Today Melissa and I reveled in a long, jam-packed day in Midtown Manhattan today, so, here's fair warning, this will be a long, jam-packed post about our day -- a post that will burst the seams of the Three Beautiful Things structure.
1. Melissa and I left the Airbnb around 7:30 and crawled across the Tappan Zee Bridge and arrived at the train station in Tarrytown. Melissa volunteered to use payme.com to pay for our parking meter and it was a bit confusing, but after a couple of phone calls, we felt confident that we had paid for our parking and that the rental car was going to get ticketed or towed. About twelve hours later, we discovered our confidence was well placed!
Our train glided south, first to Harlem/125th Street and then into the nearly lightless catacomb of Grand Central Terminal. We hopped off the train and a blast of hot, almost chunky air hit us and we joined the pack of other travelers and scurried toward the lighted and cooler environment of the main terminal itself.
Looking for coffee and a bite to eat, we slipped into the stunning Grand Central Market. We struck out looking for coffee, but I purchased and ate a pumpernickel bagel that not only slightly filled me, but gave me a burst of energy sufficient to join Melissa on the crammed streets of Midtown to find a life-saving Starbucks.
Even though it was only about 9:30, the morning was starting to get steamy and we could tell we were going to be in for a scorching and humid day. Nonetheless, we bucked up, and walked about ten blocks to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) at 11 W 53rd Street. On Sunday, Josh had given us pass for the museum which allowed us to enter it earlier than non-members. I was immediately struck by how light and airy MoMA is. Melissa and I went our own ways, and I had a most stimulating tour of different galleries in the museum. I was relieved that the galleries were not packed with art, leaving plenty of space between the paintings and sculptures and mobiles and other pieces and that the gallery rooms were plenty large, able to accommodate the swelling numbers of people visiting.
I especially enjoyed the paintings I gazed at by Wyeth, Hopper, Matisse, Monet, Van Gogh, Pollack, But I spent most of my visit seated in front of a video loop of four short films by Ernie Gehr entitled, "Greene Street", "Noon Time Activities", "Workers Leaving the Factory" and "Essex Street Market". Taken together, the films ran for just over an hour. "Greene Street" is in color, but the others are black and white, all shot in 16mm sometime in the 1970s.
They are silent films. They depict everyday life in Manhattan with scenes occuring on the subway, at diner counters, at food, shoe, and newspaper stalls, outdoors in a blizzard, and in restaurants. "Greene Street" is meditation upon light and shadow as Gehr filmed the shadows cast by a source I'm unsure of on a brownstone building, making the solid brick structure seem ethereal, insubstantial. I loved watching these films. It was as if I were seeing a gallery of street photography on film as Gehr captured the various expressions of a wide variety of people as they ate, drank coffee, shined shoes, sold ware, conversed with others, and went about their daily lives.
2. Melissa and I are both friends with Erik Martin from back in the days when Melissa and the Deke and Erik worked at the Oregon Festival of American Music, now located at the Shedd in Eugene. Erik now works as a Vice President for the David Lynch Foundation and his office is near Grand Central in Midtown. Erik met us at MoMa and we launched into a relaxing, but whirlwindish tour of Midtown.
Here's what we did:
A. We crossed 54th Street at MoMA and entered Xi'an Famous Foods, a casual counter service restaurant serving the cuisine of the city of Xi'an located in northwest China. Want to know more about this local chain of New York City restaurants? Go here. Xi'an Famous Foods on W. 54th street is like so many eating spots in Manhattan: long and narrow. It has no tables. Along each of the two walls is a counter with short stools. Erik ordered a ton of food at the counter. Xi'an specializes in hand-ripped biang-biang noodles, wide and very long noodles, served spicy on a plate with one's choice of meat or vegetable. We had cumin lamb noodles and plate of stewed oxtail noodles. Erik also ordered spinach dumplings and lamb dumplings, a divine green salad, an equally delicious cucumber salad and we shared a stewed pork burger made with flatbread.
I loved this food. It was a cornucopia of textures, spices, meats, vegetables, and flavors. I had never eaten Xi'an food before and I will leap at the opportunity, should I ever have another chance!
B. We staggered out of Xi'an Famous Foods and made our way to the Milk Bar Bakery where Erik insisted, to our delight, that we try a dish of Morning Cereal soft serve ice cream. The idea of this dessert is experience eating the last remains of one's cold cereal that is swimming in the last of the milk in the bowl. With nowhere to sit at the Milk Bar Bakery, we headed back outside where the steamy air began to melt our dessert, but we ate as much as we could with vanilla ice cream streaming down our forearms before giving up about half way through and disposing of what was left. It was a very tasty and refreshing, if slightly messy, treat.
C. Melissa wanted an authentic espresso drink, so we went into another deep and narrow establishment, the Zibetto Espresso Bar, staffed by Italian men dressed in white shirts and tiesand speaking in Italian, serving tiny cups of espresso and espresso drinks. Several customers were standing at a narrow counter opposite the espresso bar, sipping their drinks and Melissa joined right in while Erik and I waited a few minutes for her to finish.
D. Now, keep in mind, if you'd like, that in my several trips to NYC, I had never ventured north of Grand Central Terminal. My walks and my explorations had always been in the direction of Lower Manhattan, especially Greenwich Village.
So, everything we did today was brand new to me. I was really pumped when Erik suggested we make a shallow foray into Central Park. It was a workout because of the heat and the humidity, but we walked a short distance in the park and then found a shaded bench where we rested, continued the superb yakking that had marked this entire time together. Rested, we trudged over to the Plaza Hotel, hoping to have a cocktail, but that was not to be, so we gawked at its Old World splendor, hopped in an Uber and got out at St. Patrick's Cathedral for more reverential gawking and awe.
E. Our hope was to have cocktails at Middle Branch, a subterranean bar on 33rd St., but it was unceremoniously and mysteriously closed. So we went to the Cask across the street for a refreshing drink.
F. We then dog-paddled in the humidity down Lexington Street so we could stop in at the most awe-inspiring grocery store I've ever been in. It's called Kalustyan's and it's a store fully stocked with a dizzying variety of Indian and Mediterranean spices and teas and other global food items. I walked throughout the store in a trance, in a state of rapture, looking at the scores of curry powders, salts, beans, rices, teas, cooking utensils and other glorious stuff. I suddenly realized how very small my cooking horizons really are -- that's not a bad thing, to be totally humbled -- and found myself dreaming about living near such a shop and figuring out all the different meals I could cook with this stunning array of ingredients.
I almost asked one of the proprietors if he or she would consider opening a Kalustyan's in Kellogg, but thought maybe these busy shop owners didn't share my sense of the absurd. But, if I want to, I can shop online at this store. If you'd like to check it out, just click here.
3. Erik, Melissa, and I agreed that we would go to a Norwegian bar in Grand Central Terminal and bid one another farewell with a cocktail or two to cap off our day. Evening was beginning to crawl in. Our walk up Lexington was slightly cooler. We ducked quickly into the Crysler building to look at the wood inlaid elevator doors because it was our understanding that Erik, Melissa, and the Deke's former employer at OFAM had ordered a refrigerator custom made with doors like these. I was dumbstruck.
We skipped on across the street and found The Bar in the Great Northern Food Hall and I ordered a Jackie Kennedy Daiquiri that featured an almond liqueur and then an apple cider and ginger drink with rosemary.
Erik, Melissa, and I continued our superb yakking and after an hour or so decided that we need to end our time together. We toasted each other farewell, embraced, hoped we would see each other again soon and that the Deke would be a part of our party next time (she spent today with Adrienne).
Melissa and I found our train back to Tarrytown, were relieved that the rental car had neither been ticketed nor towed, and returned to Piermont and the Airbnb where the Deke awaited us and we gabbed for about an hour, each reviewing our day.
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