Stretching a Buck at the Soup Man

January 27, 2008

Recently a post on Hoboken Now announced to the world that Hoboken's The Soup Man restaurant was expensive. I had gotten some soup there -- The Place that Made Jerry Seinfeld Famous -- once and liked it, so I went back to see how the writer managed to spend $14 for a bowl of soup.

I was prepared to splurge. I had money in my pocket. I chose something called sausage gumbo, coming from gumbo country, and got the full meal, which included a choice of fruit (I chose an apple), iced tea (I chose Heavenly Peach), and a salad. I elected to buy a slice of what looked like perfect NYC cheesecake to top off the meal, which the intrepid Hoboken Now reporter had not. Yes, my bill was close to $20, but this did not stop me.

For one thing, I was taking the food home and knew it would be eaten for two meals. I ate only half of everything, and the next day I had the other half. As I thought about what to do to make that sausage gumbo go farther, I had an inspiration which only the brave might try, but I'll tell you how.

The gumbo was indeed a little like the gumbo I know so well from Lower Alabama (called L.A. in those parts). It was thick and spicy. I've had many gumbos, from seafood to smoked duck, but never one that had only sausage. The sausage made it something of a brunch dish from the get-go. My second day inspiration was to heat it and top it with a poached egg. This lightened the flavor somewhat and gave the dish a late-breakfast deliciousness. If only I had had a swig of champagne with which to wash it down!

I'm going to tell you how to poach an egg, although this instruction is more appropriate to my food blog than here. I suspect most of my Hoboken readers would be hard pressed to poach an egg.

It's not as easy as it sounds. It starts off easy, but it is not foolproof. You may have to try several times before you get the hang of it.

First, put about a quart of water into a saucepan, add a teaspoon or so of white vinegar (I am not convinced this step is necessary, but I always do it), and bring to a low simmer. Break an egg into a plate for easy egg management. Slide the egg into the hot water and then stir the water ever so gently, keeping the egg circulating in the pot to prevent its sinking and sticking to the bottom. Proceed with extreme delicateness and caution for about three minutes until the egg is firmish, white and yolk. Carefully remove the finished egg to double paper towels to drain the water off of it, and then it will be ready to go into any dish you like, even on top of gumbo.

I once had a friend who was the youngest of ten in a Portuguese family. He said his mother wouldn't think of serving a plate of beans and rice without a poached egg on top. There are infinite uses for a poached egg, so it would behoove an serious eater to know how to produce one. (Good luck.)

One more comment about The Soup Man lunch. That cheesecake was sweet and creamy, but it didn't taste like cheesecake to me. I could detect no cream-cheese! I am in the land of excellent cheesecake, blindfold-identifyable, and I wouldn't put this in that category. If you're in The Soup Man and yearning for dessert, try something else. You can always find a good piece of cheescake. If not, maybe I'll give you a recipe.

Happy Birthday, Paul Newman

January 25, 2008

I received this as one of those email round robin notes some friends are so fond of:

Only women of a certain era will fully appreciate this true story.
(if you don't understand this, tell your mother, she'll get it)

A Michigan woman and her family were vacationing in a small New England town where Paul Newman and his family often visited. One Sunday morning, the woman got up early to take a long walk. After a brisk five-mile hike, she decided to treat herself to a double-dip chocolate ice cream cone.

She hopped in the car, drove to the center of the village and went straight to the combination bakery/ice cream parlor. There was only one other patron in the store. Paul Newman, sitting at the counter having a doughnut and coffee.

The woman's heart skipped a beat as her eyes made contact with those famous baby-blue eyes.

The actor nodded graciously and the star struck woman smiled demurely.

Pull yourself together! She chides herself. You're a happily married woman with three children, you're forty-five years old, not a teenager! The clerk filled her order and she took the double-dip chocolate ice cream cone in one hand and her change in the other. Then she went out the door, avoiding even a glance in Paul Newman's direction.

When she reached her car, she realized that she had a handful of change but her other hand was empty. "Where's my ice cream cone? Did I leave it in the store?" Back into the shop she went, expecting to see the cone still in the clerk's hand or in a holder on the counter or something. No ice cream cone was in sight.

With that, she happened to look over at Paul Newman. His face broke into his familiar warm friendly grin and he said to the woman,
"You put it in your purse."

I guess you do have to be a certain age to grasp fully the effect Paul Newman had on us. The little story, probably apocryphal, was accompanied by this photo, which is clearly 20 years old, but captures his intelligent, witty-sexy appeal. It got me to thinking, how long has this little joke been in circulation?

So I looked him up on the Internet, and discovered that Paul Newman will turn 83 tomorrow. The Wikipedia article said that he has decided not to act any more, as learning lines is getting to be as difficult for him as finding the right roles. My heart sank a little as I thought of Newman as Ben Quick, the so-called barn burner in The Long Hot Summer; as Cool Hand Luke, who thought nothin' was sometimes a pretty cool hand; as Fast Eddie in The Hustler; Hud; the principled young lawyer with the shrewish wife in From the Terrace; Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Butch in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and on and on. So many of these parts relied on his manly-manliness, so many showcased the blueness of his eyes while Newman himself always gave his soul to the part. He was a natural Method actor with a comfort in the subtle changes that acting required of him. He inhabited the little universe of every movie. He was a pleasure to watch, for lots of reasons.

I can recall his former involvement with politics, braving the snows of New Hampshire with Gene McCarthy and with Paul McCloskey. How courageous he was, and how bright. Out of the movies he kept a low profile, a Connecticut family man who donated the profits from his salad dressing business to charity. What an interesting, unusual man.

Now I occasionally recognize his voice on a television commercial. It always brings that look of his to mind, that familiar, once-yearned-for appearance, not unlike a former lover who has moved on. Paul Newman has been a part of my life almost as long as I can remember. Now he is an elder, not a recluse, but seldom seen. I hope his life is happy, and that he has some idea how much he means to people -- not only women -- of a certain age. I hope he has a happy birthday.

Hoboken Music Scene

January 23, 2007

My daughter will be here in a few minutes. She had an errand to run regarding her real estate in Brooklyn and will hook up with her new guy-friend the rock and roll singer from Mississippi who is taking her our to Maxwell's for music tonight.

There's quite a music scene in Hoboken, but it's not my music. I think the band they're going to hear is called Super Furry Animals. I'm sure they're wonderful, but I don't know it I'm quite ready for them. I've Googled "Hoboken music scene" and there's a lot more here than the Frank Sinatra imitators I've grown so fond of. The town is crawling with bars, and maybe half of them have music.

Alison is 45 years old, tall, sleek, pretty and very smart. She can handle everything from the stock market to getting her artwork in gallery shows and her articles published in local newspapers in upstate New York, plus she is raising two sons age 13 and 10. I enjoy her company as much as anybody I know, and can't wait to show her around Hoboken and get her opinion of how this apartment looks with furniture she has seen in many other locales. The rocker will join us about 5 with his 15-year-old son and we'll go find a place to eat. I'd join them for the Super Furries, but the show is sold out and it will be way past my bedtime.

I don't say I couldn't be coaxed to stay up -- but I haven't heard any coaxing. We'll do that some other time when there is something more to my taste. But I have a feeling I'm missing out on something.

Lost in Manhattan, Found in Hoboken

January 22, 2007

Last week I took the opportunity of a break in the weather -- Friday was the last day of temps in the 40's, with predictions of a drop to the teens over the weekend -- to plan an excursion to Manhattan. I know how to get there, so I thought I'd spend a few hours exploring before confining myself to house arrest out of the cold.

I knew the first stop out of Hoboken is Christopher Street in the West Village. This is my old stomping ground. I lived on West 11th in the 1980's.

I was on Christopher Street 25 minutes after leaving my door. Where, exactly I wasn't sure. Even when I came out of the; subway tunnel, it took me a while to orient myself by walking up Greenwich and looking for old hangouts. Somebody told me that Chumley's was closed; I wanted to see for myself, but couldn't remember exactly how to get there from where I was. I walked on West 4th, up to Abingdon Square, browsed in store windows, and realized it was getting near lunchtime as I smelled the Italian food being sold all around me.

But I hadn't come to Manhattan for Italian food. There's far too much Italian food I haven't tried in Hoboken. The more I wandered aimlessly the more I realized I really wanted to go home -- to Hoboken. I promised myself a slice of extra-crispy from Benny Tudino's when I got back.

Finding the train that would take me there was another story. At last I went down the subway tunnel across from the one that brought me, even though it didn't have the magic New Jersey code "PATH" but instead said, "Downtown trains." I let about three trains whiz past before I looked on the tracks for something that said Hoboken or PATH trains. Then I decided, since I realized I'd have to go out of the station to find a PATH station, to take the train downtown to the World Trade Center where I could transfer to the PATH line.

Lotsa luck. I missed the station that would transfer me to the line that goes to the WTC because I couldn't understand the blurry announcements that were transmitted at every stop. I found myself at Rector St., which I knew to be the next to last stop in Manhattan. When I came out of the station at Rector St. there was a sign directing me to Ground Zero. (Actually, it was an old sign. It said "World Trade Center.") I followed its arrow.

There is something infinitely moving about walking around down near Ground Zero. I felt myself choking up as I looked at the sky where the towers used to be and thought of those insane men led by that monster who has done so much damage to the hearts and souls of me and my countrymen. Still, I was looking for a PATH station. I forged onward.

I asked a man who looked like he'd know. He pulled the earbuds out of his ears and asked me where I wanted to go.

"Hoboken."

He gave me directions, right across from the Century 21 retail emporium, so I walked over there and decided to give a quick glance at the inside of the store. It was crowded and hard to navigate so I promised myself to return soon. In the meantime, I wanted to get home.

I went into the subway and spent the ride thinking of Benny Tudino's. Also, I would walk past Carlo's Bake Shop and buy myself a cannoli for all my troubles. Also, after I'd cooled my heels at home for a while, I'd set out on an excursion to find Fiore's, the deli said to have the best homemade mozzarella in Hoboken, if not the world.

I hadn't been inside Carlo's before, but I will again. So many goodies I couldn't decide, but I stuck with my resolve to but one cannoli. ("Cannolo?") The cannoli cones lay empty in the case, dozens of them, some covered in chocolate. I always start with the basics, so I chose one plain one. The young lady behind the counter reached into the refrigerated drawer and pulled out a pastry bag and filled it before my eyes. I vowed to wait until I had gotten home, after the pizza slice, to eat it. A paragon of self-control.

At Benny Tudino's I sprang for pepperoni on my slice, but ordered it extra crispy as I had been instructed to do by Jeff Faria, a Hoboken expert. Excellent!

Then I went home, checked emails and phone messages, and ate my cannoli. It was as good a cannoli as I've ever had. I must confess I haven't had many. But I'm now experienced enough to recommend the Italian treat, especially fresh. Even more especially fresh from Carlo's in Hoboken.

Then, later, the final project: To try mozzarella from Fiore's. I walked across town on 4th Street, passing the office of a dentist whom I'll go make an appointment with today, and the hospital where I'll go to get names of physicians to sign on with. Then I turned uptown to Fiore's, halfway in the block, and said to the Asian man behind the counter, "I hear you've got good homemade mozzarella here." He pointed out a huge chunk, tied up with a topknot, and I said I'd take half of it. Then I saw some capers on a shelf, and knew I was in need of capers, so I asked how much.

"Fiore!" he called, and a man came from the back.

"How much for these?"

Fiore went to a list and read from it, Petite Capers...$3.25.

I took my mozzarella -- they call it mutz here -- and my capers home, feeling very "in" and very comfortable that I was now in the club for sure.

I have this to report about the remarkable mutz. Fiore's mozzarella is lightly coated with something I always have to add myself -- salt. Its texture is perfectly raggy, with a nice chew, its taste milky. I think it's that coating of crunchy salt that sets it apart and above the usual.

With my day of being lost in Manhattan and finding myself in Hoboken, I was ready for a weekend of barely leaving my apartment. Today it's nice and warm again; it's predicted to go as high at 38° and I'm going to find that dentist.

Women for President

January 20, 2008

Most of this post ran originally last July on my blog Finding Fair Hope. I still stand by my original thoughts. At this point I strongly hope Barack Obama will win the Democratic party's nomination for President even though there is little evidence that will happen.

I think it’s time for a real woman to be President of the United States. I say this somewhat defensively because it is assumed that since I cannot support Hillary Clinton, I am one of the ones who is somehow just not ready. On the other hand, I've supported female candidates several times in the past, but never just because they were women.

I have a certain amount of respect for Senator Clinton. I don’t deny that she has great intelligence and drive. I like to see the pictures of her laughing, and I don’t doubt that she enjoys a good joke every once in a while. She has presence and self-confidence. I was genuinely touched when she said, "Well, that hurts my feelings..."in the debate the other night. However, to me her choking up looked like her emotions actually got the best of her when she realized she might not win the nomination. She is gutsy, no doubt. She is tough. But try as I might, I cannot find one thing authentic about her.

She speaks in platitudes (or, as they say, soundbites). This means she seems to be talking but nothing definitive is said or clarified. It’s designed to be clipped out and run on the evening news.

She never makes it clear where she stands on issues – any issues. She’s just being a politician, her supporters say. The Right paints her as a flaming Liberal, the Left as a middle-of-the-roader; in reality it seems she will say whatever it takes to seem reasonable. But she doesn’t convince me. I can’t say I know anything about where she stands on matters vital to the leadership of this troubled land.

Take the war. She says she voted for it because she was lied to, as all of us were. Why is it so hard to say that vote was a mistake? Is she afraid to be called a flip-flopper? What kind of nonsense is that? “Flip-flopper” is a Madison Avenue term that means no more than a person who has changed his or her mind. It’s no disgrace to change one’s mind; in fact, that is an admirable trait as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. The war seems to have receded in the minds of voters as the economy is clearly tanking, so no one in the race is saying much of anything about it these days.

In my lifetime I have seen the birth of a new phenomenon – politicians being led around by the nose by their ad agencies. It is these ad agencies who created the phenomenon of focus groups to take the temperature of the public on every product in the marketplace, including, God help us, people who happen to be running for office.

I have been ready for a woman President long before most people can remember. For years there have been a few strong women pretty highly placed in political office. One even ran for President.
I’d have supported Shirley Chisholm if had lived long enough to run today even though she wrote, when she ran for the office in 1972: "I am a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. I make that statement proudly, in the full knowledge that, as a black person and as a female person, I do not have a chance of actually gaining that office in this election year. I make that statement seriously, knowing that my candidacy itself can change the face and future of American politics — that it will be important to the needs and hopes of every one of you — even though, in the conventional sense, I will not win."

Ms. Chisholm was wise, charismatic, brilliant and brave. She did not evade when asked where she stood on the issues. She was the right person, but at the wrong place in the wrong time. She was unique and the country was not ready for her. I’m sorry to say that, since I had voted for Dick Gregory in the 1968 election and was persuaded by my colleagues that my vote had put Richard Nixon in the White House, I chose McGovern over Chisholm in order to get Nixon out. Seeing how successful that kind of thinking was, I have voted my conscience ever since, almost never going for a candidate from either major party.

I’d love to see someone like Bella Abzug back in politics. The country’s first Jewish Congresswoman, she didn’t worry about how she looked or what group might be offended if she opened her mouth. She was a true Feminist who didn’t worry about appearing feminine. She shot from the hip, and got more flack about her hats than about her policies. She once said, “The inside operation of Congress -- the deals, the compromises, the selling out, the co-opting, the unprincipled manipulating, the self-serving career-building -- is a story of such monumental decadence that I believe if people find out about it they will demand an end to it.” If she had had focus groups her candidacy for anything would have been dead on arrival – or she might not even have arrived.

A few years later I supported Arizona State Member of the U.S. House of Representatives Pat Schroeder in her short-lived bid for the Democratic nomination for President. Schroeder couldn’t raise sufficient funds, and apparently didn’t have the fire in the belly necessary to stick it out. She was bright, inspiring, and witty, coining the phrase “The Teflon President” about Ronald Reagan. She also said, “America is man enough to elect a woman President.”

I agree with that. But let’s wait until a woman who is willing to talk about issues instead of her "experience" (which seems to mean her ability to persevere) runs again. There is a great deal more to the job than that.

Old Movies

January 18, 2008

I have been promising myself that in Hoboken I won't get into the rut I was in in Fairhope -- I won't spend most of my days and virtually all of my evenings sitting at home watching television.

I've managed to find WQXR on my radio dial, and 770 FM for Imus in the Morning on my little Memorex, so I find it possible to avoid the daytime cooks tempting me on The Food Network and the glamorous houses making me feel shabby on HGTV. Most of the time.

But there is this thing called Turner Classic Movies. I always have to check it out in case I might miss something. I love the time capsule that is old movies -- women really wearing their hair that way, and some of the clothes! -- replete with jazzy, old-fashioned dialogue that makes me think of my father.

The other night I got hooked into the old chestnut entitled San Francisco. This starred a pre-Gone-With-the-Wind Clark Gable, almost as if he were auditioning for Rhett Butler. (Margaret Mitchell said that she had him in mind for the character as she wrote the book.) I was fascinated, and let's face it, turned on, seeing this actor in his absolute prime. I'm one of those who has accepted George Clooney as Gable's successor, but I kept thinking, "Could Clooney have really done this role as well?" Why speculate -- the original still exists, and it's a glorious little gem of a black and white movie.

Gable plays Blackie, owner of a club on the infamous Barbary Coast, when a delicate songbird enters looking for a job. The singer is Mary Blake, a preacher's daughter from Denver, played by the exquisite Jeannette MacDonald. I confess I missed the rage for Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald in the late 1930's/early 1940's. I wasn't born for most of it. I have caught the act on TCM, however, and feel they deserved every big of the acclaim they got.

But this movie predates that pairing. Gable and MacDonald were a gorgeous couple in every sense of the word. Spencer Tracy plays the feisty priest who intervenes to help them avoid disaster if he can. It's a wonderful movie, okay, maybe a chick flick that men too would like. The phone rang (See? I do have a life!) before the end, meaning I missed some of the crucial moments, meaning I can see it again.

Another San Francisco movie that ran the next night was Frisco Kid starring James Cagney. Made in the mid-1930's, it was Cagney as the owner of, you guessed it, a club on the infamous Barbary Coast. It takes him from humble beginnings as a sailor who is almost shanghaied into permanent servitude to a life of wealth and the privilege of falling in love (not unlike Gable's Blackie) with a woman out of his class. This one I left off in the middle partly because I am less taken with Margaret Lindsay than I am with Jeannette MacDonald.

Got to tell you one more scene from an old movie I saw this week. I think the title was Another Man's Woman, something like that. This was one of those real antiques with Mary Astor and Regis Toomey as a happily married couple until his best friend moves in and falls in love with Mary Astor. Yeah, sort of like You, Me and DuPree. It gets really unfunny, however, on purpose, and the plot gets all tangled up with Joan Blondell and Jimmy Cagney thrown in for good measure. The scene that made me laugh out loud was when Cagney, a really minor player, is taking his girl dancing and says to her, "Baby, you look like 700 bucks!"

Cagney is one of my favorite movie dancers, by the way, right up there with Fred Astaire. Just a few steps and he has me in his pocket. He is graceful, proficient, and always a pleasure to watch. If you don't believe me, watch Footlight Parade, The West Point Story, or find this peculiar little soap opera and wait for him to come in and do a couple of steps. (I know he was in something called Yankee Doodle Dandy, and I know he was good in that, but he was doing George M. Cohan's style in that one. No small feat.) Believe me, the kid was good!

Old movies are one of my major diversions. I will accept just about anything Ted Turner does because of his old-movie channel.

Night Stranger and the Silent Lurkers

January 17, 2008

Before I moved to Hoboken I used to frequent blogs -- linked below -- dealing with life in this little city. I took on the handle "Night Stranger" as a reference to the Sinatra song of the 1970's, allying myself with Hobokenites who admire the Chairman of the Board while at the same time lurking on the fringes of his universe. I would comment at the blogs and sometimes email the authors in hopes of paving my way into my own new phase of life.

When I decided to start my own Hoboken blog I changed my screen name, not knowing that this would appear on my other blogs, where it isn't relevant and I might say doesn't make any sense. I can't figure out how to have one screen name and profile on one blog and others on my others. Maybe someday I shall learn.

Last Christmas I was visiting my daughter and grandsons and the 13-year-old heard me humming "Strangers in the Night."

"What's that song about?" he asked. "A serial killer?"

"No," said I. "That would be 'Stranglers in the Night.'"

From then on I sang it as "Stranglers in the Night." Andy, the ten-year-old, said, "What's that weird song?" as I absently tossed out the phrase to an unmelodious almost-tune.

"Oh. It's really supposed to be "Strangers in the Night," said I, singing a bit more of it.

"I like it the other way better," Andy said.

This blog has more than a few regular visitors, strangers themselves, usually not commenting. They are known as lofters in cyberspeak, or "lurkers" in my own lexicon. They used to frequent Finding Fair Hope and one by one they are finding their way here. I wonder what makes some people read blogs -- I have found that I may have a reader from a certain locale come to my blog(s) for months at at time and then just give up the ghost. (I do get boring after a while.)

If you'd like to see evidence of the lurking readership, a very nice comment was posted on yesterday's Finding Myself. I hope that reader will come back and find him- or herself and become a regular reader and frequent commenter. But you never can tell. I may have picked up a night stranger myself.