Rhubarbed

Rhubarb Sophie from the Minetta Tavern

2 cucumber slices, plus 1 for garnish
2 oz 42Below vodka
1 oz agave nectar
1 oz lime juice
2 dashes rhubarb bitters (Fee Brothers is one brand)

First muddle the cucumber in a shaker glass, then add the remaining ingredients along with ice.

Shake vigorously for about 10 seconds and strain into an ice-filled glass.

Garnish with a slice of cucumber.


  On Tuesday night I met my friend Andrew Hildebrand, who was visiting from London, for dinner at the revived Minetta Tavern* on MacDougal Street in Manhattan.  Andrew, who had stopped in there for a cocktail a couple of nights earlier, recommended the Rhubarb Sophie pictured and described above.  It really was very, very good.  Apparently, many people have enjoyed the drink because it seems to be mentioned in all of the (pretty uniformly) positive notices and reviews the restaurant has received.

  It was marvelous seeing Andrew (I need to write to him today; our conversation stirred all sorts of ideas in me) and I enjoyed Minetta, although the experience was weirdly dislocating in significant ways.  Keith McNally's "updated bistro" model, which he has successfully employed many times before (e.g., Balthazar, Cafe Luxembourg, Pastis), always makes me feel as though I've stepped into Mr. Peabody's Way-Back Machine, something I don't feel the need to do because my memories of the past -- even my imagined memories which come to me in dreams -- are good enough for me.  In any event, the pied de porc pané I enjoyed at Minetta, although it was correctly prepared (with good Dijon mustard, lentils and an herb salad) and presented, couldn't hope to match the version served at the unpretentious and reasonably priced Café 58 in the happy past, and in terms of bottling and preserving fine values and present, permanent memories (if such things can be said to exist), there is still (and I hope will always be) Le Veau d'Or  on East 60th Street.

  The wine list, which we perused briefly, seemed ludicrously overpriced (no "square root of value" selections here; I ordered an interesting, but ludicrously overpriced beer and Andrew had another Rhubarb Sophie), but my main sensation of dislocation resulted from feeling I was among a riotous crowd of New Yorkers seemingly unconscious of the economic depression existing outside of their constricted, ultra-demarcated privileged view.  It's probably unfair, but from my vantage point, I felt like I was sitting on the uber-entitled, fat, happy and pig-eyed set of Morning Joe (a “rollicking” place, according to the New York Times; I guess that means “good”), or possibly at a Rachel Maddow (who seems to be the current generation's idea of Dorothy Parker -- weird!) salon imbibing Status Quo Kool-Aid.


  I suppose I shouldn't describe my dreams in public.


*  The name "Minetta," by the way, unique and esteemed in New York, is of ancient and unusual origin, deriving from the Dutch word Mintje Kill; ‘min’ means little, ‘kill’ means stream, literally translating into “Little Stream.”

Mystery Tramp Diet

Étant donées, photographed by Marcel Duchamp in his studio at 210 West 14^th Street, New York City 



          "I knew Duchamp casually, beginning in the early 1940s. in New York City, in the French Surrealist milieu. Later in the decade, we used to meet when I was working on vexing questions that arose while I was editing my Dada anthology.  We met once or twice at the dusty New York studio he had for years (on West Fourteenth Street, I think), but more often at a little downstairs Italian restaurant, where he invariably ordered a small plate of plain spaghetti with a pat of butter and grated Parmesan cheese over it, a small glass of red wine, and expresso afterward.  In those days his lunch must have cost seventy-five cents or less." 


        -- Robert Motherwell

Marcel Duchamp in his studio at 210 West 14^th Street, New York City


"There is no solution because there is no problem." -- Marcel Duchamp

 

NOTE:  For some reason (I’ll expand on this sometime; it’s been a perilous week), Robert Motherwell’s recollection of Marcel Duchamp’s frugal, but still appealing (almost luxurious) sounding daily lunch reprinted above came to mind today.  

I think I was wondering about simplicity, balance and relaxed discipline.  Researching a source for the quote I found (not entirely unexpectedly) that it stuck in other peoples’ minds also.   I would have loved to include a photograph of Marcel Duchamp’s 14^th Street Italian luncheon spot, but have no idea what it was called; it certainly no longer exists.  

Neither, sadly, does Larré’s, pictured above, which operated on West 56^th Street, between 5^th and 6^th Avenues at least through the 1970s.  My mother and my aunt first introduced me to it when I was in college.  It was a simple, quite inexpensive but traditional French restaurant that I later learned was a frequent haunt of the French Surrealist group (many of whom relocated to Manhattan after fleeing Paris) during World War II.  

Never fashionable and plainer even than Le Veau d’Or, probably the plainest, least pretentious of the genuine French restaurants that still survive in Manhattan (there aren’t many), it most certainly felt like a home away from home for these artists, and walking along 56^th Street my head is always filled with visions of André Breton lecturing someone or other about something and Yves Tanguy enjoying a quiet lunch with Kay Sage.  Marcel Duchamp was also an habitué, as I would be today if time and tide in Manhattan weren’t so severe on everything.  This is climate change I’m willing to acknowledge.