Wilfrid

A quick weekend trip coming up. Vernick does look good, but for one diner it's walk-ins only. However, there are half a dozen promising-looking restaurants nearby around Rittenhouse Square, so I will try my luck. Sunday, Forsythia, which looks like my kind of menu.

Still not working yesterday, although I could make the app work as long as I wasn't on my home network. Maybe it's my home network. No, today I am back at my desktop, on my home network, and it's working fine.

Based on my experience at the Orange Glou festival last summer, there are many, many shades of orange-amber-skin contact wine.

If he doesn't like bad reviews he should serve better food. (I have not been to TFL; this is based on three dinners at Per Se and Pete Wells was right to reduce it to two stars.

A very substantial dinner at Francie. Happy to say, I am still getting the soignée treatment. Interesting conversation with Mr Winterman about cultivating ramps. GREEN ASPARAGUS ramps, anchovy, salsa verde DUCK PITHIVIER citrus, pistachio, sauce bigarade ELYSIAN FIELDS LAMB fava bean, black olive, all'ascolana CHEESES The asparagus dish was intense in the best way, the anchovy component a sort of small purée. The pithivier was a neat little duck pie but the star there was the outstanding sauce bigarade. Lamb: I thought from the menu that the olive was going to be all'ascolana, but the breading treatment was actually applied to a sort of lamb meatball. Well marbled slices from a lamb chop. I would say the sauce here was a little salty. Cheeses were ones not on the website menu and I didn't note the names; they were all new to me except a comped chunk of Hooligan. Also new to me, a Georgian orange wine called Rkatsiteli.

Correct. Haven't heard it in a while. Elvis had moved on from Clover by then I guess.

Susan Saint James (no I don't remember her character's name).

Quincy. Banacek. Harry O. Matt Helm. McCloud. McMillan & Wife. Hart to Hart. Starsky & Hutch. (I found a list). For some reason, I could manage to sit through Police Woman occasionally.

(That's another cover Hinds should do.)

The Clash in 1977: "American detectives are always on the TV/'Cos killers in America work seven days a week..." Columbo, Cannon, Kojak, Rockford, probably still Ironside reruns and more I've forgotten. Perhaps exaggerated by the very few TV channels in the UK it did seem like 24/7 just the facts ma'am. Not cool to be watching, so -- being cool -- I didn't.

When I first moved to New York there was almost nowhere to buy cheese. Okay there was Murray's; there was a place on Eighth Avenue; and you could get Italian cheese at an Italian specialty store. And you would search hard for a cheese course even in the old school French restaurants. Now there are more cheese shops than I can keep up with. I wandered Cobble Hill at the weekend and came across Lea Fromages on Smith Street. French run, nice curation of French cheese and charcuterie, lovely people. And here I am strolling down to Francie, and at that end of Bedford Avenue there's a bijou cheese shop called Eastern Districts. I didn't go in because I am kind of loaded up on cheese right now.

Anyone else had problems with Resy recently? I have been battling it for a couple of weeks now. Usually works after a few tries. Today, web version: click any restaurant and there is no availability for a party of any size ever (it may be that it's trying and failing to load availability). Desktop and iPhone the same. Today, app: click any restaurant, Something Went Wrong Go Back/Retry. I guess I'll wait a couple of hours and try again. Or I could use the Telephone.

I think they need to make a bit more money before that happens. Last trip to New York, they had to borrow a guitar from the support band halfway through the set.

Four months later, I've just read Picasso and His Friends by Fernande Olivier. The book, covering the years 1903-1914, was heavily featured in the exhibit along with some of Olivier's art. She lived with Picasso for most of those years, which, as Francoise Gilot would confirm, is a good way to get your own art overlooked. It's a period in which Picasso transformed from the starving artist in the Bateau Lavoir to the rather successful artist in a nice apartment; also when he moved in a ridiculous circle of talent -- Apollinaire, Braque, Modigliani, Matisse. Olivier was right there and the simply written memoir is fascinating. She confidently assesses some of the artists in the group (Juan Gris not particularly gifted) and her view of Picasso is, well, unillusioned. This took me four months to get to because my library's edition was out for repair.

The Adam West/Burt Ward? I grew up with it and had no idea it wasn't serious. Shout out to Eartha Kitt, Cesar Romero, Frank Gorshin, Burgess Meredith.

Because I missed them.

New thing from the last few show, Ana now casually hoists Cisi on one shoulder.

Oh right, "crisp" is adjective enough. I take your point.

Should see the line outside Lexington Candy Shop. 😵‍💫

I'll be honest, I didn't watch Columbo or Cannon or Kojak, etc, so I don't know.

I love scrapple but you really do have to get the pan so hot that water explodes from it (and crank up the extractor fans) because it must be crispy.

Columbo, meh. Episode 2 is just terrifying. No spoiler, but conjures a personal terror for me, then just makes it worse. Jumping out of the armchair saying fuck no sort of thing.

Thanks for that and will think about it.

I never met her but I remember her posts well.

For sure. I wore those for years.