Wilfrid

Another review of immense utility.

I used to really like March and certainly remember the beggar's purses. Correct.

I have to go outside today, but it looks significantly better than yesterday. I don't know if wimpiness about the weather comes with age. I remember, as a schoolkid (and therefore before the globe got warm) trudging to school through snowstorms. Now I try to avoid drizzle.

That might be the explanation. Her absence kind of jumped out at me. I bet Mishan expensed an Uber to Jersey City.

Well done.

That has certainly been the rumor. I think I tried to go years ago but couldn't get in. But that may be a false memory.

My phone says it "feels like" 16 degrees outside. I am inside. Guess I will stay inside.

Well that was better than expected. It's a while since I've been to a big, loud brasserie in New York and it was packed for the event, mainly with industry people who knew each other. I said hello to M. Auboyneau, who ate the food himself along with a fairly large party. An amuse platter featuring a slice of pâté, champignons de paris in some kind of white sauce and leeks vinaigrette. There were choices for the other courses. I went for the boudin and the entrecôte. The first came with cooked and raw apples and a really good potato purée featuring little salt crystals (probably from the butter used). The boudin itself was the soft, slightly sweet kind; it took me back to Chez Josephine. I think the entrecôte is pretty much a signature dish for Paul Bert, served in a rich sarawak pepper sauce. I think the steak was sous vide rather than grilled, but it certainly came out as ordered. Perfect fries, as you might expect from a Frenchette kitchen. Finally, a choice of profiteroles or rice pudding. I would not normally order either, but the latter, served cold, was really very good (I didn't finish it), topped with marinated prunes and strands of bitter orange peel. These days, I think $125 for four courses of decent bistro food is very reasonable.

Is Tejal out? The stars never went away. Korai Kitchen got three.

I am curious if anyone has seen the new version of Hedda with Tessa Thompson, especially if you have a positive take on it. I found it barely watchable, but it may be because it's an example of a type of cinema I personally don't like. Worst thing was the soundtrack, like endless repeatedly drum solo clips from Nostalgia in Times Square.

Plenty of laughs there, as long as you're not Mallmann (or his executive chef). relieved, to at last find something at La Boca that was straightforwardly unobjectionable...I started to laugh, and then nearly aspirated my bite of meat and choked to death, though I can’t fault the restaurant for that.

Hilton Als reviews the two shows inthe new New Yorker, but he starts off talking about that damn goat.

I might rethink that. I read Septology in 2020 or '21. I recently reread the first part. I read all Fosse's fiction as soon as it appears in English. There's no distance, as there was with Karamazov, Middlemarch, Quixote. I'm not sure it belongs on this list.

Crave might be worth a try. I go by the UWS location a lot.

Middle has Marched. Beautifully written from page one, but it is true to say the plot really picks up pace in the second half. And the closing pages are priceless. Where next? 17. Eliot, Middlemarch 18. Ellison. Invisible Man 19. One Faulkner or another 20. Some part of Septology 21. Gogol, Dead Souls 22. Goncharov, Oblomov Maybe I'll dip into Septology before Ellison. I will have to split those two funny, but again long, Russian novels apart.

Will look that up.

I need to control an urge to re-visit Portland, Maine just to eat oysters. At least I had additional reasons to go there last December. Is there anywhere in NYC serving a good selection of really good oysters?

Cool. Will check that out.

I must check again to see if it's in the library. It has been very popular. Meanwhile, residents of my building like to leave books in the lobby if they want to be rid of them. Occasional treasures there (I found a copy of Marcus Aurelius). From that source I am now reading Peter Guralnick's immense biography of Sam Cooke. As with his Elvis bio, almost overwhelming detail on gigs and recording sessions, but he makes it all interesting. And of course plenty of interesting people in the background; just introduced to a very young Dionne Warwick. From the same source, Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend. I have been avoiding those novels due to my usual suspicion of anything popular, but it was pretty good. I have the second volume of the quartet arriving Monday.

Yay, and flee communism. 😆

I must tell Ana (gratuitous Hinds reference).

That menu does look interesting, especially the Lady Edison Jin Hua ham. The Lady Edison country ham was a highlight of my trip to Richmond and the Jin Hua reads as even funkier.

(I suppose this is related to my pedantic and likely unpopular view of what a "review" should be. A nice article on these people and what they're doing would have been interesting. A "review" should surely have some utility.)

Right, it's the four things together: - They're serving a maximum of 30 covers per week - The very late finish to dinner - Dealing with public transit, not just to get back to the city, but then more than 100 blocks uptown from the PATH probably well after midnight (@mongo Going to Jersey City or Newark at the end of the evening to sleep is a different matter). - Nothing to drink.

Ah, good idea. I do have a flask but haven't used it in years. Imagining being ejected from the valuable seat in the storefront when they catch me taking a sly sip.