The Water Club

It's like BeanieBaby says, if you eat out with me, don't expect to see it on the blog for about three months.

I really need to start getting better at this. I've had a couple prospective advertisers ask me how many posts I write monthly and I'm embarrassed when I can only say two or three.

My parents, Uncle Butzy and FoxyLady went to the Water Club for Easter brunch and what is it, almost August? At this rate, I won't write about my July 4th weekend in Martha's Vineyard with BeanieBaby's family until Christmas Eve.

My parents requested I pick a place suitable for brunch. They mentioned a couple spots that I wasn't thrilled about. I decided eating on the water would be a treat. I often run along the East River and each time I passed the Water Club it steeped my curiosity.

We made reservations for 2:30. Thank goodness. The previous night my friends and I were out dancing until the wee hours of the morning at Marquis. Somehow, FoxyLady and I arrived a few minutes early to sit in the charming bar room, that had several trays of Easter cookies decorated in pastel sprinkles, and a gentleman playing the piano.

It was great seeing my parents in this beautiful setting. They looked adorable in their preppy East Coast attire. My mom was even wearing a hat. We exchanged a few gifts and cards and relaxed until our names were called.

My mom, FoxyLady and I ordered mimosas and Bloody Marys before we were whisked away to our beautiful riverfront table.

We sat down, glanced around us at the other happy parties and within minutes we had ourselves a delicious basket of scones and corn muffins. The service was extremely attentive. Our plates were brought out simultaneously each time, and they never asked once where each plate went. That and each server and busboy looked smart and sharp for the Easter festivities. Our server felt like he was our personal server. He was extremely patient and took his time to answer any and all questions without once breaking a sweat.

I tried samples of each item in our Easter basket. The scones were buttery and moist. They didn't need any of the butter placed on the table. The corn muffins were as well. All felt as though they had just popped out of the oven.


For my appetizer I ordered the Boston wedge salad. It was one of the best salads I've ever eaten. The bibb lettuce was so fresh and crispy, and the thick pieces of bacon tasted like the oysters of bacon bits. How will I ever go back to eating the shavings offered at my work cafeteria? It gets better. The dressing was flavorful and rich but light at the same time. It was a buttermilk-blue cheese dressing and it sort of tasted like a cross between Italian dressing and ranch with a shot of blue cheese. My mouth is salivating just thinking about it. I'm not a huge radish fan so I picked them up and placed them on my mom's plate. She's like a bunny when it comes to spotting radish on anyone's plates.


Mom ordered the asparagus and leek vinaigrette. Hers was ok but it didn't hold a candle to my salad. The asparagus was a little overcooked and sleepy.



My dad ordered the Maryland style she-crab soup. She-crab? I wonder what the difference in taste is between a he-crab and a she-crab? Is one salty and one sweet? Does one come from Mars and one from Venus? I got a nice spoonful, though it seemed a bit light on the crab.


Just look at my roasted filet mignon! It looks like a cliff perched over an ocean of veggies and sauce. My enormous steak knife helped me tackle the beautiful piece of meat and every bite was better than the previous. It was perfectly cooked to a medium rare temperature and it was tender. I usually like my steaks drenched in a pepper or Bearnaise sauce but that day I didn't need either.

FoxyLady tried the broiled salmon filet with crispy bok choy and ginger consomme. Once again I tried a bite but preferred my choice. I'm weird, I like some seafoods undercooked (tuna) and others well-cooked (salmon, scallops, etc). This broiled salmon had a slight crispy exterior and I really liked it, though not a huge salmon fan.


Uncle Butzy tried the jumbo shrimp with crabmeat stuffing in a lemon garlic sauce. This was my No. 2 favorite dish on the table. Crabmeat and shrimp by themselves aren't enough to fill me up but the combo was a lethal one. Uncle B had a hard time finishing -- his bite is often bigger than his stomach -- and I got to help him out.



For dessert we had a choice of luscious chocolate layer cake, raspberry lemon cake or a bowl of ice cream or sorbet. Each dessert was beautiful to look at. None of us opted for ice cream, the other two cakes were too tempting.


I preferred the chocolate cake. It tasted like fudge. I wasn't a huge fan of the texture of the raspberry cake. It had a light flan sort of texture.


I don't remember much of the conversation at brunch, mind you FoxyLady and I were functioning on few hours of sleep, and there was a plethora of good food to be eaten. But I do know FoxyLady made us --especially my uncle -- chuckle and buckle with laughter, which was a good thing for all of us to see. He's been battling depression for over a year now. Mom and Dad asked the usual questions about my love life and I gave them the usual answers.

And at least a dozen times I mentioned, "Didn't I do an awesome job picking this place?" I was so proud of myself and wanted several pats on the back.

Though we would have preferred a cloudless day on the water, the haziness didn't take away from the great afternoon.

I think we just started a new tradition in our family. When in Conn., or on the East Coast for Easter brunch, do the Water Club. I highly recommend it for all families of all shapes and sizes. From start to finish, it was one of my favorite meals I've had in the city.

The East River and FDR (via East 23rd Street)
212.683.3333

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Cookshop

Team Babbo decided to venture out once more before BeanieBaby's departure. Unfortunately our plan to eat out several times before she left fell through, and we only managed to squeeze in one more meal. Typical busy New Yorkers.

One of the last meals we shared as a group was at Cookshop.

Cookshop is right above the Meatpacking District. It was pouring that night and I opted to splurge on a cab since I was running particularly far behind schedule. I threw money at the cab driver, jumped out, shook off some of the rain like a dog, twirled my umbrella, and snuck into the restaurant to find Fashionista and BeanieBaby relaxed, dry and sipping on some wine.

There were a lot of people lingering around the bar and the hostess stand. I couldn't make out if these people were there to casually drink or if they were waiting for tables. Most of them must have been there for the bar because after a few short minutes of my walking in the hostess led us to our seats.

I really liked the atmosphere. The space had a strange feel to it. It blended elegance with casual. The table settings were neat and pristine, like you were in Jean Georges or Chanterelle, but the floors are just slabs of cold pavement, as if you were eating in someone's unfinished kitchen. It had huge wrap around windows and the kitchen was open in the back. I felt like I was in a cross between a dining room and a classroom, if there ever was such a thing, with chalkboards to boot. The place was buzzing with servers winding in and out of tables and when ours arrived he was all preppy and smiley.

Cookshop is a creation of the husband-wife team of Marc Meyer and Vicki Freeman. With the help of their partner, Chris Paraskevaides, they also own Five Points in NoHo. Mr. Meyer is the executive chef.

While I fully appreciate what Mr. Meyer stands for -- sustainable ingredients, humanely raised animals and supporting local farmers and artisans, I can't say anything I ate at Cookshop that evening was outstanding, or something I will hurry back to eat again. I was disappointed because I had heard so much about Cookshop and wanted to like it. I am imagining one friend's response to my disappointment. We worked together at my previous job and since he heard I had a food blog he had been gnawing at me to try Cookshop. Sorry, J-!

We ordered a couple of appetizers: pork sausage with fresh mustard and lentils and

rock shrimp with risotto.

The sausage wasn't any better than anything I had eaten in my aunt and uncle's Italian household in New Jersey. I was hoping I'd like the rock shrimp dish, and while the shrimp were crispy the risotto was watery and bland.

For our main dishes we ordered a side of spiced fries and mayo --they were the best thing I ate the entire meal. Fried perfection.


I ordered black cod with asparagus in a mustard dressing. Maybe I just realized I wasn't a cod person but this dish, minus the grains of mustard, had about as much flavor as a bowl of my mom's favorite morning cereal rice puffs.


BeanieBaby ordered the sea scallops. I don't usually like sea scallops but I did enjoy these, maybe because they were well done, and when I bite into sea scallops their soft juiciness tastes to me like they are unfinished.


Fashionista ordered the pork chop.


The word of the evening was "good."

"How's yours?" I asked BeanieBaby.

"It's good -- " she replied, as if there was a "but" after.

"And yours Mona?" asked Fashionista.

"It's good," I replied, trying to get as much sauce on my black cod sliver as I could to get some flavor out of it.

BeanieBaby summed up our evening at Cookshop perfectly.

"I think we messed up by starting at Babbo. We shouldn't have set the bar so high," she said.

Agreed. That meal knocked all of our socks off. I would have been happy if one sock was knocked off at Cookshop, but we left feeling a big flat "eh."

I'm just sorry we had to send BeanieBaby off on the "eh" note rather than the "wow" note.

156 10th Ave., At 20th St.

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Soirees With St. Germain

It's called St. Germain.

No, I’m not talking about the electronica and nu jazz musician who became popular for his lounge beats.

I'm talking about the liqueur created by my friend-in-law Spirit. This is, after all, a food blog, with a side of cocktails and wine from time to time.

I was riding in the back seat of a cab about a year ago with CalGal and her husband, Spirit, when Spirit first mentioned he was working on creating a new brand of liqueur. I thought to myself, he must be nuts. How does one go about doing this?

Apparently he was much further along in the process than I expected because out came a sample for me and the rest of my cabmates to share. Despite my initial shock and awe, the idea wasn't entirely far-fetched for Spirit. Spirit is a third generation distiller and part owner of Chambord liqueur, but this doesn't lessen the fact that it was pretty darn cool to taste test something a friend invented.

It came in a small glass jar with some lab notes on it, like it was part of a science experiment. It reminded me of what I imagine a bottle would look like at an old apothecary.

The liquid was sweet. If you squeezed flowers to get juice, this is what it would taste like. They had to wrench it out of my grip, like they were taking a milk bottle from a hungry baby, in order to save some for the others. I kept waiting for the teeth-grinding, esophagus-twisting bite, but there was none. This was the smoothest liquid I'd ever tasted.

St. Germain is the first liqueur in the world created from freshly handpicked elderflower blossoms. There are non-alcoholic elderflower cordials, but like Chad Solomon of the Pegu Club said, "It's like amateur night compared to St. Germain."

Besides its honey-sweet taste, my second favorite element of the liqueur is its bottle. The tall, lean bottle has a sort of art deco feel to it, almost like a bottled skyscraper. Every time I share it with friends, I take it out of my travel bag to "Oohs" and "Aahs" and "What is thaaat?" Just holding it makes me feel important. Each bottle of St. Germain is numbered and marked with the vintage year which reflects the year in which the flowers were picked.

CalGal and I met as first year’s on the swim team at Virginia. We lived in dorms a stone’s throw away from each other. Carebear and I spent many a night partying in her dorm room with her and her roommate Malibu. We would end up living together for two years at school, and for a year in Aspen. She was a true California girl with a magnetic personality and I was immediately drawn to her smile and spunk.

CalGal met Spirit when we were in Aspen. Their story is one for the record books. I won't get into the details here but all you need to know is it involves the famous Aspen Popcorn Wagon and Bentley's. You'll have to ask them the rest. The two girls I moved to Aspen with met their husbands there -- what happened to me?

Nearly a year after my first taste of St. Germain, the elderflower liqueur has snuck its way into my life permanently. This summer it's become both the cause and means for multiple nights of celebration.

I went to my first "First Fridays" at the Guggenheim -- St. Germain was a sponsor. If you haven't been to one before, I recommend doing it. Arrive there early so you can actually get inside. Doors open at 9 o'clock and if you show up fashionably late, the chances are you won't get in.

If you're thinking you can just parade around the museum drinking, you're wrong. The bottom is certainly a parade, or a civilized mosh pit, and there's drinking, but if you want to walk on the upper levels and see some art you'll have to leave your roadie behind. That night reminded me how lucky I am to be living in the city. No city blends culture, a good party and exciting people better than New York.

I attended a Chefs Gone Wild event at Rockefeller Center -- St. Germain was a sponsor. CalGal invited me at the last minute and I was honored to go.

The event raised money for Citymeals-on-Wheels, a charity founded by Gael Greene and James Beard in 1981. Citymeals funds agencies that bring meals to homebound elderly New Yorkers who can no longer shop or cook for themselves. The event at Rockefeller celebrated sustainable cuisine and the "bounty of the American farmer."


Unfortunately, CalGal worked as a bartender most of the night, but I explored the many different chef stations on the upper level and rink level. There was a little bit of everything for everyone-from oysters and risotto to chocolate and sorbet. There were lots of beautiful people zipping from stand to stand, struggling to balance their plates, utensils and alcohol. It was a bit toasty that night -- I avoided any hot dishes so I wouldn't have to keep spotting the sweat off my face with a napkin. I noticed Bill Telepan with a little harem of "chef-aids" and I'll admit I was a little starstruck.


I celebrated a friend's bachelorette in Montauk -- St. Germain was an unofficial sponsor.

I went to a benefit for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund at the Tennis Club and a bartender looked at me aghast when I asked him to pour some St. Germain into my wine glass. I don't even think he realized his bar served it. Then when I told him I knew the guy that created it I'm sure he was one step away from calling security.

My friend BeanieBaby had a going away party last Thursday and I introduced a new group of friends to St. Germain. I think they'll be inviting him into their parties from now on.

St. Germain has already been written up in the New York Times and the Web site Daily Candy featured a post with a summer cocktail recipe and St. Germain was in it. I wanted to "break" the St. Germain story but I was scooped.

I'm off to Martha's Vineyard to spend the fourth of July weekend with BeanieBaby and her family. I look forward to a long, relaxing five days on the beach with lots of good seafood. I was thinking about what to buy BeanieBaby's family for welcoming me into their home. I thought maybe a cake from Magnolia, a pie from Kitchenette, or a bottle of wine. Then I thought how silly I hadn't thought of it sooner.

St. Germain will be coming along with me and another weekend will be spent introducing it to new friends, thanks to a man and his velo, working hard in the Alps, gathering the blossoms before he rides to market with the starry white flowers.

*The St. Germain Cocktail*
2 shots dry white wine (Sauvignon Blanc, Sancerre) or Champagne
1 1/2 shots St. Germain
2 shots of soda water

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