CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK 2018

HO HO HO

The Christmas lights, the department store windows, the shopping, the parties, the shopping, the Santas everywhere you look and the shopping. New York sprinkles enough glitter and reindeer dust over the city to melt the most ardent Scrooge's. Even if I no longer have a little girl gripping my hand as I walk down Fifth Avenue bundled up in my warmest coat and gloves.

I can still remember how we'd ooh and aah at the animated characters in the windows at Saks and Lord & Taylor. Even without her there's still a lump in my throat as the holiday enfolds on every corner where the bells of the holiday ring loud and clear.

The luck of my schedule rewarded me with an almost two week immersion into New York's Christmas magic before I'd return to Madison for Christmas with family.

Everything in New York is combined with work for me so my first stop was to stop by the New York Design Center and pay my respects to the building that has made a lot of what we do possible..

With ABC Home right around the corner it was their windows I first took in before walking inside to look at some accessories I was on the hunt for for one of our clients.

Walking back up Broadway I caught an event at Fishs Eddy where Amy Sedaris and Todd Oldam were wiping up holiday cheer by wrapping your purchases as only Amy and Todd could do.

The line was just getting moving but it wound its way through the aisles of the store and then out the door and down the block. I'm a pretty good wrapper. I should have set up a table outside and cashed in on some creative wrapping

One of the things I like most about New York is the way it seduces you to explore at Christmas time, put on your winter boots and walk the streets and avenues like Kris Kringle admiring the all of his elves' hard work.  Nothing is more important than strolling Fifth Avenue.

When Emmy was young we'd start our journey at Lord&Taylor and work our way up to the carriage horses at the base of Central Park. Lord& Taylor's window were always a highlight with their recreations of New York's Christmas' of past.

The big disappointment was no one told me that Lord&Taylor was closing its doors. This year's windows only presented signs advertising in-store discounts and its imminent demise. Life in the city changes with each generation and more recently the changes are even more rapid; some good and some not so good.

One of the good things and one that has continued for eighty-five years is the tree in Rockefeller Center. The crowds are thick as fruitcake even in the wee hours of a week-night.

So when you're stuck in the crowd and can't move Saks is right across Fifth Avenue and their light show performed to "Carol of the Bells".

It's the one-of-a-kind experience that could even bring Santa out for a view

Now that Lord&Taylor is no longer competing for the best windows the honor has to go to Bergfdorf-Goodman.

Bergdorf's Christmas windows have always been as much about showing off their product as it has been about the spirit of the holiday.

It's a candy store for the eyes with a mixing bowl of color and a confectioner's creation of visual sweets.

Who else could wipe up a carnie's ode to cotton candy and make it regal and still sell us fashion that no one I know could wear.

If the windows aren't your thing and you'd rather be inside where it's warm and they might be serving mulled wine and hot toddies then I've got another list from you starting with drinks with Old King Cole

Then it's off to Third Avenue and the German Restaurant Rolf's where trying to get a two-thirty afternoon reservation for either a late lunch or an early dinner on a Tuesday is almost an impossibility.

The next best thing is to settle for is an Irish coffee down the block at Paddy MacGuire's

There are so many ways to make you smile and get into the holiday spirit in New York City. It really defines the holiday.

Whether you take in the annual tuba concert on a brisk Sunday afternoon on the ice rink at Rockefeller Center

Or you happen upon a one-man-band in the subway clanging out his idiosyncratic version of Jingle Bells

And you can't hit the city without taking in one of the amazing Christmas markets that dot the city with local crafts and unusual gifts.

A Christmas trip to New York wouldn't be complete without a trip to Macy's.

From inside our out the windows will bring you right back to a Miracle on 34th Street making a little girl return to believing in the impossible. We could all use a little of that this year

The magnificence of the Oculus is spectacular any time of the year but at Christmas it is a religious experience and humbling in showing what man can do.

But if religion isn't what floats your boat and your holiday celebrating drifts more toward putting on a Santa suit and getting drunk enough to kiss a reindeer's butt there's the charitable Santa Pub Crawl that defies my imagination

Or you can just take a stroll down the avenue arm and arm with someone special not worrying that a little rain or snow flurry might ruin your Manolo Blahniks

For all of you who still can't kind find the Christmas spirit then lets sentence you to no Christmas at all and a ticket to eight hours in Times Square for New Years Eve in freezing weather, surrounded by a gang of New Jersey teenagers and not a port-a-potty in sight. I'll have a pair of depends wrapped up for you under my tree

















THE GALLERY

Nenets of the Siberian Arctic, 2011
Sabatiao Salgado, photographer
Represented byYancey Richardson Gallery

THANKSGIVING 2018

AN AFFAIR IN SAN FRANCISCO

It's been almost thirty years since we first sat around our dining table in a little hamlet up in the Catskills for Thanksgiving with a group of friends that have for many reasons stuck with us over the years. Even though we've all moved on to various parts of the country the giddiness we shared at our first attempt of cooking a turkey has remained as consistent as the clink of our glasses during the thanks we give on each recurring last Thursday of November. As often as we can and on a revolving basis we recreate our holiday and once again laugh, break a glass or two and enjoy the friendships that have lasted through three decades.

This year we were off to San Francisco where our friends, JoHannah and Adam and their son Roby, now live. We decided to go despite a set of fires that covered the city by the bay with smoke and an air quality index that had surpassed the world's most polluted cities. We were on the edge of canceling our plane tickets but at the last minute went ahead with our plans and journeyed on.
Rick flew in from New York on the Monday before, Emmy and I flew in to meet him on Tuesday. JoHannah picked us up at the airport.

It was a bit eerie as we drove back to the Glen Park district of San Francisco seeing groups of people out walking the streets their faces covered in construction masks like survivors from an earth ending apocalypse. Some of the children having masks with built-in aspirators stood by bus stops in silence the joy of childhood held at bay.
JoHannah tried to reassure us that the rain was due to come the following day and drown out most of the smoke. We prayed for rain.
So with the rest of Tuesday we made our lists and did most of our preparatory shopping before the rain hit.

Wednesday we cooked, we cleaned

and Emmy did the flowers we had purchased at the flower district the day before.

Even Delilah got into the act.

We did this all in a home built on a hill in the Glen Park district of a city that was once shook to the ground.

We finished that evening with our traditional glazed ham and biscuits. You can't get much better than that

Thursday was devoted to doing all of the finishing touches in preparation for a sit down dinner for fifteen.

The pies are always the last thing to go into the oven and we do this just as everyone sits down to dinner.

The Noritake china was pulled into service along with enough depression stemware to make sure everyone had a glass for anything they needed to drink.

The house's history on Diamond Street has always added to its uniqueness. It was not the original house that had occupied the site. The front portion of the house had actually been built somewhere else and moved to the site then added onto over the years.

Adam, being an architect, continued to embellish and renovate the house at various times throughout their stewardship of the building.

We'd be entertaining and doing appetizers on the main floor once the guests arrived with a bar set up in the dining room

and appetizers laid out on the kitchen counter.

Last minute tasks were accomplished without a hitch until the turkey made its entrance. I had been in charge of pulling the turkey that had been marinating in a brine bath for the past day and a half out of the plastic bag with the brining mixture and getting it into the roasting pan. It was Adam's job to take the turkey out of the oven and plate it for display before carving it at the table. It was then that one of the guests informed us that we had roasted and then displayed our lovely bird upside down. One should never expect perfection because if it's attained there is no room for improvement and if one cannot improve the joy of discovery and learning is gone. Our turkey was a case in point of imperfection and a good opportunity for learning and improving.

Dinner was served in the sunroom on the top floor under a star filled sky. Guests arrived around five in the early evening carrying trays of appetizers and a broad selection of wines.

Adam had built an extension onto the table so that all fifteen of us could sit comfortably around.

Emmy's petite flower arrangements lined the center of the table. Adam had adorned the chandeliers with curly willow branches and lit the chandelier candles illuminating the dinner.

To make room at the dining table a serving buffet had been set up at the end of the room that overlooked the vista of lower San Francisco.

The menu consisted of Brussels sprouts sautéed with pancetta and onions, a sweet potato casserole with bacon and Gruyere, cranberry sauce, scalloped potatoes, mashed rutabaga, a beet, walnut and pomegranate salad and the turkey we continued to display upside down.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Not sure of the local for next year's November event. This one will be a hard one to beat.