THE BEST of the best

Everything has to be the best. Not satisfying, not good, not great, but THE BEST.
Competitive conversations are held where people engage in verbal dueling to establish where one can find THE BEST pastrami sandwich. Caron and Joel’s favourite Italian place VS Naoli and Ben’s favourite Italian place. Friends want to take us up hill and down dale to eat THE BEST pizza, and THE BEST Japanese place in Soho has a queue so long that they have set up a fairy floss machine for people who wait outside in the New York winter for a table. Every shop advertises itself as THE BEST, and it is contagious. It becomes a mental game and a topic of conversation much like the weather. There might be a place close-by that sells delicious hot chocolate, "but let’s go to that place downtown that sells silky, think, Belgian hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows."

We went to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and loved it. Naoli and Ben lent us their passes, so we did not have to see everything in one hit to get our money’s worth. Charles and I went and spent a couple of hours. All good!
Now the prefacing comment to this story is that when Charles went to Italy with Tony, he came back and declared it the best holiday ever because I was not there to make him go to galleries.
Yesterday I went out with Naoli, and Charles went out with his new friend Sasha (ask me about her later). The aim of the day was that Sasha would show Charles her version of New York, she suggested skating at the Wollman Rink in Central Park, then dinner down in St Mark’s Place. But Charles did not want her to have all the moves on the day, so, armed with Ben’s pass he took her to the MOMA.

Naoli and I caught the train out to Long Island to PS1 Museum of Contemporary Art and saw a lot of angry, edgy, hostile art with lengthy descriptions about the sociological meaning of bits of stuff that really just seemed like a bunch of blurry lines to me. Some of the more political stuff was really confronting, some was just full of sound and fury.
One thing I liked was a series of emails, hand written on A5 paper documenting the correspondence between a young woman traveling the world and her friend in New York. The thing that made it interesting was the fact that she traveled the middle east and offered cutting insights into events, while her friend in New York commented from the perspective of someone "inside the belly of the beast." (That is Fidel Castro’s saying about living inside America.) Another thing I liked was a flattened silver service and flute suspended from the ceiling on wire so that each piece floated perfectly horizontal at the same level: about 20cm from the floor.

Other adventures include

• I went to a Fashion Institute exhibition on colour


• Charles and I trekked down to the meat packing district (where Samatha from Sex in the City has her apartment) to go to a French diner call Florent.


• Caron and I went to a Ukranian diner called Veselka.


• Charles and I found, and loved Zabar’s: a messy Jewish European style delicatessen.


• We found the Velvet Underground banana t-shirt.


• Charles and I accidentally got on the wrong train, then jumped off at the next station to find the platform bedecked with Tom Otterness sculptures. (The photographs don’t do them justice because the subway is so dark.)
  http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/artwork_show?21

And now the highlight: Suzie (the woman who owns the apartment) left a list of recommendations, one of these included a French/Jamaican place. I have never seen a smaller place. The kitchen is not divided from the dining area, not by a bench, nor a counter; the guy just cooks right there in amongst the tables. The menu is limited, he does not take bookings or do take out. The system is that you show up, put your name on the list, give your mobile number, go home or to a nearby bar and wait for a call when your table is ready.
Naoli, Ben and I walked back to the apartment and entertained ourselves by reading aloud definitions from The New Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten. Over an hour passed and then we were summoned.
The snails made my eyes roll back in my head, the duck was crispy on the outside but oh so tender, the sauce was classic French: dark, rich and peppery. Sebastian (the owner, waiter, kitchen hand, maitre de etc) was declared by Naoli and I to be the best looking man in the world and we proceeded to behave like idiots. And for Ben, the music was non-stop classic funk from the 70s and early 80s (this is Ben’s very favorite) Little Richard, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Terrence Trent Darby and more. So, Ben is going to interview Sebastian for his hip-hop show and everyone was happy.
No sooner had we left the place that we were planning our next trip back.
Dare I say it: it was THE BEST!!!!