Victory Song - A Reader Writes

The Ultimate Tuna Melt

I have long searched for the best tuna melt.  In my quest, I  have suffered many a cold, weakly toasted English Muffin topped with a slice of mealy, spongy tomato under a scoop of cold, mayonnaise-slathered tuna salad covered with one slightly melted slice of flimsy cheese.

This horrifying experience can be saved with a good pickle or chips, of course, but the real mission is to have a yummy tuna melt.

I am please to report that I have found it!  Mecca is here in New York City, a block from my office on Park Avenue South at Emma's deli.  These guys do it right.

Here is the trick- you first make a grilled cheese sandwich with provolone on rye.  Use butter.  (Add tomatoes here if you like.)  Then, you take the lightly dressed tuna salad mixed with bits of celery and pickle and grill it like a hamburger, just until the tuna is warm through. You then place the warm tuna inside the hot grilled cheese sandwich, and close it up.

Ahhhh. This is heaven. It's also full of butter and fat, which is probably why I like it.

I was waxing on eloquent about the sheer joy and beauty of this sandwich to my friend Ninon at the office.  I tend to get pretty passionate about this.  Especially when it's 2 p.m. and I'm hungry.  She is a good sport and agreed to try it.  I talked the sandwich up so much that she started to back out of it... but I insisted.  After we both gorge on our treats, she ended up saying with a little bit of enthusiasm and a kind, generous smile, "Yes, it was okay."

She's a good friend and I still like her despite the fact that she doesn't get it about tuna melts.  This is NOT an "okay" experience. This is sensual, electrifying and oh so satisfying.

I may have to invest in Emma's - if they ever go out of business I will be so sad.  Meanwhile, I try to limit my tuna melt adventures to once a month. It's very hard.

Emma's also has amazing cole slaw.  I just love these guys.

NOTE:  I had a very similar Tuna Melt experience at (you won't believe it) Friendly's -- the restaurant chain that I happened to work in my youth and pretty much paid for college.  They do the same thing - butter, grilled cheese, warm through, thick sourdough bread.  Worth every calorie!  Thanks to brother Gary and his fabulous wife Sarah for bringing me there (with their two charming kids who had not the slightest interest in my tuna melt, but did wonder why I put mustard on my fries.)

Who Needs Jeremy Pivens?

Many people know that Jeremy Pivens left his Broadway contract with "Speed the Plow" abruptly in December due to mercury poisoning, rumored to have been caused by eating too much sushi.  Show author David Mamet was quoted in the Huffington Post, "I talked to Jeremy on the phone, and he told me that he discovered that he had a very high level of mercury," Mamet said. "So my understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer."

Doesn't matter, although of course I hope Mr. Pivens is okay.  The show is awesome.  I saw the show with replacement Norbert Leo Butz (of Rent and Dirty Rotten Scoundrelsfame, and whom I saw in the original cast of Wicked.)  He was incredible.  And even more incredible was the beautiful energy between Butz and actors Raul Esparza (whom I saw in Company last year) and Elisabeth Moss (who is best known for her HBO role in "MadMen"). 

There's a bit of irony in all this.  The show is a fast-paced two days in Hollywood, where everyone is ambitious and back-stabbing and selfish.  Butz (Bobby Gould) and Esparza (Charlie Fox) are such ruthless producers that they are almost characatures of themselves.  Moss (Karen) is a temp filling in for Bobby's secretary.   She appears naive.  But of course, is not. 

Bobby and Charlie are excited to be able to present a great, sure-win movie (along with a coveted lead actor) to the studio head.  They are sure this is going to be their trip to the big time.  They have worked together for 11 years and while they circle around each other a bit, they say that they are friend. Genuine friends.  Of course, what does that mean in Hollywood?  Not much.  Right.  Let's do lunch, baby.  That is the crux of the tension in the play.

So the irony is that Pivens, who was supposed to be so central to the success of the show, bails out for what at first seems like a bogus health claim (although apparently he really was sick), and the cast and Mamet do not rally around him - letting him go down in a howl of laughter from the industry.  That is typical Hollywood behavior, right?  You abandon the guy just when he needs you most - and you never hang on to friends in a tailspin.

More irony.  The way I heard about this play was from a very friendly (and, now that I remember, pretty loud. No Irony there!) guy that I met at a singles gathering who was telling me all about how he's an investor in this sure-fire, white hot Broadway play.  It's Speed-the-Plow, he tells me.  And of course he's very important to the investor team.

I'm always up for a play, so I get a ticket.  Ironic that despite his eagerness to "stay in touch, honey" I haven't seen or heard from this Mr. Investor guy.  How much more Hollywood can you get?

I still loved the play, all irony aside.   The timing of the piece demands incredible precision and the three actors are clearly enjoying themselves.  The dialog is a repartee - back and forth and forth and back... they miss one beat and the whole thing collapses into nonsense.  It's a hard play to perform. And they all did an amazing job, especially Esparza and Butz.

We do live in a rough, political world. And we all need friends to see us through - good and bad, when we soar with eagles or when we make stupid mistakes. For all the bravado and the hype, turns out that Bobby and Charlie really ARE friends.  The stuff of champions.  And that, perhaps, is the biggest irony of all.

If you can get a ticket - go see Speed-the-Plow. It ends soon!

One of the Best Dark Chocolate Mints Ever

I'm a sucker for a dark chocolate mint.  Ah, how they melt on your tongue.  Savor that irresistible combo of flavors.  Red wine?  Coffee?  This is the sole decision you are left to make - other than if you should have more than one more!

My dear friend Meredith and her charming beau Anthony came to NY from Chicago and I was lucky enough to get to have dinner with them on Christmas night.  We ate at Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles on Park Avenue - and had a wonderful and delicious meal!  Most of all, the company was sublime!

Letting me crash the party was already such a treat, but the thoughtful and generous MK also brought a box of Frango's Dark Chocolate Mints.  I had never heard of Frango's - a Marshall Field brand that apparently was only sold in Chicago for the longest time, although now you can get them in Macy's or even on Amazon.

I recommend you order now and stock up.

Thanks Meredith and Anthony!  Yum.

Why I Love New York

Three whole days by myself in New York - the guests, although most welcome, are gone.  The cooking and baking, although enjoyable and fruitful, has provided a treasure trove of leftovers and so the pots stay in the cupboard.   The holidays, although magical, are blessedly over.  The weather is fine and chilly.   I'm rubbing my hands in glee - oh what of the many options shall I do?

Friday I purge part of my clutter.  Wow does that feel good. I take all I can carry up to the Holy Name Thrift Store (thanks, Eileen!).  I still have at least two more loads. They are wonderful there, and most gracious.  There is a lot of great stuff here!, I say out loud to the woman taking my stuff.  She laughs.  But no buying, Stephanie. You are in purge mode.

I go stand in line at the Times Square TKTS booth to get half price tickets to a show.  I wait in the cold line for about 90 minutes.  Okay except for fingers.  Keep thinking I would leave but then felt I had already committed too much to abandon.  Have a good book, so the time is well spent.  I get a good deal on Dividing the Estate, which was mediocre - read about it here.   But that is still hours away.

I walk over to the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) and see the Van Gogh exhibit. Wow, some paintings almost no one has ever seen or heard of before. Here is a very famous artist. And there are private collections that no one has ever displayed in a museum before?  Still?  Wow.  That is an astonishing thought.  How cool for future generations!  I discuss with a young Irish man as we wait in line for coats the merit of private collections vs. public access to great art.  Is it still great art if only a few people see it?  Is that "fair"?  Should fairness have anything to do with it?   We come to no great conclusions. merely questions.

Saturday dawns bright and clear.  I must see the Angel Tree at the Met Museum.  On the way is the NY Historical Society where I see a wonderful exhibit on Grant and Lee. Turns out they were at West Point together.  Lee was at the top of his class, and Grant so far below that he was assigned to the infantry.  They fought alongside each other in the Mexican American war.  Their field training could not have been more different - which of course manifest in the approaches they took in various battles.  What a gruesome and horrific war this was.  Bloody and such high death tolls that it's nothing short of barbaric.  This just 150 years ago, and waged by "civilized men."  (Why does this surprise me so?  Look at Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, Rwanda....) 

A very chilling exhibit discussesthe "White Leagues" of the South that ran rampant after the war -- preventing many a Republican - black or white - from holding office or maintaining the peace or strengthening the economy.   The White Leagues just shot the Republicans - shot them as they sat in session and as they tried to escape.  Think that there have never been acts of terrorism, coup d'etats,  or self-inflicted civilian massacres on American soil?  Guess again.

A sober walk across Central Park brought me back to the present.  I treat myself to a ramble in the Ramble, the area of winding paths and rough, rock-strewn hills.  Even in winter with the branches bare, you can not tell you are in the middle of one of the most densely populated areas on earth.  Those designers were masterful.

The Met is teaming with visitors, a good sign for art and love and joy everywhere.... but, honestly, sort of annoying.  I wander through European art until I reach my favorite painting - Joan of Arc by Francis Bastien-LePage.  I take the Italian Renaissance Art of Love tour.   Imagine painting the bed posts of your son's bridal chamber with erotic images and quotations of love and sex.  Rock on, Italia!

I sneak down the back stairs and slowly circle the Angel Tree with it's incredible creche and Nativity scene.  I listen to the many voices and languages speaking in hushed tones.  What a wonderful museum.

I walk up Fifth Avenue and stop for coffee at Cafe Sabarsky in the Neue Gallery.  The best coffee in the city.  A jazz pianist is playing softly in the corner.  The charming but has-to-be-60 waiter winks at me and I stare back, surprised, until I realize that there are two gents who speak with Southern accents sitting behind me, debating who is going to talk to me first.  I put them both out of their misery and quietly depart.

Up a few blocks is the fabulous Frick Museum.  An industrialist of the 18th Century, Henry Clay Frick was already a millionaire when he built this incredible home. He wanted it to be a museum, and thoughtfully provided wide hallways, convenient square footprint and a luxurious garden and courtyard. His art collection is astounding in diversity and elegance. But I personally love the library.  I could sit on the floor in that room and just read spines all day. But they don't let you sit on the floor - unfortunately.

I rush home for a snack, shower and dash to meet a friend I met through a clown workshop at Slava's Snow Show - on Broadway for the holidays.  Talk about magic.  This Slava guy is masterful.  The audience is in high spirits and the snow falls all around us.   Children literally scream with laughter.  I am, as always, totally jazzed by the joy clowns give us.  Thoughtful joy - it's not simply happy or sad.  It's your own shades of grey reflected and even celebrated.  I say this to Mr. Slava as we congratulate him and thank him for the performance.  He cocks his head to one side and then kisses the back of my hand. I take this as a form of high compliment.

I text a friend to meet me at the neighborhood wine bar.  Many glasses later we are teasing the bus boy about where NOT to get a tattoo.  Oh my.  It's a three aspirin morning on Sunday.

To wipe away the headache, I walk along the Hudson River where the wind and cold chap my lips and cheeks.  There is no one about and the green fields yield none of the noise and commotion of the summer.   It's peaceful.  Sleeping.  I pick up sticks.

The matinee at the Irish Rep is a musical of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' Childhood Magical Memories. I know nothing of Thomas, but love the singing and the poems.  Tap my foot the whole time and laugh out loud at some of the great lines so well delivered.  My friend Rita, who does know poetry and is Scottish, says that he's one of the best.  Goal: find some great Dylan Thomas to explore.

I hate to re-enter my real life on Monday.  But am so blessed to be able to live in a city where I can have such a  diverse set of experiences in one weekend.  And Saturday is only six days away!

A Sad Thing: Theater that Disapoints

There is nothing sadder than leaving a Broadway theater uninspired.

Yet that was my feeling last night after I saw Dividing the Estate.  The play was, frankly, mediocre.  What a shame. I expect to leave Broadway with my heart singing - in some way - either by the music, the clever jokes, some wonderful character or perhaps just musing some thoughtful revere sparked by the dialog.  Nope. 

Here is what I got:  Dysfunctional family with one dimensional characters; weak actors playing the secondary roles* with stiff presentation (you never left the fact that this was a play and the people merely players.  That is a bad thing.  I want magic! I want to be transported.); a plot that is nothing more than the longest, most boring, one joke story in history. The combination was just not working for me.

Somewhat notable is actress Hallie Foote, who plays youngest daughter/high strung mother/biggest whiner Mary Jo.   She has great timing and subtle physical comedy that makes me think that she'd be amazing if the character had any more than a two-step spectrum of emotional depth. Instead, her high anxiety and angst never dims, and so the character is tiring and fades from interesting to predictable rather early in the show.

To regain my love of the magic of theater, tonight I am heading out to Slava's Snow Show- a wonderful experience that I saw last year and just loved.  It's truly fantastic, in both sense of that word - wonderful and phantasmagoric.  It will be nice to ring in the near year with some clowns!

*With one exception. The young actress who plays the uncle's teen-age love interest enters the stage with five minutes to curtain and is so energetic and cringing inappropriate (as a teen-ager would be) that she infused the ending with a new pulse.  She's so unimportant however, that her name (and character) is not even listed on the website.  Hmm. What does that tell you?!