Like the Name Implies: Ta-Boo

Last week, I was down in Palm Beach and while there I had dinner at the island’s longtime dining institution, Ta-boo. The restaurant’s location on Worth Avenue ensures great people-watching will occur during lunch, but come dinnertime, it seems that only habit and tourist guide books are they only things keeping people coming through the door.

I’ve been eating at Ta-boo for as long as I can remember, but in recent years, I’ve gone instead to The Palm Beach Grill, Michael R. McCarty’s-a restaurant I love so much that I think I want them to cater my shiva simply because I want to be near the fried green tomatoes and macaroni & cheese one last time-Būccan, or any of the other incredible restaurants on the island. It wasn’t that I had a bad meal the last time I ate there; I just stopped considering it when making my dining selections these past few years. However, Grace was in town and it’s always been her favorite place to eat on the island so I called and got us reservations.

When one calls the restaurant’s phone number to make a reservation, a voice recording tells you that “It’s been said that if you were not seen at Ta-boo, you were not seen in town.” Well, that would be true if the other patrons could still see, let alone breathe. The average age of the non-tourists sent from the Breakers had to have been 79. There they sat, facelifts, tummy tucks, breast-lifts, botox-injections, hip replacements, cataracts and all in their St. John knits and Maus & Hoffman finery looking like they had all decided to take a night off from being dead to go to dinner.

Let’s start with the wine. For a restaurant that charges an average of $30 for an entrée, the wine by the glass list is akin to something one might find at a upscale chain restaurant with such excellent options as Santa Margherita pinot grigio and other sub-quality, yet overpriced wines that are all so equally bad that it’s just better to stick with water.

And so with the soothing sounds of Big Willie’s “Just the Two of Us” playing overhead at a volume louder than mood music should be played, we ordered.

It’s not easy to mess up a salad so I will say that the pear and walnut salad is fine. Years ago, though, Grace and I went wild and got a baked brie, which was scrumptious. Unfortunately, I didn’t see it on the menu this time around so perhaps they don’t offer it anymore; that, or it was a special for that evening.

As for the main courses, they were just okay. Grace, who wasn’t very hungry, only had the classic pizza, which I could have done a better job making myself. In fact, I have made a better pizza than theirs. It was far too greasy and looked as though it was in the oven for too long. My thinner Kim Jung-Un ordered that evening’s grilled salmon special, which he said way too dry to enjoy. Mother and I both ordered the dover sole and while the sides that come with the sole were fine as always, the sole itself was awful! It was so bad that it tasted three times better cold the next morning when I ate mother’s leftovers for breakfast! And that was AFTER I spritzed a whole lemon over it! It had no flavor at all. For a piece of fish that costs nearly $40, one would assume it would taste perfect.

Dessert didn’t do a whole lot to impress us either. Of the pathetic options available, I settled on the ice cream sunday because I thought “how can you mess this up?” Turns out, you can. The vanilla ice cream wasn’t very good and kind of tasted like Edy’s, which only tastes half decent when they serve it at 35,000 ft. for dessert on United, and that’s after you get chocolate sauce, carmel sauce, whipped cream, walnuts, and the cherry on top.

The problem is that Ta-boo sold out. The ultimate sign of this is when they sell brand hats and golf shirts on their website, which Ta-boo does. It can happen to any once incredible restaurant; in Williamsburg, the Trellis used to be this extremely elegant restaurant where you made sure you looked nice when you ate there. I remember eating there for brunch one morning back in the beginning of Clinton’s first term and everyone had on suits and pearls with scarves. The space was beautiful and the food was critically-aclaimed for years, especially the dessert, which was thanks in large part to the restaurant’s co-owner and former pastry chef, Marcel Desaulniers, whose desserts were so critically acclaimed that he wrote a 1992 book, Death By Chocolate.

But then this amazing new restaurant called the Fat Canary opened up across the street in 2003 and the food was delicious, the staff was so friendly and courteous, the wine list was extensive, and it was a threat. So, to try and stay relevant, the Trellis tried to reinvent itself. The problem was that their plan backfired. Except for the height of summer when tourists will eat anything and anywhere, it’s easier to get into the Trellis than it is to get into North Korea! Grace and I went there because the Fat Canary was full back in the summer of 2008 and it was AWFUL! I’m still haunted by that meal it was so bad.

Ta-boo used to be a great restaurant and maybe it can be again, but right now it’s downright horrible. The kitschy decor is showing its age, the fish tank at the bar looks like something out of an episode of “Cribs,” the menu is in desperate need of being pared-down and updated. Even then, it will still have a a problem dragging people away from newer, more exciting restaurants that have swept in and captured the market once dominated by Ta-boo. Such legendary mainstays like Chez Jean-Pierre and Café L’Europe have managed to endure because they’re the Palm Beach equivalents of Le Cirque; they’re timeless and not going anywhere anytime soon because they’re special restaurants for special occasions.

If Ta-boo wants to matter again, it needs to fix itself and fast because its core patrons are dropping like flies and their children and grandchildren are quickly moving on to better restaurants that have better food and patrons who don’t belong in wax museums that have been decorated to look a bad 1980s relic.

But Santa, I Actually Wanted Jury Duty!

I think I’m one of the only people who actually wanted to attend jury duty.  So of course I wouldn’t get it.  Now would I have wanted some boring tax evasion or other white collar crime case?  HELL NO!  I want what everyone wants: an OJ Simpson-style murder case!  Why?  Because they’re just so darn entertaining.  I mean, Casey Anthony and that girl in Italy were such fascinating cases that went on and on (and you get like $30 a day for going so if it’s a long trial, you can buy a pencil at Hermès in no time!  Side note: the fact that Hermès sells pencils for $95 is beyond outrageous, even if it is covered in leather, which is ridiculous in and of itself).  Plus, there was OJ and nothing will ever beat that trial.  The only thing that could top OJ would be… you know, I can’t even think of anything that might be able to top that case.  Even Michael Jackson’s freak trial didn’t come close to topping the glove-fitting moment.

The only downside to jury duty  is what you can’t bring with you.  No BlackBerry, no iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Kindle, or anything else entertaining.  They do have newspapers and magazines, but y’all know they get read pretty quickly.  And I get why you can’t bring things, but really, no iPad?  Yes, I’ve officially become one of THOSE people who can’t be more than 10ft from their iPad.

Meanwhile, don’t y’all just miss the good old days when people traveled with steamer trunks? I know I do.  So I wasn’t exactly around for this grand old era of traveling, but mentally I was there.  The fact of the matter is that it’s just easier to bring everything you own with you on a trip than it is to just put a few things in your carry-on and hope for the best.  My motto has always been you never know when you’ll be invited to a black-tie affair at the last minute!

Grace and Justin fully support this idea, especially Justin, who packs just as much, if not more, than I do when traveling.  Andrew, on the other hand, thinks I’m crazy and insisted I take roughly a third of what I had planned to take with me this week to Florida.  And for some horrible reason, I listened.  Justin is horrified.  I guess it’s just part of getting wiser with age.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to travel for Thanksgiving.  Instead, however, I was once again locked inside Hell’s Kitchen (I bought a shirt years ago from Scoop that has “Hell’s Kitchen” written on it and I wear it every Thanksgiving while helping Mother in the kitchen.  I don’t know what I’ll do when it finally falls apart).  I love referring to mother’s kitchen as “Hell’s Kitchen” because there always ends up being some overly dramatic problem at some point on Thanksgiving.

Well this year’s hellish ordeal involved dessert, which of course I would be making.  So the vanilla bean ice cream was done the day before Thanksgiving as was the almond pastry dough, but the rest of the Apple Bretonne Tartlets from the incredible Sarabeth’s cookbook had to be prepped, assembled and baked on Thanksgiving itself.  So the recipe was only designed for eight people, which is all we were planning on having as of Noon on Thanksgiving because they are made in individual tartlet pans and everyone gets their own.

At 13h30, with just four hours until show time, we were informed that a ninth person would be joining us.  Fortunately, I ordered twelve of those tartlet dishes.  The problem was that I only had enough dough for eight and so at the last minute, there I was scrambling to get another apple from the grocery store, marinate it in the sugar, flour, vanilla bean, and lemon juice.  But of course, because few things done at the last minute, that failed (is anyone surprised?).

Sadly, Grace had to leave early, so thankfully, we had eight perfect tartlets.  I don’t often brag overtly about the desserts I make (I only do a normal amount of bragging), but HOLY HECK this thing was perfect!  I mean, it looked just like the photo, only better because instead of some baking sheet, I placed it on a beautiful silver tray covered in powdered sugar.  If you could have tasted the one in the photo and then compared it to the one I made, it would taste the same!  It was that amazing!

(And yes, I’m aware that I’m using an asparagus-serving fork; Edith Wharton is not rolling over in her grave because of this because she and I had a seance and she said that it’s fine)

Alas, it’s now December of 2012 and if my uncle’s right, we’ve got sixteen days left to live so I’m sorry goyish people, but if shit hits the fan, I still get all eight nights of Hanukkah!  Speaking of the holiday season, I have a bone to pick with the folks at MoMA.  As usual, I ordered my religiously ambiguous holiday cards (the Hanukkah ones are so bad it’s not even funny), but unfortunately, THEY ARE COATED IN GLITTER, which was not how they appeared in the catalog or online!

Now, I hate glitter.  I hope the grave of Henry Ruschmann, the horrible man who created that hellish product in 1934 in New Jersey (of course), has been vandalized on a regular basis because there are no benefits to glitter.  It stays on your hands for hours, even days; it gets all over EVERYTHING and it’s just a nuisance.

All of that said these are some great religiously ambiguous holiday cards that I’m sending out.

Finally today, proof that Grace is a great friend: only a really great friend tells you it’s okay to buy something at 3h0 (that’s AM for those of you who don’t understand the fact that I don’t believe in America’s decision to ignore the fact that we’re the only country that doesn’t run on a 24-hour clock).  So a few nights ago, I stumbled upon this site called One Kings Lane, which is basically Gilt, but without the huge debt issues/massive layoffs and just for furniture/home stuff.

Next thing you know, I’m in one of the three Ralph Lauren sales buying the Ralph Lauren Cable-Knit Cashmere Travel Set in navy because “You travel a lot and I try to wrap as much of myself as possible in cashmere whenever traveling on any kind of public anything.”

Don’t you love it when a friend convinces you to buy something you want?  I know my credit card company does.

Well, I’m headed to Palm Beach (aka: Heaven) tomorrow on the rails of Amtrak’s Auto Train so until next time…

JD

It Wasn’t a Cold: Spring Break 2012

Well the last Spring Break I’ll get for at least the next few years has come to an end and of course my brain isn’t functioning regularly yet even though I’ve been back at school since Sunday.  To make things worse, Andrew sent me the following clip from this past week’s Saturday Night Live, which I missed, that has to be one of the all-time funniest things to come from SNL and features one of my favorite people and America’s answer to the Two Fat Ladies, Paula Deen:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Now, aside from the sheer brilliance that are”That’s as stupid as fat free cream cheese,” “It started with me gettin’ what my mamma calls ‘the sugars'” and the ‘n’ word being nutrition, Kristn Wiig’s spot-on impersonation of my favorite hillbilly left Justin, Andrew and me wondering something: how does one spell my new favorite saying, “hot butter and oil” in this Southern dialect that is just too Southern for me to apparently comprehend.  Now, I figured out this unique pronunciation of butter is “booter,” but the way Kirsten Wiig says oil is just so bizarre.  Andrew thinks it’s spelled “aayl,” but Justin feels that spelling is wrong and offered “aaieyl.”  Grace, meanwhile, is convinced that both are wrong and that it should be “awl.”  I’m still trying to figure out how I think it is properly spelled so if anyone from my beloved SNL is dumb enough to read this, A, my mother thinks I should write for you (but her opinion doesn’t count because I’m her only child and like all Jewish parents, she secretly thinks I’m the Messiah) and B, (and more importantly), can I get the correct spelling, please.  Thanks, y’all!

It should be noted that  while writing about this, I came to the sad, and overly disturbing realization that is the tenth time I have mentioned the beloved Queen of Butter and the third time in 2012 alone!  All I can say about this is “Hot booter ‘n’ oil [since the correct spelling yet to be determined, I will be using the actual English spelling of oil], y’all!”

Moving away from “hot booter ‘n’ oil,” Spring Break was nice, until I woke up 48 hours after arriving in Palm Beach sniffling like a teenage girl watching “The Notebook” (which, for the record, is a movie you couldn’t pay me to see).  The only difference was that I wasn’t watching anything depressing.  Now, I will not come out and say that I had a cold because I had dinner reservations every night and like hell was I staying in to eat a baked chicken from Publix!

So what did mother and I do once we dropped off our Lady Madonna at the airport on Sunday?  We took two of the three free movie passes some moron gave him and drove down to Boca, Land of the Jews, to see the other Madonna’s new movie, “W.E.,” the movie about the love affair between the Duke and Duchess of Windsor while showing the blossoming love affair between a married woman named Wallis (because her mother and grandmother were obsessed with a woman who looked like a man and nearly brought down the entire British Monarchy; that right there is what I would like to call a great role model) and a security guard at Sotheby’s in 1997 during the historic auction of the personal items belonging to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

If that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry because the movie doesn’t make any sense at all either.  Sadly, the trailer makes it look half decent, but in reality, I actually left that theatre thinking one thing: I would like my free ticket back!  Madonna, just go into retirement.  The music career is over (I think the Superbowl Halftime Show confirmed it since you’ve now joined the league of such illustrious performers as Ashely Simpson and Kid Rock), you haven’t acted in ages; just let the 80, 90s and early 2000s music you made define your career.

Harvey Weinstein, as much as I have enjoyed many of your films over the years (I even bought an Adult ticket to see some of them, including my favorite movie of 2011, “The Artist”), I cannot believe you associated yourself with this overly confusing, poorly-made, recorded nightmare.  I would call it  a film, but that wouldn’t be fair to actual directors who know what the hell they’re doing!

Aside from visiting old Palm Beach restaurant favorites, mother decided that since I’m of legal age, it was finally time for her to do what she has wanted to do for years and that is go to get drinks before dinner at restaurants and hotels all over the island.  See, aside from mother and I, no one in our family really drinks alcohol, aside from the occasional glass of wine with dinner so there has never been anyone who has wanted to go with her before me and hey, I wasn’t paying!

The Tapestry Bar at the Breakers is one of the most magnificent rooms in the world.  There will never be rooms of that scale and grandeur ever built again and to be able to experience even a taste of what it was like back when Henry Flagler’s hotel was a second home to everyone who mattered for decades is just remarkable.  Plus, they have a Happy Hour from 17h0-19h0.  Mother and I each had a glass of wine, plus the trio of dips to go with the chips that accompanied our drinks (the Port Wine Pommery was our favorite because of its very subtle taste and smooth texture) was less than $20, including gratuity.  And they validated the parking ticket!  For Palm Beach, that is a bargain, people!

For non-hotel bars, we preferred Buccan, which is right on County, across from the one gas station left on the island.  We’d never been before (because some people don’t like to try new things anymore) and decided to give it a shot.  I’d heard that it’s more of a place to go for appetizers than it is for dinner and so we sat at copper-plated bar tables that glistened just like a freshly-polished copper pot.  Again, Happy Hour exists in Palm Beach, which is odd because one would assume that every hour in paradise is happy.   In addition to a glass of wine each, we shared the featured cheese and the prosciutto & fontina arancini, which I really enjoyed.

What I enjoyed even more though was knowing that I’m not the only guy who has to put up with his mother constantly trying to take photos of her “baby.”  Two bar tables away from us sat a guy about my age, maybe younger, with his very thirsty parents who did what mother loves to do more than anything else: take embarrassing photos of young adult sons in restaurants with the flash.  Do y’all know how annoying that iPhone flash is?  I swear, I hate the flash, so when we were in Florida this time, I just started carrying my Leica around with me because I’ve come to the conclusion that if someone is going to be taking a photo of me, it’s gonna be taken with a real camera!

The highlight of the trip for me, though, was not having cocktails every night before dinner, but it was our final evening when we dinnered at Palm Beach’s newest restaurant, Imoto, a sushi bar with a limited Asian-inspired cuisine menu located right next door to Buccan.  Despite probably belonging more in South Beach than in Palm Beach, a place that kind of shuns change of any kind, especially pennies because nothing in Palm Beach has ever required the need to even contemplate using a penny, Imoto is capturing a market that until now has been dominated almost exclusively by restaurant-turned nightclub after 22h0, the always popular Cucina Dell Arte.

Aside from not having a website as promised on the business card and matches, Imoto’s only flaw is that it’s only open for dinner.  If they opened for lunch, that stupid Pizza al Fresco off of Worth Avenue would finally realize that you can’t charge $20 for a salad and not have service to match it.  My only complaint with the dinner itself was that I would have preferred that the rice on top of which my fillet of beef was placed was a bit too spicy for my liking.  That, and we didn’t get the orange slices like everyone else at the end of the meal.  Mother’s rock shrimp tempura with spicy aioli sauce, which was not spicy at all (thank you very much), was so good the next morning cold before we left for the airport!  The non-spicy, spicy aioli sauce gave it this invigorating kick that just took the overall flavor to a whole new level!

I highly recommend this place, but warn that if you happen to be over the age of 47, don’t be there past 21h0 because you will definitely be the oldest person in there.  This might be the only restaurant in Palm Beach that won’t have a single customer on ventilation and that is impressive!  In my opinion, Imoto might just be the new Cucina becuase it’s hip, it’s fun, the food is amazing, and most importantly, I wasn’t the youngest person there!

Mother’s highlight was a bit different from mine.  She and Jean went to a charity luncheon at Mar-a-Lago for the American Humane Society because of a dog dressed in a pink gown and wearing a tiara.  I’m not making this up.  This year, the society was honoring Candy Spelling with their humanitarian award in recognition of her philanthropic efforts.  Sadly, I think Princess Zelda, the tiara-wearing dog, got more attention because well, it’s a dog wearing a dress and a tiara vs. a woman who had three gift-wrapping rooms in the house she finally sold after being on the market for over two years.  In all honesty, I’d being paying more attention the dog too.

Meanwhile, Andrew spent his final Spring Break on the Coast (I love saying that) doing whatever it is people in LA do.  The high point of his trip came on the flight back, though, because Andrew was seated across the aisle from legendary actor Sam Waterston, better known as District Attorney Jack McCoy from Law & Order.  Yes, cue the music:

Now, of course, because it’s Andrew, he refused to just make my life complete and casually make that infamous noise in Mr. Waterston’s presence during the plane’s descent into JFK , but he did tell me that he watched an episode or two of the show, so I guess he gets something for doing that.

Back in Florida, Justin, who continued to remind me over Spring Break that some people don’t get a week off for Spring Break anymore, to which I should remind him that he volunteered to graduate a semester early so it’s his own doing, is moving.  He’s leaving his apartment not far from the Rollins campus and heading to a new apartment near my beloved Whole Foods in Winter Park.  This was where I developed a disgusting obsession with the two-bite brownies, which I then topped with Betty Crocker vanilla frosting using a knife I took from the prepared food section.  It was so delicious, eating from a trash can after discarding the evidence in an effort to stop inhaling anymore of them.  And don’t judge because this is something that happened in college and everyone does some weird stuff in college!

Back to Justin, his move-in date is on April 22nd, when the average daily temperature will be 84°F, so you have fun with that one, Justin!  He realized it was time to leave his current apartment, which he has had since this past summer, because the cinderblock chic decor that was provided for him and the noise from the house parties his college student neighbors make nightly was too much for him to handle.  Having stayed there, I’m just so thrilled to see him leave that dump and move into a place more fitting with the 21st Century.  I say this because in his on-going efforts to pretend like it’s 1975, Justin lacks something even my 90-year old grandparents have: internet access!  Justin, the 21st Century can’t wait to see you again.

In a more serious note, today marks the 12th day since Justin smoked his last cigarette, cigar or pipe which is very impressive, especially since he’s too cheap to buy Nicotine gum or patches!  I’m so proud of you, Justin, but at the same time upset because now I actually have to put thought into your graduation present!

Finally tonight, before I head to a “I’m Not Irish and Therefore Not Celebrating Tomorrow” party, I whipped out the Leica and took some photos of my dog, Buddy, when I was home last weekend before returning to Charlottesville to prove to Andrew that I do in fact use my new camera.  However, His Royal Buddness (which is a name to which he will respond) is useless.  Out of about 45 photos, maybe ten came out well because he refuses to stay still.

I would like to note that I’m fully aware that everyone who has a dog is convinced that they have the cutest, most handsome dog to have ever been brought onto the face of the earth, but I’m just saying that HRB looks like the cutest dog on the face of the earth in these photos.

Look at that 11-year old puppy!

He gets away with murder because of this face.  I would pay millions to learn how to make it but he’s stubborn and refuses to tell me.

Alright, I’m off to go die of heat stroke here in Charlottesville while trying to imagine the same temperature with a breeze from the Atlantic Ocean in Palm Beach.  It looks like this:

Until next time…

-JD

I Have Discovered Something Even Paula Deen Hasn’t and It Involves Bacon

On Friday night, I went to dinner at Brookville Restaurant here in Charlottesville not really expecting to have anything beside a simple dinner that wouldn’t even be worth mentioning to anyone.  However, it would be a shame to not talk about what I ate for dessert.  Yes, my roasted flank steak was delicious and cooked perfectly and my glass of 2009 Xavier was so smooth and perfectly spiced; the cornbread was…well I’ve had better (it fell apart the second I touched it).

However, the reason I’m going back is because of one thing: Bacon, Chocolate Chip and Heath Bar Cookies with a shot of milk!  Yes, bacon INSIDE the cookie!  It was a moment of euphoria made even more wonderful because I didn’t have to share with anyone!  And it wasn’t just some bacon bites that were sprinkled into the dough.  Oh no, there were delicious pieces of bacon inside each of the five cookies on the platter; I could feel my teeth sinking into crispy bacon that was partially covered in chocolate and while already a huge fan of the salty-sweet dessert combination, but this taking that to a whole new level!  These five, very tan (yes, I’m using the word tan to describe a cookie) circles of joy melted in my mouth; they were so warm that the bottom of each cookie had that buttery feeling they have that leaves a little stain on the piece of parchment paper on which they’re baked.  Yes, I know I’ve devoted 250 words to a cookie, but this was unlike anything I’ve ever had before in my life!

Trying to move on, I finally got my Birthday present from Mother and Scrooge (four months late, but whose counting?) and here’s what I know: it has a lot of buttons that make absolutely no sense to me!  And Justin’s response to this is that I should have gotten a simpler camera, but it’s just so much more aesthetically pleasing to look at in contrast to some of the other cameras out on the market today.

Yes, I’m admitting that I bought a camera simply because I thought it looked nice.  Look, I like to take a pretty picture, that’s it.  I will never even try to act like I’m the next Henri Cartier-Bresson; I simply want to take a decent photo and as much as I love and adore my Konica Minolta, I want better quality photos.  That, and I’m sick of Andrew calling me out for having a camera made by a company that no longer makes cameras!

My new Leica X1 arrived when Mother and Scrooge came to visit at the beginning of the month for his birthday.  On that Sunday that they were here, we drove about an hour away from Charlottesville to the town of Orange to have brunch at the Inn at Willow Grove.  It was beautiful to say the least, but what I had for brunch was so good, I’m actually salivating at the very thought of it!  I had what was described as a French Toast Brick!  That was the most beautiful, most delicious brick I’ve ever seen or had in my life!  It was coated in a layer of sugar and accompanied with mascarpone cheese, blueberries, the most decadent maple syrup I’ve ever had, and bacon.  I finished it so quickly that Mother only got half of one bite!  Needless to say, I cannot wait to go back there.

As much as I love my new Leica, Grace and I really love the piece of software that accompanied it: Photoshop!  Finally, after years of bad hair, bad teeth, poor lighting, you name it, I can finally show photos of certain member of my family that haven’t been seen by anyone else in years!  Now, of course, because my life just happens this way, it didn’t come with the “right” version of Photoshop, according to Andrew and Justin, who of course have the $999 version I apparently need to have.  Fortunately, there’s a $199 student price that I might end up getting when my 30-day free trial ends.  But I already know that the second I buy it, Andrew, like he just did when I told him I signed up for Netflix on Friday, will tell me not to keep it because there’s something wrong with it even though he has been telling me to get it for months.

Speaking of Andrew, I’ve come to the realization that he and I have something in common with Oprah and her best friend (and much more entertaining person), Gayle and that is that while Oprah just did the shows and never watched them, Gayle was just like every member of the audience; she watched the show and tuned in to see it every day even if she was on that day’s show.  Well, I am Gayle and Andrew is Oprah.  He would rather watch a show months before it airs on a DVD and know what happens before anyone else whereas I am the ultimate viewer; I follow shows on Tweetie Bird, I do my homework during the commercial breaks.  There is something about the experience of watching the show on TV with the rest of the country that can’t be replicated on any early copy release on a DVD.  This became most obvious a few weeks ago regarding the show I have declared to be the most intriguing show of our time, Downton Abbey.

Andrew doesn’t understand why I haven’t just watched the DVDs of the original ITV show to see what happens instead of having to wait until tonight to see what happens with Lady Mary and Matthew.  I, on the other hand, have never been this excited about Sunday nights in my entire life!  OH MY GOD!  The suspense is killing me!  First, he was told he would be incapable of activity of any kind below the waist, then he started feeling “tingly” feelings down there and then he starts walking again!  And of course, the second the feet (and other things) start working again, the Dowager Countess immediately starts pushing Lady Mary on Matthew just like any good and proper Jewish Grandmother would!  And then Lady Sybil with the chauffeur!  In an understatement, I was plotzing when he burst into the salon before dinner (wearing a day suit, no less) and broke the news that they were in love and moving to Dublin, not caring about losing all her money and worldly possessions!  Do y’all wanna know why she didn’t care about losing her money?  It’s because she has no concept of what things cost!  I can’t wait to see how she turns out in Season Three (which started filming just a few weeks ago!).  Then, that… thing, Lady Edith.  Well, let’s be honest, no one really cares about her anyway.  And the plotting to get rid of cousin Isobel is the best part of the show; I’m completely for sending her back to whatever hell hole she came from!  I mean really, offering up a house that isn’t even yours to be used as a nursing home!  That’s almost as tacky as Mr. Pamuk dying in Lady Mary’s bed after taking her virginity, if not solely for this line:

And of course, one can’t forget Mr. and the new Mrs. Bates!  And the newly departed maid’s attempted romance with his Lordship (scandalous!) or O’Brien’s sudden change of heart over her Ladyship.  Thomas, however is the one person I think we’d all like to see just go somewhere (like back to playing with the overly hairy chest of Duke Crowborough) and never return!  He deserved to get taken for all his money regarding that beyond stupid deal he made with the black market grocer!

As y’all can see, I am OBSESSED with this show on a slightly disturbing and possibly unhealthy level, but it’s simply unlike anything else being offered on television today in our world of Snooki and Teresa Guidice.  Andrew thinks I’m insane because I could already know how the season ends and not have to wait just a few more hours to find out.  Sadly, Andrew just doesn’t understand.

Well that’s all for now because I’m off to go play in the snow that has been falling for the last few hours and then get ready for the season finale of Downton!  Until next time…

-JD

Why Justin’s Father and I Have to Learn to Say Something Different After We Say “Hello” on the Phone

When I was staying in Winter Park with Justin just before coming back here to Charlottesville, we were sitting at brunch and his father called.  While the conversation wasn’t on speakerphone and I could actually hear what his father was saying, Justin’s facial expressions and his very drawn-out response said it all. His father, like my own President Suharto, had but only one thing to ask: Have you found a job yet?

So naturally, I began asking Justin that very same question when he would call me and it was fun while it lasted because now, he has an answer that isn’t no.  Yes, Justin, college graduate, has found a job to hold him over until he hurries up and applies to law school.  He’s working as a  clerk for the bankruptcy division for the law offices of Jew, Goyim and Goyim down in Hotlando.

For reasons that only he and people over the age of 70 understand, Justin finds the deathly summers of Central Florida to somehow be relaxing and enjoyable.  Personally, the thought of potentially bursting into flames from the record heat doesn’t do much for me.  But hey, Justin also wants to see the re-release of Titanic in 3-D, so he’s a free spirit anyway.  Free spirit sounds so much better than “unique individual,” doesn’t it?  Well, I guess free spirit would really be applicable if Justin were going backpacking through Bhutan before taking yoga in an ashram in India, but he’d never do anything like that, so I guess he really is just a “unique individual.”

The real issue now, however, is not where Justin is going to live (as charming as Winter Park is, where he is currently residing is basically off-grounds housing for Rollins students and the Thursday-Sunday non-stop partying isn’t conducive to a working person’s lifestyle), but rather what on earth are his father and I going to ask him when we call him from now on?  After all, it’s far too early to ask if he’s made partner (seeing as that requires a law degree, among other things) or if he has his own office with a secretary, so I just… I don’t know what we’re going to be able to say to him from now on.  In any event, mazel to Justin, our little graduate all grown up!

Well now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, after months of waiting while being told not to expect them to arrive from numerous, unnamed sources, what has to be the greatest gift of all time finally arrived at Grace’s doorstep on Tuesday!  Inside the FedEx box, wrapped warmly inside their shoe bag was the gift that had been promised me a year ago by Princess.  Yes, I’m making this big of a deal out of a single pair of shoes, but these are not just any ordinary shoes!  These shoes can actually talk on my behalf!  That’s right, I’m talking about the College Slippers from Stubbs & Wootton:

Now, I’m told that this is one of the last pairs of the College Slipper that was done in the linen; they’re usually a black velvet with a red U instead of this pair, which I feel will somehow get more use.  The big question is where in the hell does one where a pair of shoes like that?  It’s not as though one can wear them on a regular basis (because they don’t exactly feel comfortable enough to be everyday walking shoes) and there are no doubt certain situations when wearing them will not be acceptable, such as when out to dinner with one’s parents.  Regardless of where (and when) they’ll be worn, I can’t thank Grace enough for this gift!  She got me what I always wanted!

Meanwhile, Andrew insisted (to put it mildly) that I see the movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the “not a 9/11, 9/11 movie.”  Well let me tell y’all, IT’S A 9/11 MOVIE!  That’s the first thing that was wrong with this movie.  Julia Roberts should have played the part of Linda Schell, not Sandra Bullock; Oskar, the main character (played by Kids Week Jeopardy winner, Thomas Horn, age 14, meaning Jeopardy might survive longer than one would have ever expected), should have been seeing a therapist, not to mention the fact that he should have had more adult supervision!  I don’t think I’ve ever been this upset about a movie in my entire life, and while I get that movies like this want the viewer to leave feeling somehow effected by what has just been viewed, but I left feeling angry at how insensitive Oskar was acting throughout the movie.  Yes, he lost his father, but he left his mother to grieve all on her own without any sort of help, instead telling her he wished she had died in the towers instead of his father!  AND WHAT KID IS AFRAID OF A SWING SET?  And as a side note, there were scenes that showed taxis in the background that weren’t introduced until 2005, and unlike that one scene in The Queen where the modern cars can be seen in the background while the Jaguar is driving on the M4, I noticed this the first time!

To make up for the horrible movie experience I had with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, my friend Lindsay and I went to see the completely outrageous and over-the-top Joyful Noise, staring Queen Latifah and the Queen of plastic surgery (sorry, Joan Rivers), Dolly Parton!  Now aside from the fact that this movie is just under two hours long and the overly dramatic family drama associated with Queen Latifah’s character, Vi Rose Hill, the movie is surprisingly wonderful!  Between the young choir love, the music, the more mature choir love, “tap and die,” and Dolly having a shotgun in the vestibule of her home, I loved it!

The other thing that made this movie was the audience, which was half middle-aged white people who have probably visited Dollyland more times than I’ve been to the Preakness (22 times, if you count the mother being five months pregnant with me race in 1989) and then you had the black ladies who sang along like it was the Mamma Mia Sing-Along re-release and provided a great deal of very humorous commentary.  We sat in the middle of the theater so we could get the best of both.

Besides, I don’t get the opportunity to hear such exciting music at temple, where the newest songs were written a long time ago, BC, and don’t have as much energy and excitement as it seems gospel churches have.  Also, Lindsay and I have decided that we’re now going to go to one of these church choir competitions because they look hysterical, but of course we’ll be going for purely academic research!

Finally tonight, before I stop so that I might devout my full attention to Downton Abbey, today’s “36 Hours” column in the Travel section of the Times, took place in Birmingham, England.  Now, I’ve been to Birmingham myself and I can say that unless they’ve made some serious improvements in the last ten years since I was there (for no more than one day, I might add).  The Birmingham I saw was extremely dirty and reminded me of the images of England during the riots and strikes of the 1980s.  Shurato had a conference to attend in Birmingham and Mother and I traveled along; we stayed about an hour outside of the city in the most picturesque hotel on earth, The Mallory Court, and on the one day we ventured into Birmingham, all we seemed to see was a British equivalent of the Baltimore ghetto, but with a Bank of Pakistan.

The place where the conference took place was in a part of the city that had been extremely gentrified to the point that it was surrounded by a recently-constructed fortress wall.  The Hyatt Regency connected to the convention center didn’t even have a gift shop!  Graffiti was on all the buildings and it was truly like entering another world.  Apparently, The Times saw a side of Birmingham that we either failed to see or was built within the last decade.

Alas, time to finish watching my beloved Downton, so until next time…

-JD

Next Year, I’m Either Picking Up the Turkey From Daniel Boulud or Following Everyone to Boca

Despite the fact that I might actually love Thanksgiving more than I love my own birthday (for which I devote an entire month to celebrating), this year’s Thanksgiving just killed me in a way that may have rivaled the death of Muammar Gaddafi (or whichever of the 112 different spellings of his name y’all prefer).   So my grandmother is on her 900th life and isn’t really able to leave her home anymore, but she insisted that she be apart of Thanksgiving  this year, which we do at my house.  Even though we didn’t really start cooking until after the 85th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade ended, Mother and I managed to stay on schedule, despite one of our ovens deciding to suddenly act like the electronics system on a 1980s Jaguar, until about Four when it was decided that we would move the entire dinner to my grandparents’s house.  That is when uncontrolled chaos began to ensue.  We had to transport all of the food, plus their serving platters over to their house, where we would finish cooking the stuffing, sweet potato pies, corn muffins, and the two French Apple Tartes.

The traveling and packing/unpacking may have put us behind schedule, but my younger cousin, Kevin, who this year sported a “limited edition” Black Friday 2011 tee-shirt (not kidding), wasn’t thrilled that we were starting dinner so late because as y’all may have heard, Wal-Mart, a place I’ve proudly only been twice, started its sale Thursday night, and he wanted to be there to the point that he spent most of dinner away from the table and glued to his computer screen.  I’m sorry, but it’s a holiday designed to celebrate the family—many thanks, Norman Rockwell—and not about spraying people with pepper spray in a Wal-Mart over a $249 40″ LCD television that isn’t even that good of a brand!

That, combined with some other “interesting” (that’s the best way to describe it) events has made me realize that maybe Andrew, and about twenty other people I know, are on to something by going to Bubbieland USA Boca and letting someone else do the cooking for them.  We’ve only done the restaurant gig once and that was in 2001 because we were in New York for Thanksgiving.  My only issue with being in South Florida for Thanksgiving is that it just doesn’t seem right to be surrounded by people in short-sleeves and palm trees and other plants with leaves on them in late November.  Now oddly, I have absolutely no problem with this same scenario in December for Christmas.  I don’t know why, but the whole White Christmas thing doesn’t appeal to me at all.  This might have something to do with the fact that I’m Jewish, but I may be wrong.

The other alternative I’m thinking about for next year is Daniel Boulud’s $395 pre-made Thanksgiving Dinner for eight to ten people, sans desserts (my stomach is already getting excited).  Yes, that sounds like a lot to spend on a meal, but if you do the math, it’s kind of the same amount you’d spend if you made it all yourself.  Plus, the difference is that you can avoid hell grocery stores and the lovely human satans suburban housewives that can’t competently shop in them, not to mention the fact that you get your dinner prepared for you by a world class restaurant team!  And, you just get your guests, family included, to bring the wine and dessert so you don’t have to pay for them.  Who ever thought that I would be somehow saving people money?  I blame the sleep depravation.

The rest of my time home can be summed up very quickly: I was a vegetable.  In fact, the only time I actually left my house following Thanksgiving was on Saturday night when I went with Mother and Fozzie Bear to dinner at Todd Jurich’s Burger Bar in Virginia Beach.  Todd Jurich is a local chef whose hugely successful and award-winning Todd Jurich’s Bistro has given him a bit of an ego.  M. Jurich opened and then closed a French bistro-style restaurant before deciding to jump on the high-end burger joint train started by Danny Meyer with Shake Shack (an affordable version of heaven).  I hope this somewhat out-of-the-way restaurant is a success because it was delicious!  The All American Bison Burger with Sweet Potato Fries were excellent, although I did have to basically deconstruct the burger in order to eat it was it was rather large.

The reason to go to M. Jurich’s new restaurant, however, isn’t even the food, but rather the Nutella and Burnt Marshmellow milkshake.  I can’t say that I’ve ever had a Nutella milkshake before, and while I’m curious as to how they managed to turn a product that specifically says that you’re not allowed to freeze it into a milkshake, I’m also afraid to ask because what I don’t know, won’t hurt me!  I will say that I would have preferred a little more milkshake and a little less burnt marshmallows, but it was delectable nonetheless and I highly recommend that y’all go if in the Virginia Beach area.

Justin, whose ancestors attended the first Thanksgiving, briefly went back North to Cape Cod to freeze his little tuchus off for 48 hours before getting on the first flight back to Florida because he’s now afraid of the cold.  Each time I spoke to Justin while he was home, he did nothing but complain about how it was bitterly cold even though was born and raised in Massachusetts.  My how three years in Florida can change a man.  While on holiday, Justin did mention something to me that I’ve found to be both wonderful and depressing.  Apparently, the wonderful people behind Nutella, my well-documented addiction,  have created two Nutelleria cafés, one in Bologna, and the other in Frankfurt.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m over the moon excited that these two places exist, but I’m so mad that I didn’t see the one in Bologna when I visited the hidden Italian gem back in April, especially since I was only two blocks from it at one point!  I guess there has to be a reason to go back, right?

Finally tonight, there is something I’ve been meaning to share with y’all for way too long and my earlier mention of M. Bunga Bunga himself, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.  Following the eccentric Libyan leader’s death, the folks at Time got creative and put together a slideshow documenting the many outrageous outfits that Muammar wore over the years.  Despite these lasting images, I feel my lasting image of M. Bunga Bunga will forever be this clip from SNL:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Okay, well I’m off to go watch The Godfather for a class so until next time…

-JD

PS: There are only seventeen more days until I board the Auto Train to Florida!

Charlottesville Has No Soul Cycle, No High Line and No Shake Shack!

Well, this weekend marks the unofficial end to the Summer and well, as y’all can imagine, I’m not exactly thrilled to be back in Charlottesville.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Charlottesville, but in the two short weeks since being back at school, I’ve already read well over six-hundred pages worth of books and reading assignments!

So let’s be honest, going from a full-time internship to school is not easy.  When you go from having responsibilities, a busy life and Soul Cycle to textbooks, schedules from hell, stress, and whatever else you want to throw into the college equation, it’s not easy to immediately adjust.  To makes things worse, Mother and Count Dooku decided that they didn’t need to help me move into my apartment this year, so I don’t even have half of my stuff with me because my car can’t hold a whole lot.  Now, I was going to go home last weekend, but first there was that earthquake, and then that damn Hurricane Irene decided to ruin those plans.  So aside from five pairs of pants I had ordered over the 4th of July weekend, the only clothes I have with me are from my last week of work in New York and a few polo shirts I managed to grab out of my suitcase before driving up to Charlottesville.  I’m now going to be missing the first football game of the season tomorrow so I can drive home in twenty minutes and spend all of Saturday unpacking what I bring back.  I’ll just be glad to have all of my belongings back with me.

Speaking of Hurricane Irene, Andrew experienced his first hurricane while still in New York.  Unfortunately, all he got was some heavy rain and wind.  I know it’s not nice of me to wish a hurricane on someone, but I just wanted him to experience what I’ve gone through way too many times: the no power for eight days, cold showers, being forced to walk down your street because power lines and trees are covering the road, doing homework by candlelight/flashlight, and all those other fun things associated with hurricanes.  Of course, a lot of that would require Andrew to live in suburbia, but that’s just a minor complication.

As for Justin, I had the pleasure of seeing him my last night in New York.  We went to a terrific dinner at Il Posto Accanto, which is just the greatest Italian restaurant made even more entertaining by its neighborhood Italian restaurant atmosphere.  Personally, I’m obsessed, and have found myself longing for the Bistecca ai Ferri, which is grass-fed Black Angus Hanger Steak resting on a warm pumpkin farro with wine-soaked raisins.  After dinner, we headed uptown so Justin and Andrew could meet for the first time, which went surprisingly well, considering that Andrew was moments from going to sleep.  It was also when Andrew and I said farewell until December, ending yet another wild summer in the city.  It was such a treat to see Justin as well, since it would have been December as well before we’d get to see one another otherwise.

As anticipated, Grace was ready and waiting for my return to Charlottesville and things went more smoothly than last time in New York.  Now, I have to be honest, Thomas Jefferson might have been a brilliant intellectual and yes, the Declaration of Independence is a great document, Monticello is lovely and UVa is wonderful school, but that man was horrible at picking real estate!  It is deathly hot out here in the summer and I’m told it’s beyond freezing in the winter.  Oh, and these hills don’t do much to help.  Needless to say, I’m greatly anticipating Fall.

Now that Summer is drawing to a close, I thought it would be good to reflect on what will be my final Summer break before graduate school.  This is a terrifying realization, even though Summer hasn’t been a break for years.  The six weeks in New York this Summer were more of a preview of what life after college than the year before when I only worked three days a week.  Honestly, I enjoyed the work week and can’t wait to get to it myself.  I found an athletic activity aside from running that I truly enjoy and sincerely miss; plus, I finally made it to Brooklyn, so that made the whole six weeks right there!

Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the BofA Intern brofest for helping to get me to kick my Starbucks addiction.  In the six weeks I was in New York, I only visited Starbucks twice: on my first day of work and one night with Andrew.  Well, that’s all for now, but I hope y’all have a good Labor Day weekend and until next time…

-JD

“Sorry I Couldn’t Make It Tonight. I Had to Take My Mom to the Hospital!”

That line was used on a friend of mine this past Tuesday evening by a “solid eight” girl with whom he was supposed to have dinner.  Yes, it’s tragic that this young lady stood him up, but with a line like that, she is definitely a perfect ten when it comes to having a great excuse!  That is so much better than feigning an illness and I felt it needed to be shared.

Moving on, I have to say that it is so hot here in Virginia Beach that I’m ready to trade in my new Tod’s for a pair of hiking boots and my suitcases for a hiking bag and head to Antarctica because at least it’s cold there!  I’ll probably just end up moving into my freezer for the next 72 hours before I head to Charlottesville, where the high yesterday was 98, though I’m told it felt like 103.  And Wednesday, I was in New York for an interview and it was deathly hot out!

I arrived Tuesday night and went straight to dinner with Andrew after dropping my off my bags.  It didn’t seem that hot out so I decided to walk from the Upper East Side over toward the West Side through Central Park, which is one of my favorite things to do.  I just love being in the park and will find any excuse to spend time there.  By the time I hit the West Side, my shirt was untucked and I felt like Justin on a Thursday night after a few drinks with my shirt unbuttoned nearly all the way; all I was missing were a cigar and one of his fedoras!  I quickly tucked my shirt back in and buttoned-up and headed over to meet Andrew at Boulud Sud.  More importantly that actually getting a reservation there, I beat Andrew!  This never happens because he is always on time so I was very excited, especially since he only lives like two blocks away.

Dinner blew me away!  It’s a mediteranian-inspired restaurant so it has a very light and relaxing feel about it to begin with; the sea-foam greenish color on the wall and the light woods and white marble just kind of made me feel like I was on the Med instantly; the Birkins and the high-pitched voices of their formally-dressed totterers, however, reminded me that we were not on the island of Crete, but instead the island of Manhattan!  To start, Andrew and i split this plate of imported, Spanish ham with olives and grilled bread, which I was great, aside from those olives being a bit too spicy for me.  The bread they served was phenomenal; they were all made fresh and the focaccia with olives on it was just killer in my opinion!  For a main course, Andrew tried the Carpetto Orecchiette, which is a pasta dish that he certainly seemed to enjoy, while I had the Lamb Shoulder Cleopatra, which just would have blown my socks off had I been wearing any!  The sweet potatoes and the sweet potato purée, along with the onions and apricots were so delicious and that lamb shoulder was simply incredible.  In fact, I didn’t even need a knife to cut it now that I think about it.  Plus, when it arrived, the waiters covered it with a white-ceramic tagine instead of a silver cover, which I thought was kind of neat while still keeping with the whole Mediterranean feel of the restaurant (remember, North Africa is on the Med as well).  As an added bonus, I had a glass of the Terre Nere 2009 Etna Rosso, which was made with grapes grown on Mount Etna, which I visited in March.  The volcanic soil in which the grapes are grown give the wine this very smooth and uncomplicated taste to it that didn’t try to overpower the lamb, so I was very satisfied and I’m definitely buying a few bottles (I’ve recently decided to take up wine as a hobby of mine).

Dessert, which in my opinion is the only part of the meal that really matters, was a bit of a problem.  Unlike Café Boulud in Palm Beach where that warm upside down chocolate soufflé has never let me down, Andrew and i failed to find anything that really jumped out at us.  So instead, we decided we would go next door to Daniel Boulud’s new Épicerie Boulud to get dessert because it was basically designed to compete with Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery a few blocks away in the TimeWarner Center, but when we got there at just after 21h0, it was already closed!  One would expect that a place like that across the street from Lincoln Center would be open until at least 23h0, if not later on weekends!  For some horribly stupid reason, however, it’s only open until 20h0.  Instead, we went to our favorite standby, Grom.  This was my first visit to Grom since I was in Siena with mother so y’all can imagine my sticker shock when I realized that a small at Grom has gone up a dollar to $5.25 since last summer!  That didn’t stop me from a cup of melone and fiondente!

After walking around for a bit while we ate our Grom, Andrew took me to see his family’s new apartment on the West Side, which was beautiful, even if it lacked most of its furniture!  I must say that I’m quite jealous of Andrew’s brother William because while mother insisted that my KitchenAid be stainless steel so that it would match all the other appliances in the house, William’s is lime green!  Oh I would kill for that color and since I have to schlep my mixer to Florida in the winter to bake, I might just ask my Jewish Mr. Grinch for a lime green mixer to leave there this Hanukkah.  It was also great getting to see Andrew’s mother, who I love because she’s so nice.  As an added bonus, I got to see photos of Andrew from his youth, which was hysterical!

Wednesday morning saw me rising with the sun so I could go for a walk with “Aunt Faye” (I was also staying with her for the night), which was nice aside from the deathly heat that hit before 9h0!  I then attempted a five-mile run, but had to stop after only three miles because it was simply too hot to continue.  On my way back to her apartment, I stopped at E.A.T. to get some Health Loaf bread as well as the best hamburger buns on earth; they’re brioche hamburger buns and they just put Peperidge Farm to shame.  I also got little brioche rolls, which I use when I make sliders.  While there, Eli himself showed up, which was kind of neat.

By the time my interview finished up around Noon, it was so hot that by the time I reached Barney’s, fourteen blocks from where I had my interview, it was clear that I needed more than a pair of dark jeans!  In fact, (and I know this is disgusting/embarrassing, but we’ll get through it together) I was in such desperate need of a new shirt that I couldn’t even bring myself to take off my blazer since I could only imagine how my shirt looked!  The only problem was that I didn’t plan on needing a new shirt so I had to buy one (so tragic)!  Instead of going to Ralph Lipchitz as usual, I decided to check out that J. Crew on 79th and Madison since it carries a nicer selection than the normal J. Crew line.  I ended up with a shirt that I wouldn’t normally consider to be “my style,” but I’ve decided that I need to shake things up a bit more so why not!  While I was there, though, I overheard this clearly lost father and his fourteen-year-old son telling the salesman that the “tween” needed a tuxedo for one of his friend’s fourteenth birthday party!  Now I know that New York kids, especially New York Prep School kids do things differently from the rest of the world, but you have got to be effing kidding me if you think it’s appropriate for a fourteen-year-old to be having a black tie birthday party!  At that age, it sounds kind of stuffy and boring, though because of its intrigue and fascination, EVERYONE will obviously being attending, so maybe that kid’s on to something.  While I owned a tux of my own at that age, it was only because I had worn it to my Bar Mitzvah party and not because I needed it for a classmate’s fourteenth birthday!

After changing and making myself look like a human being again, I headed down to Union Square to meet Aunt Faye at the Union Square Greenmarket, which takes places every Monday, Wednesday Friday, and Saturday, so I could help her get ready for the dinner she was preparing that evening.  In between getting the seafood and the snow peas, she finished catching me up on what was new in her life.  The Greenmarket is another one of those things I absolutely love because you can get the freshest food that was sometimes picked just the day earlier and have it in your kitchen while its still at its peak.  Plus, everything is so much cheaper than going to a grocery store, so it makes economical sense to go there as well!

After we got back to her apartment, it was time to leave and just as quickly as a I came, I bid farewell to my beloved New York, but not for long since I’ll be back in four short weeks.

Meanwhile, Justin has had some super diva trouble real estate drama down in very much so Hotlando this summer ending with him moving after only being in his apartment for about a week.  He was originally renting a room in an apartment for the summer that he was going to be sharing with some random Canadian woman, but she turned out to be an actual alcoholic (not just a very social drinker) who was also kind of crazy and so he moved into a house of his very own not far from Rollins and so he’ll be living there until he finishes up the Fall semester.  His job at the law offices of Jew, Jew and Jew seems to be going well as he’s loving foreclosing on people who bought houses they couldn’t afford.  Personally, I don’t know why people thought Orlando was the only place they could go for a vacation, but they did.  Personally, I would have picked Cap Ferrat.

In addition to interning with Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin, Andrew has managed to attend the hottest events (literally) thus far this summer in New York.  Last weekend, he went with Nathaniel and Caroline to the Veuve Cliquot Polo Classic on Governor’s Island and to say that I am jealous is a huge understatement!  The three of them also went to see the Gotham Girls Roller Derby, which is not an event I see Andrew voluntarily attending.  When I asked him about it, most of the conversation was spent discussing the movie Whip It, which is about the “sport” that is roller derby.  Plus, he was supposed to spend Thursday night in the park (in actual death heat) at the Black Eyed Peas and Friends Concert 4 NYC to Benefit Robin Hood, but I read that it was canceled due to “inclement weather,” which is a shame because I saw them setting up for it on the Great Lawn while I was walking with Aunt Faye and it looked like it was going to be amazing!

Finally, I’d like to wish an early Happy Twenty-First Birthday to Grace!  She hits the legal drinking age in America on Saturday and I’m so excited, partly because I’ve managed to not tell her what I bought her since March!  Sadly, I’ll be heading to Charlottesville on Saturday, so instead, we’re celebrating tonight.  Grace has also decided to be a good humanitarian (I guess that’s what you call it) and rescued a bird.  I know it was done with the best of intentions, but y’all know that bird must have gone insane when it saw Beatrice, Grace’s stuffed rooster, just standing there in her living room, motionless.  Anyway, I’m off because I have to go bake her birthday cake and pack so until next time…

-JD

Apparently, My Bathing Suits Are Too Short For Suburban Housewives With Small Children

First of all, I’m back in suburbia and was just about to learn how to tie a noose  because it’s so boring here, but then Monday happened.  So I went to the grocery store to buy everything needed to make Ina Garten’s Flag Cake, which has a cream cheese frosting with which I’m not thrilled, and in honor of the unofficial start of Summer, I wore a very standard Palm Beach outfit for me which is just a bathing suit and a polo shirt.  Well some beyond incompetent mother had the nerve to come up to me and tell me that my Vilebrequin bathing suit (which was not cheap, I might add) was too short to be worn in a place with children and that she and “other mothers” found my rudeness to be insulting.  Somewhat confused, I simply looked at her, smiled and said, “That’s nice, but I don’t really care” before walking away.  I’m sorry, suburbia, but my bathing suit is only 2.5 inches shorter than standard “American” bathing suits (I measured).  It’s not like I’m wearing a thong/speedo (the whole Simon Van Kempen thing isn’t for me) and I’d rather have a shark eat my legs before I put on a pair of those extra-long boardshorts.  To say the least, it made for an entertaining moment.

So I have to say that it’s a bit weird to be back home, but only because when you go from being busy every single day to suddenly having nothing to do, it makes trying to even get dressed every day seem like a difficult task because there’s nothing I have to do aside from attempt to unpack.

So after arriving in Milan, I expected mother to meet me at our hotel, the Hotel Principe Di Savoia, but no, instead I was told to meet her on the Via della Spiga.

The hotel, which isn’t exactly in the middle of the city, provided a complimentary car to all of the shopping areas, so as if mother was waiting for me to show up.  I ended up with one thing, a safari jacket I had been looking at from Allegri since December.  It’s not a true safari jacket, but rather a safari-style rain coat that I got in a slate-color in an attempt to shake things up a bit in my closet.  I have to thank Justin for not only encouraging me to buy it, but for also getting me completely obsessed with the safari jacket look before everyone started doing them.  Also, I justified buying it (like I need a reason) because it’s replacing this rain coat I’ve had since the 9th Grade that is Burberry, reversible (navy one one side and nova check on the other) and just not for me anymore.  I wore that thing to the movies and treated it as more of a jacket than a rain coat.  And no, I NEVER wore it nova check out.  I’m not crazy or from Hollywood.  The funniest memory I have of wearing that jacket was the night Grace and I went to dinner and then the grocery store and I wore that jacket and she had on her Burberry nova check boots and people stared at us like we were that couple that matches.  I’m giving it to Mother who will also use it for trips to the grocery store and to the hair dressers.

Dinner our first evening was at a lovely restaurant on Corso Como, Alla Cucina delle Langhe, which is courtesy of mother’s seatmate on the plane-ride over to Milan.  Sadly, it wasn’t Snooki, but instead she sat next to someone named Patrick who works for Loro Piana.  And this being my mother, instead of asking for discount, she asks for restaurants in Milan.  I love her, but their cashmere sweaters cost over $600 and I would LOVE this half-zip one they have in burgundy so badly.

So Friday was probably the most amazing day of my life and mother’s life because we first began with the most amazing breakfast we’ve ever had in the hotel’s restaurant.  Then, following more extreme shopping on both our parts, we headed to the restaurant Paper Moon, which is right in the heart of the shopping district and a great place to unwind; it’s also a great place to do some people-watching, which mother and I could get an Olympic Gold Medal for doing.  We thoroughly enjoyed watching the caspian sea of Russian blondes stream in and out following a lunch consisting of three pieces of lettuce and two bites of a 20€ pizza.

After lunch, we high-tailed it past mother’s close friend, Muccia (and by close, I mean we went to every Prada in Milan) and decided to see the Last Supper, which was actually worth the pain of getting those tickets.  Though, I have to be honest, I kind of liked the fresco on the other side of the refectory a little better than Leonardo’s great masterpiece.

So as it turns out, right next to the Last Supper is this store I read about in Departures last Spring named Bernardini and I’ve been dying to go ever since I read about it so of course I schlepped mother there.  Bernardini is this vintage, luxury travel store and while we didn’t buy anything, it was fun to see everything they had for sale and in case anyone truly loves me, there is this Rolex in the window second window from the door that I’d love!  From Bernardini, we strolled around this very residential and less-touristy part of Milan before realizing that it was almost time for what will forever be one of the all-time highlights of our lives, the opera.

Now as many of y’all know, the Teatro alla Scala is without question the greatest theatre in the world when it comes to opera and when mother and I found two tickets available, we jumped on them before looking at the price.  We were in the front row, orchestra, therefore making me so close to the conductor that I kind of spent the majority of  Act One watching him sing than I did watch the stage.  We were at La Scala for the final night of the opera season and the closing night of Giacomo Puccini’s superb opera, Turandot.  Seeing “Nessun Dorma” be performed at La Scala actually brought tears to my eyes because my Italian teacher in prep school played Pavarotti’s rendition of it at least once a week for the two years I took Italian with her and it was just so breathtaking that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to properly describe the experience.

La Scala’s stage with the curtain being raised

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that evening for the rest of my life and I’m so grateful to my mother for not even looking at the price of those billets and just giving me her credit card number so we could buy them.  A side note to the folks at La Scala, it was so damn hot in that theatre that it made sitting in the Verona Amphitheater in the deathly heat of July so I could see the Barber of Seville tolerable!  Y’all need to get some air conditioning because I was beginning to schvitze by the end of the performance!

So meanwhile, Saturday arrived and we spent our final day in Northern Italy taking a “short” two-hour train-ride two stops from Venice to Vincenza.  Now the last time we spoke, I said that all there was to do in Vincenza was to visit the Bottega Veneta factory store but as it turns out, I was wrong.  Apparently, Vincenza is really known for the Palladian villas, and of course this would happen to me, but the most famous of the villas is the same one from which UVa founder Thomas Jefferson copied in order to design the Rotunda, so y’all know we went to see La Rotunda.

Let me say this, if anyone is dumb enough to let their mother convince them that Vincenza is a short train-ride away from Milan, don’t go.  And if you end up going, RENT A CAR!  It was so difficult to get to La Rotunda because mother just expects things to run very smoothly and effortlessly so clearly she hasn’t spent enough time in Italy to know that neither of those two things is possible.  We also visited the Teatro Olimpico, which was kind of a special place, but, and I feel bad saying this, it wasn’t La Scala.  It was my fault because I was still on a mental high from the night before so I didn’t really give it the attention it deserved.

Now don’t think for one second we came all this way and didn’t stop by to see the Bottega factory outlet.  Oh, we went and we didn’t even have an address to give the cab driver, but he knew exactly where we wanted to go.  The address, in case anyone wants to know, is Viale della Scienza, 9/11.  So here’s the thing, it’s nowhere near the city center and is really in the industrial part of the city, which makes sense since the Bottega factory is directly across the street.  Also, there wasn’t a whole lot that grabbed my attention, or mother’s for that matter.  At most, they had this one wallet, but considering all the damage I had done this semester, I figured I needed to start thinking about stopping.  Our dinner that night was courtesy of our hotel’s concierge and was so touristy that I won’t even bother mentioning it.

On Sunday, we took the train down to Siena so mother could see where I lived and spend some time exploring the city after we took photos of our hotel room in Milan because it was so stunning!  That bathroom had the most amazing shower of all time and I’ve told mother that I’m having that shower head installed in my bathroom at home.  Plus, I took this kind of neat photo in the bathroom of my watch:

In Siena, we ditched my dumpy apartment and headed instead for the Grand Hotel Continental, which was so much nicer than where I lived for the previous four months.  Our room was beautiful and had this amazing view of the Duomo:

I showed her all the sights and took her to a great little dinner not too far from our hotel that I frequented from time to time.  We went to Grom, where I had my final May flavor of the month.  On Monday, we visited the Duomo and strolled around the city before us and our seven bags (including mother’s purse) headed to the train station.

Now I love my mother, but the woman is useless at helping with the bags.  Normally, I’d accept this simply because she’s never helped before so why should she start now, but this time, it was a bit hard for me to manage them all by myself.  Once we arrived in Florence, I was ready to kill her because we only had a very short amount of time between our train from Siena arriving and our train to Rome leaving.  So when we went to board our train to Rome, I put her and her bags on board and then put my Ralph bag on the train before the big suitcases.  I asked her to just move the bag and she looks at it like it has some terminal illness and just taps the bag ever so slightly, but as if that thing moved.  In the meantime, a lovely line began to form as I struggled with my lovely seven bags.  At least someone took pity on me when we arrived in Rome.

When we arrived in Rome, we headed first to our hotel, the Hotel Slpendide Royal, which looked onto the Borghese Gardens, but was still just a block from the Via Veneto and only five minutes from the Via Condotti.  The view from where we had breakfast was so amazing as it looked out on this sea of green with the Vatican off in the distance.  Fortunately, both mother and I have done the major tourist sites in Rome so we had more time to do things we would have otherwise had to miss.

So I made the executive decision (because someone had to) that we would make Tuesday our shopping day and Wednesday our “cultural” day, even though members of my family believe that the Via Condotti is an historical site since both Bulgari and Buccellati were founded on that street!  In addition to shopping, I also took mother just three blocks away from the Via Condotti so we could visit my all time favorite gelateria, Giolitti.  I went four times over two days:

Tuesday night, mother wasn’t feeling too great so we headed to the nearby Via Veneto for a simple dinner and ended up at Ristorante Tuna, which was a lovely seafood restaurant.  I think we sat next to three members of the mafia however.  The restaurant had a very Upper East Side feel to it with a very Upper East Side kind of clientele, which was fine because let’s be honest, I’m a little Upper East Side boy and my mother doesn’t like to leave the Upper East Side when she’s in New York.

Wednesday, our last day in Italy, was spent doing a tiny bit of shopping for my aunt, but then we went first to see the Richard Meier-designed Ara Pacis museum, which was… interesting.  Ara Pacis was a peace alter built for Emperor Augustus  and located in his Campus Martius.  Unfortunately, I feel as though we were ripped off by the Italians because we paid about 15€ a person to just see the alter and nothing else because the other exhibit wasn’t opening until later in the week, but the space itself was simply breathtaking and the way Meier designed it to really focus all of the attention on the alter was just brilliant.  There was a great deal of natural light throughout the space the just made it this very calm and serene space that just happens to be in the middle of bustling Rome.  I mean, there’s a major road that’s right next to the museum, but you almost seem to forget it’s there because the space is just so peaceful.

From Ara Pacis, we then walked a very long way toward the Forum to get lunch at Tricolore, which was a really neat place with delicious sandwiches.  Despite being right next to the busiest tourist parts of all of Rome, the restaurant is in this neighborhood that is in a world unto itself.  There were very few tourists, simple shops, hairdressers; it had a very locals only feel to it, which is what I enjoy the most about any city because there are times when you need to escape the tour groups.   The place is so brilliantly designed because they have little sinks around the walls so you can come in, wash your hands and then sit at this counter that has ovens all around the base and order your sandwich or panino.  Raised in a vertical position around the marble counter are about eight, maybe nine ranges and you just sit there and order your lunch and Pellegrino and it’s prepared in the back, which you can see from where you’re sitting.  It’s very small and really designed as a take-out place, complete with take-out window, but they love having people stay for lunch, which we did.  I honestly believe it was one of the best meals I had in all of Italy and it was a sandwich covered in warm prosciutto on the most amazing bread ever!

After lunch, a very grumpy and gradually annoying mother and I took a taxi (because someone wore the wrong shoes) over to see the Borghese Gallery, which had been closed for the past fifteen years for a renovation/restoration project (which doesn’t surprise me because the Italians are well… slow) and had just reopened.  Well, a word of advice, book early and ladies, don’t bring a purse because they make you check them before you can enter; they give you a little bag which I had to carry that can hold your wallet, but that’s it.  It was a little strange.  Now, the galleries were lovely and all, but at the end of the day, 15th-18th century art isn’t really my thing because I’m more of a 19th-20th century art fan, plus Jeff Koons because I love those poodles and want one in my front yard.  That said, there were some lovely pieces and the building itself was an amazing space nonetheless.

After our visit ended, we strolled in the Borghese gardens for a while before getting ready for dinner, which proved my mother is insane.  So we had made reservations at this place that was kind of on the other side of the city so we take a taxi over there and she won’t get out of the taxi because “it looks creepy.”  This was because she didn’t see anyone in her age group there and there were only 20-somethings walking around.  So instead, we went to this other restaurant we had heard about called Cucina Roscioli, which was out of this world amazing!  It’s really a salumeria that happens to have a restaurant and so we sat next to a wall of wine and across from refrigerator cases filled with cheeses and meats.  As an added bonus, this guy who looked like an Italian version of Stanley Tucci was seated across from us and was staring at mother the entire time!  It was a great way to end our time in Italy and a phenomenal final meal in Italy.

Thursday Morning had us up and in the taxi by 6h0, so we missed breakfast.  Then, five minutes into the taxi ride, I realized I had left my iPod in our room so we had to race right back and retrieve it.  This was a first for me because usually I’m always on top of where everything I have is located.  From there, it was off to Fiumicino for the flight back to America.  Thursday also happened to be Andrew’s 21st birthday so as if I was going to pass up being in New York for that!  So, when the plane landed in fabulous New Jersey!, I put mother on the train to Baltimore and headed straight for Manhattan to celebrate his birthday with Maggie, Nathaniel, Caroline, and of course, Andrew at Café Gitane in the Jane Hotel.  It was so much fun and we had such a good time celebrating Andrew’s big day, even though he was on the tail-end of a cold and by the time dinner arrived, my body thought that it was 1h0 Friday morning!  I went to bed at what my body thought was 6h0 Friday morning and was up by 8h0, so I think that it actually helped my body re-adjust to EST.

Friday morning, following a little food shopping for mother and me, I hoped on the Acela with three enormous bags (I condensed since I knew it would just be me) and headed down to Baltimore for the Preakness.  Friday night was the traditional Chinese food dinner we always have and then Saturday, it was off to the Baltimore ghetto to go to the races.  I was in a so-so mood that day because my cousin and I got into a bit of a tiff and I just didn’t really have the usual excitement about being there that I’ve had in years past.  However, I ended up having a great day at the races because I broke with my usual “methodical” selection of the horses on which I want to bet and picked the winner, Shackleford, simply because I liked his racing colors.  I won $60 on one $5 bet, which was amazing and I ended the day making quite a bit of money, which was good for me.  As an added bonus, mother and I did something I’ve waited years to do and that was buy two Black-Eyed Susans, the official drink of the Preakness:

Since returning home, I’ve been struggling to dig myself out of the obscene amount stuff I have between the mail, the clothes and the stuff I bought, but I’m down to just one or two last things.  I’ve been baking, grilling and getting ready to head to Charlottesville for a month so I can take a fun-filled science course.  However, there was one event that occurred last weekend that I still can’t believe I attended.  So Grace has decided that since she can’t show horses anymore, she’s now going to compete in dog shows with the not-so-little Henry Flagler.  Y’all, I’ve never been to a dog show before so I had no idea what to expect when we arrived and so to say that it was a spectacle is like saying that the Real Housewives of New Jersey are completely normal people and that there’s nothing wrong with their trailer-park-trash lives.  This was just insanity at its finest.  We met a woman who has TWELVE Corgis and travels the country with her husband and daughter selling dog grooming supplies and showing her dogs; we saw just a whole bunch of crazies and I have to say, I almost stole four dogs.  Though at one point, Grace asks this lady with four King Charles Cavaliers where she got her crate for her dogs and I mentioned that the dogs were so well-behaved and she tried to sell me one.  At that point, I mentioned that my parents would kill me if I brought a dog home because we already have one and when I told her that Buddy was a (very expensive) mixed-breed, she turned around and walked away without saying another word!  I still love my cockapoo, even if he is a mixed-breed.  I just have to say this to Walter: Get Grace another horse because those dog show people are crazy and I miss the fact that I could look for a girlfriend at the horse shows; you can’t do that at a dog show because a lot of the people there lacked teeth!  Anyway, it was an experience that I will never partake in again.

Finally today, I guess the time has come for me to really look back on my semester and express my overall opinion on it.  In short, I loved Italy and being there and being able to explore it was just something I’ll never forget.  However, I picked the wrong program.  It was too small and there wasn’t really anyone with whom I really clicked.  Some of those girls were flat out rude to me, while others were nice to me, but not necessarily people with whom I plan on being life-long friends.  I tried my best to be friendly and go along with the group, but in the end, it was made very clear that I wasn’t really welcome so I did my own thing and had a great time.  No, I don’t regret going at al, however, Siena was always back-up since I couldn’t study in Paris due to having too many transfer credits from Rollins, so I didn’t really have the same enthusiasm I might have had if I had spent the semester in Paris, but oh well.  As I said, in the end, I had a great time in Italy, but just not with the people in my program.

Anyway, this officially concludes the travel guide only part of the blog and next week, I’ll be returning to writing about life and the crazies I call friends who are in it.  Until next time…

-JD

All My Bags are Packed, I’m Ready to Go to Milan, Vincenza and Rome. Then Maybe We’ll Think About That Jet Plane Back to the States

That’s right, by the time this posts itself, I will be on a Eurostar headed north to meet Mother in Milano and officially on summer vacation!  While I won’t really have time to “reflect”on my time here in Siena until next Thursday on my nine hour, forty minute flight back to New York (okay fine, Newark) from Rome, I did genuinely enjoy my time here in Tuscany.  Siena is a very beautiful city that y’all should spend more than the two hours it seems that most tourists spend here.  I’ll save my overall “reflection” of my semester here in Siena for two weeks from now, after I’ve had a chance to actually see my own home and reflect properly on my time here.

This week is going to be quite insane.  I’m heading to Milan today to meet mother and tomorrow, I managed to get us tickets to see Leonardo’s Last Supper, which was not easy at all.  In fact, it was as if they don’t want me to visit , but as if that stopped me.  I called that damn number every two minutes nonstop for three straight hours!  Then our concierge at our hotel in Milan, the Hotel Principe di Savoia, told me how to get them because they’re apparently not allowed or something stupid like that.  Whatever, I got them and I got a student discount which is how I’m sticking it to the Italians for putting me through all the trouble of getting the damn tickets.  Apparently, they sell the majority of the tickets to tour guides who include the Last Supper in their waste of time tour, but your best bet is to check on Mondays because that’s when they show openings from people canceling, which is how I found my two tickets.

As a special treat, though, Friday night is about the opera.  Mother has wanted to go to see an opera at La Scala for years and lucky for us, Friday night is the final performance of Puccini’s Turandot and we got tickets!  This is actually going to be pretty amazing simply because it’s La Scala and if y’all need any help in knowing what it is, let me put in a basic of a way as possible: if you’re an opera singer and you perform at La Scala, you can basically die the next day having lived a complete life.  There is no greater honor than to perform in La Scala and once you’ve done that you really can’t do anything else that can top it, unless you marry Prince Harry, in which case, yeah, you can.

On Saturday, we’re visiting Vincenza, a city known for one big thing: Bottega Veneta‘s factory and headquarters are both located there (as is a factory outlet).  And she didn’t think I know that!  Please, I remember her going on and on about how she wanted to go to Vincenza for Bottega Veneta when we were in Italy in 2007.  I’m okay with this because the black wallet I want is from Bottega and as much as I love it, I’d rather put that 210€ toward the Allegri safari jacket I plan/hope to get in either Milan or Rome.  Maybe she’ll remember me talking about how unique the wallet was (it’s black, but there’s a lot of hunter green mixed in and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before and I’m trying to move away from my longtime staple color of blue and I’ve gone to green and I just love the contrast of the colors) and take care of a birthday present now, and you can never start too early with those hints!  Please, I start dropping hints about birthday presents for next year the day after my birthday!

From Vincenza, where I imagine I won’t see anything besides Bottega, which is fine because Italian fashion is kind of like a national treasure, we’re moving down south to Siena for the night on Sunday so Mother can see where I’ve been living these past few months.

Finally, we’re spending the last few days of our time in Rome.  I’m so excited because we honestly have nothing planned and we’ll just see what happens.  However, next Thursday, when they open that cabin door in Newark, it’s off to Manhattan because I’ll be arriving just in time for Andrew’s twenty-first birthday!  I am SO excited for this because well, Andrew’s turning twenty-one and I don’t think this requires any further explanation.  I just have to figure out if I’ll have enough time to pick up his present before dinner or if it’ll just have to be shipped.  I’ll figure it out.

Well, that’s all for now and until next time from back in the States (or Colonies, if you’re English)…

-JD

PS: If I pull a muscle or miss a train during this week, it’s going to because I’ll be traveling with someone who absolutely refuses to touch a suitcase (and we’ll have four very heavy suitcases) because of completely phony injuries.  I know that a man should always carry the bags, but um… two of our bags are the largest size bags that can be checked so where should the other two bags go?