heart compels tells us to do. It seems that this philosophy has worked for Stella throughout her storied life. Even though now she dines alone, Stella has lived an entire life of fulfillment, where all of her hopes and needs were fulfilled. It is this life and the memories from it that have remained her trusted company through many a Table for One.

Sage-Wrapped Lamb Sausages with Lentil Salad

As I write this entry from my parent's sunny porch in Connecticut, violet dragonfly bugs of various sizes are buzzing around my chaise, stopping now and again to perch atop my laptop keyboard. Summer has finally arrived in New England: it is cool and breezy in the shade, but hot and bright in the noonday sun.

Last night I shared dinner with my parents outside around their gas-powered fire pit, where we stayed outside late sipping Bordeaux until my younger sister came home with a handful of friends, marshmallows and samurai-sword-shaped grilling spears to make s'mores.

With long days and a fire pit to keep the nights warm, summer dinners are best when begun late and linger through the late hours of night. I love the summer season because local produce is at its best: heirloom tomatoes, peaches, yellow squash and red peppers are some of my seasonal favorites. My mother's herb garden is always pouring over with foliage by July; with two kinds of basil, large-leafed sage, chives, mint, oregano, rosemary, cilantro and garlic, we are always equipped to prepare a meal with the freshest of ingredients.

Late this summer, Goûter will be undergoing a few exciting changes. By summer's end, I will run a feature on the benefits of eating locally and give you recipes from my farmer's market dinner party. To tempt your palate, here is a sample recipe from the forthcoming farmer's market meal, which we tested around the fire pit last night. These Sage-Wrapped Lamb Sausages with Lentil Salad use locally-made lamb sausages from a farmer in East Lyme, CT, herbs and garlic scapes from my mother's garden, and a special sea salt from the Netherlands Antilles. Coincidentally, this recipe is a nice combination of the food I discovered in England, made with these few special ingredients I can only find at home.

SAGE-WRAPPED LAMB SAUSAGES with LENTIL SALAD

For the sausages:

8 large links lamb sausages

16 large sage leaves

For the lentil salad:

1 cup dried French green lentils

4-6 c water

1/2 c baby carrots

4 garlic scapes, separating upper bulb from tender part of stalks

1/4 c fennel, diced

1/4 c fennel fronds

1/4 c celery leaves, finely chopped

3 Tbsp chives, chopped

3 Tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped

2-3 Tbsp red wine vinegar

4-6 Tbsp fine extra virgin olive oil

Herbed sea salt and finely ground pepper, to taste

Heat grill on high heat.

Bring 4-6 cups water to a boil. Add baby carrots and tender scapes. Lower heat, remove once carrots are cooked but still slightly firm. Remove carrots and scapes, finely dice, and put into large bowl. Set aside.

Bring water to a boil again, adding one cup of dried French green lentils. Do not add salt to the water as it will cause the lentils to toughen. Add 1-3 smashed garlic cloves, a stem of a fennel frond, and stir. Bring heat to medium and let cook for 20mins.

While lentils are cooking, finely chop the fennel fronds, celery leaves, scape bulbs, chives and mint. Add to carrots and stalks in large mixing bowl.

When lentils are tender, strain water, then add lentils to ingredients in mixing bowl. Add red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Gently mix to incorporate all ingredients. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

To grill sausages, use two skewers per sausage stack to hold sausages in place while grilling. Pierce skewers through sausages on either end of links, with about 1-inch between the skewers. Alternate sausage links with lengthwise sage leaves, so that the sage leaves "wrap" around the sausages while grilling. This will infuse the sausages with the flavor of sage.

Turn grill to low and grills sausages, flipping occasionally, until cooked. Attend to the sausages regularly to be sure that the sage leaves to not catch fire. Because fresh leaves are used, the water in the leaves should keep them from catching fire, and they will crisp nicely.

Arrange sausages, grilled sage, and lentil salad on a plate, garnishing with a colorful piece of grilled vegetable, such as yellow squash. Serve sausages warm and enjoy with a French Bordeaux.


Bon Appétit!

Grilled Pizza

A few years ago, my mother got a brand-new double oven with a pizza stone in the bottom unit. The purchase prompted a winter-long foray into the delights of homemade pizza, with seasonal ingredients for toppings, and pizza dough that was always made from scratch (and a variety of health-conscious flours). My father and mother would call me in New York to relish in their latest pizza discoveries, including ingredients like parma prociutto, fresh herbs, winter squash, Piave cheese, smoked mozzarella, and even tofu. The era of the Boboli pizza was thankfully over, but with the coming of summer heat, my mother forbid anyone from turning on the oven, and my family's obsession with artisanal pizza was halted.

That is, until Italian cuisine guru Mario Batali introduced me (not personally, though I have seen him scooting around the West Village on his sea foam green Vespa and bright orange Crocs) to the wonders of grilled pizza with his recipe for Grilled Marghertia and Olive-Fontina Pizza.

With a cool, oven-heat-free house, my family's faith in and appetite for pizza was restored. When I went home for Memorial Day weekend this year, we kicked off our summer with an old grilled favorite: Grilled Pizza with Grilled Onions, Arugula, and Goat cheese. My recipe calls for the onions to be grilled, lending a rich, smoky flavor, and a quick dough that doesn't require hours of rising time, but still retains a fluffy, doughy quality that crisps nicely when grilled.


GRILLED PIZZA WITH ONION, ARUGULA AND GOAT CHEESE


For the dough:

2 c. whole wheat flour
1 pkg. or 1 tbsp. active dry yeast
3/4 tsp. salt
1 c. warm water
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. honey

For toppings:

1 Vidalia or Spanish onion
1 handful of fresh baby Arugula
1/4 cup of Goat Cheese
Olive oil
Minced herbs
Salt & Pepper


Heat grill on high and cover to retain heat.

Pour flour into a large mixing bowl or electric mixer. Add yeast and salt, and mix well (on slow speed if using mixer). Add water, oil and honey, and mix well to incorporate into a dough. Whole wheat sometimes needs more water than white flour, so if dough seems dry, add a bit more water. Knead the dough a few times into a ball. Cover with a moist cloth and place in a warm spot for 10 minutes to rise.

Cut onion in half, cutting east-west, to reveal circular onion ring. Remove skin. Slice onion into 1/2-inch circles. Brush with olive oil or spray with cooking spray and set on grill on low heat, monitoring them carefully so that they become soft and turn brown, but not char or burn. Separate rings in a pile onto a plate.

For a delicious olive-oil pizza base, put minced herbs in a small bowl with a pinch of salt and a pepper. Add enough oil so that the mixture is 1/4 herbs and 3/4 oil. Set aside. Crumble goat cheese onto a small dish and set aside. Measure out enough arugula to cover pizza and set aside on a small dish. Put all prepared ingredients (this is called the mise en place) on a tray to take outside, where you will put the pizza together on the grill.

Before heading outside to the grill, pound and knead out dough into desired circular shape, about 1/2-inch thick. The amounts of this recipe can make two smaller, manageably-sized pizzas. Place on a board to take outside.

Take all ingredients outside to the grill, with a brush for the olive oil and a large grilling spatula to flip pizza.

Brush one side of the pizzas with olive oil and herb concoction, and place the olive oil side directly on the grill on medium heat. Brush the other side of the raw dough with oil. After about 7-10mins, or when browned and grill marks show, and flip to other side carefully. After about 5mins, brush grilled top with olive oil again. Carefully put arugula on grilled top, followed by crumbles of cheese, and then the onions, to weigh down. Close cover on grill, and let cook for another 5-7mins, or until toppings are cooked and bottom of crust is browned.

Remove pizzas and arrange on board. Cut pizza into small wedges or rectangular strips. Serve as an appetizer or as a main course with salad.

This particular pizza goes well with a light, summer wine. We had a nice Sancerre, whose melon, citrus, and mineral tones were a refreshing complement to the rich, grilled flavor of the pizza.

Buon appetito!

Pasta Pomodoro

Apparently, Plato said: "No town can live peacefully whatever its laws when its citizens ... do nothing but feast and drink and tire themselves out in the cares of love."

It seems as though Plato was a few centuries too early to understand what it means to be a real Italian: that peace exists most often in those moments of feasting, drinking, and loving -- and that the chaotic combination of the three is sometimes the most fun of times.

Not that I, an American born half-blood Italian, can claim to understand completely what it means to be part of that warm-blooded, tempestuous, and sensual people (though some would contest that I do), but I can say confidently that I do know Italian cuisine. My heart pumps red sauce, balsamic vinegar, and Barolo wine.

Like any good Italian, I believe that food is about love. I first learned to cook in an effort to romance a boy into liking me. Unfortunately, my Portuguese mother and I didn't take into account that he was a WASP, and food was not an important part of his family upbringing. Needless to say, I didn't win his 12-year-old heart, but I did learn the most invaluable cooking lesson: how to make a perfect, hearty, and irresistible pasta pomodoro.

To welcome home my best friend Josh from his four-month celebration of life in Ghana, and in part to say goodbye to my dear friend Naomi who will soon return home to the UK, I decided to prepare a simple summer pasta pomodoro dinner for them and my roommates, just in time to welcome the beginning of a very, very hot summer in New York.

***

PASTA POMODORO
(serves six)

















4 1-Pint crates of cherry tomatoes, rinsed
1/2 Vidalia onion
1 small head of garlic
1 Tbsp Olive oil
1/4 cup Italian red wine
Salt and pepper, to taste
A few Basil stems
1 packet spaghetti or angel hair pasta
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

Cut all tomatoes into 8-small pieces by first cutting twice in the north-south direction, and then once east-west (thinking of the cherry tomato as a globe). Set aside. Cut onion in half, east-west, then remove skin of one half of the onion. Make thin, 1/4-inch slices along the semi-circle curve side of the onion. Cut all slices in half to make quarter-circles. Set aside. Remove garlic from skin by smashing cloves with the broad side of a chef's knife.

Heat a large sauce pan over high heat. When hot, add olive oil and toss in onions. Saute until they begin to soften, then add garlic. Continue cooking until onions turn golden brown, but be careful not to overcook or burn the garlic heads.

Add tomatoes and stir to incorporate all of the ingredients. Reduce to medium heat. Let mixture cook, stirring occasionally. When tomatoes become soft and juicy, add wine and stir slowly, folding the wine into the tomatoes. Let cook on medium heat for about ten minutes, or until fragrant, stirring occasionally.

When mixture begins to resemble a chunky sauce, add salt and pepper and a few whole basil leaves. Turn to low heat and let simmer.

Fill a large pot with water, add a few pinches of salt, and boil. When water comes to a fierce boil, add pasta and turn to medium heat so water is just barely bubbling, about 3-5 mins for white pasta, 10-12 minutes for whole wheat pasta. When just al dente, drain. Return pasta to empty pot, add about a teaspoon of olive oil and a pinch of salt -- to avoid pasta from sticking.

Take a few large leaves of basil, roll along the long side like a cigarette, and slice into little curls. This technique, the chiffonade, keeps from bruising the basil.

Using a large fork, twirl a serving size of pasta and add to plate, styling like a bird's nest. Add a heaping spoonful of pomodoro to the center so that it overflows down the sides of the nest. Garnish with grated parmesan cheese, followed by a few basil chiffonades.

Serve with a favorite Italian wine, someone you love, and enjoy.