Island I: An Introduction

It is never to soon to begin thinking about going to the island. One year, Friday after Thanksgiving, I began to lay out some clothes for the annual trip – to take place in March. My children thought that I'd gone mad. And so I had. Just glancing at that pile as it slowly grew each week helped me get through late fall and winter that year. This early packing system became an annual tradition.

Packing Early

Perhaps you have a similar place and do desperate things as I have done, in order to get there, first mentally, later physically. Good for you. I will not ask you the name of your place, if you do not ask me for mine (besides you won't like the sharks in the surf or the roosters in town); though, for purposes of this discussion, we can call my island Saint James.

It takes nearly all day to get there from New York: longer if you live further west or in Europe. There is no golf course on or near the island. I'll bet half of you just crossed it off your list. Thanks.

First,  we stand in a long line at the airport to board a big plane, sometimes the first of two. For several years, we've queued up near the same family, yet we have never introduced ourselves to them nor they to us. They will get off to stay on a big island, where there is a neat club with a pool, a golf course, a clubhouse: in other words, all the "comforts" of home. I have been there once and felt as if I were, well, still at home.

After landing on that big island we jump into a van to catch a little, sometimes a very little charter, bump along clouds above the sea, then land, with luck, on the first try on a smaller island, not yet our island. Feeling the excitement of being closer, we get into another taxi/van, get to the water-taxi dock, load all our stuff, head across the harbor, land at Government Dock, where Reggie or Minister loads us all in yet another van for a very short ride to the house we've rented for several years.

Saint James Bay

It is pink and white and sits across a narrow road looking at the harbor,  small boats at their moorings, and back to the other island from where we came. Sitting on the porch each morning in my white enammelled rocking chair I can see large motor yachts crossing in the channel with a local harbormaster aboard headed down to one of the two marinas. 

The people of Saint James and workers who've just come over on the ferry will be walking by on Bay Street one way and another. Captain Bob will be going to open his fish shop, Queen Conch going to open her royally fine lunch counter. Chico will ride by on his bike, having already tied his little yellow boat, Cocktail Hour,  to the nearby dock, to see if we want fish that day, or lobster, if the seas are calm. Old Herman will make one of several passes wearing his sun-washed shorts, walking barefoot, though he  now seldom guides for bonefish in the flats or bottom fishes with families. All of them will warmly greet me or just wave.

The islanders have become my idea of true celebrities. But if you're prone to look for the usual celebs, you can see them too. You might nearly run over a young Irish heartthrob actor with your golf cart as he exits The Landing, looking worse for wear. Or, if it's very near Easter, an international designer will nearly run you over as you leave Anthony's Farm out to the south of the island.

Doll House

"Farm" is not exactly the right word for Anthony's: large garden would be more correct. Anthony doesn't grow much there anymore, since his heart began to trouble him and he had to slow down. When my children were much younger and we rented a cottage across from the Farm, we thought that God must look and speak just like Anthony; that is, if God is a rather large, quite dark brown man with a white beard, wearing a pith helmet, faded overalls and speaking the King's English better than the King very, very slowly.

After a couple of days on Saint James, you no longer care about the slow service at the Lounge, an afternoon squall, a wait for lunch at Sip-Sip, no more charcoal at Piggly's and no more whole wheat bread at Arthur's Bakery, or, piece de resistance, that long, long wait for fried chicken, peas and cole slaw at Angela's, while listening to a loud sermon coming from her radio.

As Chico the Philosopher said to me one year, "Tom, you here now. See what I'm saying?"

And I begin to see. 

Le Realite Quotidien

Printed travel guides and hotel concierges direct visitors to many great dining spots in NYC, and to some that are not so great. They might send you to the Lower East Side for the best bagel with lox, Brooklyn for the most "authentic" blinis or best slice of pizza, or to Grand Central for an awful bowl of chowder.
You can also choose from what seems like dozens of Momofukus' and hundreds of Danny Meyers'.

Europeans, particularly the French, can even have the unusual experience of sitting in Balthazar in Soho, pretending to be New Yorkers who are pretending to be French. Or, they can perform the equivalent of Americans visiting Parisian McDonald's at one of the many new Le Pain Quotidiens around the city.

We want to remind visitors about a not so well-kept New York secret: the coffee shop, AKA diner, cafe,  or luncheonette. If you've watched Seinfeld re-runs, you know the kind of place we mean;  and, if you have not seen Seinfeld, stop reading this and go milk the cow.

Perhaps "Coffee Shop" is a misnomer. It's a bit like calling Saks Fifth Avenue  a Tie Shop, just because it happens to sell ties. Coffee is beside the point; the point being that you can order just about any kind of food in this place and they always have it. Breakfast for dinner? Got it. Dinner for breakfast? Got it. Greek Salad, Belgian Waffles, English muffins, Southern Fried Chicken? Got, got, got and got.

Specialties of the house at any true coffee shop? Triple Decker Turkey Club, Toasted Bagel with Cream Cheese, Rice Pudding, Tuna on Rye Toast, and yes Belushi fans, Cheesebuggah Plattah. Plus hundreds of different kinds of "meat loaf" from veal to tofu (true): always get extra gravy, Friends.

Ten minutes after checking into The Gracie Inn on East 81st Street yesterday, I was in Gracie Mews Cafe. as opposed to just plain Gracie Cafe one block away. It was a close call between the two. I had a turkey club on whole wheat toast with Russian dressing on the side and a coffee. I was eating a late lunch, but, this being New York, others were working on their even later breakfast. The ones eating early dinner were preparing for their night shifts at the many other bars and restaurants nearby. New York is about work like Paris is about love, and we work/eat 24/7.

If visitors to NYC want a quick taste of the world, they should take the Number 7 train to Queens and hop off and on. There, they can have Argentinian chimichurri rib-eyes, foot long hero sandwiches with homemade sopresseta, and Malaysian dumplings made in Flushing by Koreans.

If they want to eat like true New Yorkers, many of whom never actually cook anything at home, they should get to the nearest Coffee Shop. There, for about ten bucks a person, you will see and hear characters who will make the Seinfeld cast and daily plot lines seem completely normal, and it's a lot cheaper than that Broadway show your Auntie told you to see.

One word regarding the idea that all of these shops are owned by Greek immigrants. We're not saying one way or the other, but considering the current state of the Euro, perhaps we now know what happens when everyone who knows anything about running a real business leaves Greece.


Note: Do we recommend The Gracie Inn? Not at this time; we'll re-visit after the renovation. Hopefully, Dan and Scott will retain the $129 rate and jettison a few "curiosities and eccentricities." With smart changes and some attention to detail, they can enter the rising 2-3 Star NYC market.-Ed

1992 Winter Olympics III: L'Oignon D'Or

Two French rivers, the Saone (above) and the Rhone, conspire to create the city of Lyons. Like Geneva, Lyons' waterways and bridges separate the nouveau from the vieux. But, it is Lyons' food that separates it from just about anyplace else in the world.

There are many ways to know a city; I have found hunger to be the best guide. By hunger, I do not mean famished: that will get you into trouble and guarantee indigestion, especially in a city you are just beginning to know. Instead, I am talking about the kind of hunger that develops after a hard day's work: having your hotel lose all your laundry, guiding Olympic guests through a crowded French airport, finding their lost luggage, or not, and hauling them up and down steep mountain roads.

That kind of well-earned hunger.

Late in the afternoon on such a day in February 1992, I asked my friend, the manager of Lyons' Saint Exupery airport, for a restaurant recommendation. Without hesitation, he directed me to his favorite spot, run by his friend in Vieux Lyons. By a miracle I was able to guide my Espace through an unusually cold night, decipher which river was which, find a legal parking spot, and go to the food equivalent of heaven.

I will leave detailed recipes and reviews to Julia and Michelin. I simply walked out of that cold night and into the proverbial warm well-lighted place and was greeted as family by the owner, a short exuberant femme Lyonnaise.

A saintly waiter made telemark turns around crowded tables and brought me a glass of local beaujolais , the kind that never reaches our shores. Slowly the gamay warmed me. I began to forget that the clothes I wore were now my only set. The wine replaced the whine of Gatorade Guy, The World's Most Ungrateful Guest, and his babyish pleas about his lost luggage. 

 I am fairly certain that I had a delicious salade verte at some point that night, but, honestly I cannot remember precisely. The reason for that is that I very distinctly do remember having perhaps the best single thing I have ever eaten. 

Une tarte a l'oignon.

Perfectly round, steaming in its hot shallow tin, just-browned cheese, then sweet l'oignon and more cheese in the center. Strike up an anthem!

Once more, I had earned Olympic Gold.

Before you say, "Oh, I've had that a million times, big deal," let me just say arreter! 

As Gisele is to Brazil to you, this tarte is France to me. And, when you are speaking of France and food, you are getting mighty close to the core of human experience in my estimation, my Friends. The French may not understand Americans, but they very definitely understand food and more than one way to get warm and stay that way on a frigid February night.

Note: we highly recommend Waverly Root's Food Of France, if you have to settle for reading about food. Otherwise, you'll have to go to Lyons. No, we won't tell you the name of that restaurant; best to discover your own.

1992 Winter Olympics II: La Fille En Or

1.

On the evening of February 8, 1992, I was racing my Renault Espace van up the mountain expressway from Lyons in order to make Opening Ceremonies. I had four nervous VIP magazine advertising clients in the back seats. I thought that they were nervous about the possibility of missing the ceremony, but later they confessed to have been nervous over the ride, steep road, and my speed.

The young ad execs, who had landed with the clients and who were supposed to accompany us, had abandoned us in favor of their own taxi for the 2-3 hour ride. They weren't going to miss anything, even if it meant losing a client or two. I'm betting they were a whole lot more scared by that ride than my passengers.

As we approached Albertville at dusk, I could see the new stadium on my left. We were running late, but we were going to be okay. As we approached the exit ramp, the road began to shake, the van seemed to let out a tremendous roar. We all held on tightly thinking that perhaps we were going to break down within sight of the event.

As I began to pull over, five French Air Force jets emerged overhead and  to our left, heading full blast  into the stadium. They had just passed directly over our van by a couple of hundred feet, shaking it and us to the core. 

2.

The opening celebration was staged as if it were a medieval circus: the kind that may have visited Albertville annually hundreds of years before. Nobody can celebrate themselves like the French, and who has more gifts to celebrate?

Just after President Mitterrand's arrival, the celebrants cleared the middle of the icy stadium. Slowly, a small high-pitched voice could be heard, as if out of nowhere. The ice opened up, and, rising ever so slowly up from it came a small girl. She rode her pedestal singing La Marseillaise all the while. She kept rising, all alone up into the cold night high above everyone. Even Rumsfeld would have shed a tear at that sight.

3.

Later, gathered with the guests at the Hotel du Golf in Courchevel, I was amazed to hear the American reaction to the same ceremony. They all hated it. Their companies had paid big bucks for the ads in the magazine. Then the same companies had to pay extra for these Olympic packages. Then the same  people who had committed to the ads thought it was completely ethical to attend the Games as "guests." For people like that, trashing what the French had spent years producing was all in a day's work.

I have seen several Opening Ceremonies in person since that night, but never saw a more beautiful spectacle that that jeune fille rising in the night. She gets the gold.

Next up in the Olympic Series: Gatorade Guy, the best meal I ever had alone, Henri's hotel loses my laundry, and the Famous Editor's ski accident, and more, if I can remember

Winter Olympics I: Gold At Albertville, '92

Thankfully, I have only taken one police-administered breath-a-lizer test in my life. This happened in France in January 1992. I had driven up to Courcheval 1650 from Albertville, and toured what would become our group's Olympic home one month later, the Hotel du Golf. Naturellement, I lunched outside in the sun with Henri, the hotel's owner. It is my recollection that we sampled some local beaujulais, which Henri cooled in the snow.  The yellow scarf pictured above witnessed the whole thing.

I wanted to return to Albertville before dark, because I was inexperienced at driving those vertical roads with their constant twists and turns. I had only begun to learn the art of alpine driving, having negotiated sleet and fog coming up to Albertville from Lyons.

I remember little about that first descent, except that it was wonderful to come down through the pretty towns, like Moutiers, below Courcheval. But, exiting one of the the last sharp turns I ran into du lineup gendarmes: a surprise alcohol level test.  This is great, I remember thinking: big time corporate events leader arrested in France on a DWI. That would make a nice pre-Olympic headline.

But, Friends, this was pre- Olympic France. I do not know what my score was that day, but they did not retain me or even scold me. I had a gold in my first Albertville event.

Later, my Olympic job became Chief Driver, since all of the Renault Espace vans had standard shifts located on the column. I was one of very few who could drive them, making many trips to and from the airport in Lyons and the train station in Moutiers, not to mention Albertville itself.

One sunny afternoon, my colleague John and I watched hockey in Meribel. Afterwards, we stationed ourselves at a bistro, where we could watch the ski-jumpers high above us across the road and sip our wine. 

When we got back up to Courcheval, I realized that I had left my yellow scarf in the bistro, and John wanted me to go right back and retrieve it. Instead, I said we'd try the next day. This was typical of our respective working styles. John, a former army Colonel and MP never left anything undone or unplanned. My somewhat looser system could annoy him, but he had slowly come to trust me anyway.

Late the next day, on our way to watch the ski-jump finals in Meribel, I stopped by the bistro, made my way through the crowded tables filled with attractive brightly-clad skiers and spectators. There, hanging on its peg, exactly where I had left it, was my scarf.

As we crossed the road, John just gave me one of his looks and a slight shake of his head, amazed that  nobody had walked off with the scarf.

I had learned not to say anything to him at times like these, but to just enjoy the moment.

 I had won my second gold at Albertville.

Note: for a look at the trois valees area above Albertville, please go to:  http://www.courchevel.com/img/plans/plan_pistes3v.pdf

This piece is running concurrently on our style blog