Avgolemono
I wonder if there’s anyone who
still remember’s Taki’s
Restaurant on 3rd Avenue and 76th Street (southwest
corner) in Manhattan?
We used to eat there all
the time – Caroline
and I, pre-cats, sometimes joined by (mostly) college friends, all of us still semi-freshly
arrived in Big City.
To most people Taki’s seemed like a basic New
York coffee shop in terms of its menu (egg
breakfasts, hamburger lunches, soups du jour, sandwiches, cakes and pies), its longitudinal layout
(long counter and one narrow aisle, tables and booths along the north windowed wall),
but really it was a superb,
very reasonably priced Greek restaurant in a city that is now populated
by pretentious, ruinously expensive Greek restaurants (which do feature interesting Greek wine lists, killer ouzo choices and ethnographically diverse regional specialties).
We didn’t need to drink alcohol
at meals in those days – it was more of an occasional thing then – mostly we had Cokes with our standard memu of Avgolemono
(Egg-Lemon) soup followed by Souvlaki and the best Baklava ever for dessert.
We were kid drinkers then, mostly
specializing in the
powerful but ugly-tasting martinis
at CBGB (bang for your buck) on concert nights and the fabulous psychedelic Mai Tais Foo
Chow (in the same block) served in tall ceramic idol’s
eye glasses. (Eventually we purchased our own set from the
restaurant.) Taki’s Moussaka, Pastitsio
and their other Greek items were also terrific, but for us the menu I’ve
described was the
proverbial “ticket.”
Upper
East Side Studio Apartment
Taki, a brusque, but basically shy, pleasant
and hard-working Greek
man with a salt-and-pepper moustache, ran the place and was its
principal chef. He was assisted by a smaller chef whom we stupidly
referred to as Igor
because he had a horror film henchman quality. Really, he was
lovely, friendly man and the place
stayed open late, which was good because I didn’t go to bed at 9:30 pm then and could
be restless for activity at night. Once, I remember seeking refuge there after
midnight when the tenement-slum
where we were living at 1273
Third Avenue (our lobby was festooned with swastikas and absolutely
shocking anti-Semitic graffiti, less
than a mile from the Mayor’s house, but never in the news; those scrawlings belong in Washington D.C.'s Holocaust Museum post-war addendum section) was torched by a
disgruntled tenant during a snowstorm and the Fire Department broke all our windows with pick-axes and
evicted us. I called Janine's
apartment a little further down East 75th Street and let the phone ring
for a very long time. I knew she would
eventually answer and we needed
shelter from the storm. The apartment pictured above, by
the way, closely resembles our
next place at 227 East 83rd, a very
pleasant studio apartment, which was miles ahead of
where we were then. It's amazing -- I think I even recognize the
view out the window.
The only untoward moment
I ever remember having at Taki’s was when a feckless young man not unlike myself in appearance came
in and requested Turkish coffee. I
immediately felt the inward
explosion that had gone off inside Taki and I saw him try to compose himself even as the fellow,
thinking he hadn’t been heard, asked again. Inwardly writhing, gathering and seemingly self-attenuating, words eventually
emerged. Taki spoke (as if reciting painfully but dutifully from
an ancient, sacred law code): “We
have GREEK coffee.”
The young man was clearly
not historically or politically attuned or well-informed, but wishing to have coffee
peacefully he went with the
Greek option. He did good and did well. I can
still taste that coffee today and see it in Taki’s small elegant
cups. I have
never tasted anything better.
Greco-Turkish
War, 1920
Taki retired in the mid-1980s (we were
living in Brooklyn Heights by that time, but still occasionally dropped in to
visit). Somebody told me that he had returned
to Greece. I hope he’s
well and has enjoyed a blessed retirement. The store was taken over first by a dress shop and
then by a small imaginative Chinese
restaurant, which was much, much better than the undeservedly popular
pizzeria just across the road. Of the old neighborhood, only J.G. Melon remains today.
Who knows where the time goes?
J.G.
Melon
This Avgolemono soup is simple-simple. The recipe appears in Esther B. Cory’s
delightful, obscure and largely ignored Mediterranean Specialties for the
Modern Cook (New
York, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1963), a book commissioned by Filippo Berio Olive Oil, Inc. to
promote their products in an
earlier America when some of
the poetry and art I like most was busy being born, not busy
dying. I think I’ll make the soup tomorrow, but I will include some Greek orzo like
Taki did. Fresh chicken broth would be best, but as Jane says: “You do you.” As always, in the moment and In Dis Ya Time.
Avgolemono
(Egg-Lemon Soup)
3/4
tablespoons lemon juice, more or less according to taste
4
cups chicken broth
4
egg yolks
Add
lemon juice to hot Chicken Broth
Pour
mixture gradually over beaten egg yolks, stirring constantly.
Serve
immediately. If necessary, keep warm on top of double boiler.
Greece,
Turkey
In
Dis Ya Time -- Itals (Link)
Who
Knows Where The Time Goes? -- Fairport
Convention (Link)
