New York

I’ve been in rehearsal this week for a reading we’re doing on Friday. It’s a fun piece called “Old Jews Telling Jokes” based on the website of the same name. All this is to say that this week I’m a working man, a nine-to-fiver, so bye-bye to my indolent life. No time now for shopping at Eataly after my caffé macchiato with the crossword puzzle; no time for noodling away at the stove in the afternoon, sautéing pretty vegetables for Jill’s dinner while hooked up to a Sangiovese drip. No. I’m a working man. Punch that clock.

But today I fell into one of those time warps that New York offers up when you have no particular place to go. I’m on my break; it’s drizzling; I have an hour to kill. Our rehearsal hall is on Eighth Avenue in the high Thirties – a bit of garment district, a bit of spillover from Forty-Second Street — tons of places to eat and not one of them calling me. I walk in the rain over to Ninth Avenue, which never lets me down. Ninth Avenue is a Baghdad bazaar — good, bad and everything in the middle. I love Ninth Avenue. I walk past this little place with a menu board out front. It’s called Capizzi, a little joint, sitting in the shadow of the Port Authority bus terminal. It’s essentially empty, some people at a table in the back – maybe it’s the staff having their lunch. It’s 4:00 in the afternoon – the rush was over. But there’s something; I walk by it three times; there’s something about this place.

My boyfriend and I have next to no private time. Much to our chagrin we both are currently back in our parent's houses and our date nights generally consist of holing up in his childhood bedroom trying to keep the TiVo at a reasonable volume. Then he got his driver's license. Although this freedom arrived for my suburban friends at around 16, as a native New Yorker being able to drive still seems novel. Clearly we wanted all of our dates thereafter to be road trips.

We thought for our first evening we'd venture out to Coney Island. I had never been, and it seemed there'd be an appropriate balance of kitsch and delicious hot dogs to make for a good time. Naturally our first stop was Nathans. After ordering what seemed like one of everything you can do with a hot dog we settled in at our counter. No sooner had we done this then a young boy who had been stabbed came running in to the open-air restaurant. Panting, he shouted that someone had "knifed" him and that he was being chased. I seemed to be the only one who wasn't aware that this was an everyday occurrence here in South Brooklyn.

If you have been to Russ and Daughters you know that they have 5 kinds of salmon, the best smoked fish, many flavors of cream cheese and then you have to pick a bagel, toasted or not: lots of choices and combinations. I had worked out the fine details of what I would order. I had one shot at it as we were on a tight eating schedule. Not every minute over a 5 day span, a few minutes here and there. I could study all I wanted but until I saw what the various salmon looked like on that day it was only a guess.

We flew into JFK, checked into our hotel and it was still only 9:00AM. Next stop, Russ and Daughters. A subway ride south combined with a brisk walk as our phone’s GPS showed us the way. It started raining but we had an umbrella, then it started sleeting - that was fine, we are made of hearty Maine stock. All of a sudden it started snowing the biggest flakes we have ever seen and it reduced NYC to the feel of a small town. That is until the snow thunder started.

Two different people recommended a seafood shack in the West Village in New York. Two people – it’s a sign.We must try it, I said to my oldest-newest-best-friend. We waited in the predicted long line—something I hate and generally do not engage in We chatted with out-of-towners and I offered up my favorite food destination, Morandi. Then we were told to grab two seats at the counter. I pointed to my left, a quick celebrity sighting, an offbeat one. Louise Lasser. A former Mrs. Woody Allen.

Libbie kept telling me she could NOT be Louise Lasser since she was far too young. We argued back and forth as I stood my ground. Turns out she was talking about the waitress and I was talking about Louise Lasser, eating a dainty kale salad. That’s not what I would order, I thought.

We went for it, ordering too much -- partly due to hunger. A few appetizers that sounded southern and perfect. Fried Green Tomatoes, which, honestly, I can never resist. Libbie loves deviled eggs, so an order of those, and a shrimp, crab and avocado cocktail. And of course a lobster roll, at “market price,” which means expensive, $32.00. I had no problem with that, as it might have made it worth the subway trip downtown. Turns out, the deviled eggs were made with sour cream, not mayonnaise. So, after one bite, I put mine down and knew never to order those again. Then, the Fried Green Tomatoes, not great at all. Followed by the lobster sandwich, which was fine but certainly not the best I’d ever had. What a waste, I thought, of ingesting fattening food. What a waste of money. This was off my list, not that it had yet made it on.