Hyde Park Blvd

A couple of insights into the virtues of paring down.  Food then fashion, both right for the times.

In his farewell NYT column, food critic Frank Bruni comments on how one narrows a restaurant menu:

Scratch off the appetizers and entrees that are most like dishes you’ve seen in many other restaurants, because they represent this one at its most dutiful, conservative and profit-minded. The chef’s heart isn’t in them.

Scratch off the dishes that look the most aggressively fanciful. The chef’s vanity — possibly too much of it — spawned these.

Then scratch off anything that mentions truffle oil.

Choose among the remaining dishes.

And Coco Chanel’s advice on deciding how to dress:

When accessorizing, always take off the last thing you put on.

Without being morbid, another NYT report about an oldster gone to his just rewards. Milton Parker, age 90 passed away February 4. He was one of the partners at New York’s Carnegie Deli. Longevity secret? Yogurt? Fish oil? Capsacin and Coenzyme Q10?

Read on:

Mr. Parker retired in 2002 and, with some health problems, would come in almost daily in a wheelchair to eat. He always insisted upon having a hot dog before his sandwich.

“I knew exactly what he ate,” said Ms. Ruenanukool, of Jackson Heights, Queens. “I served him every lunch, every dinner.” In his last few years, his doctors made him lay off rich foods, including many desserts, she said, but he often found a way to eat it secretly anyway.

“He’d say just put it in a bag and don’t tell anyone, and then he’d hide it in his wheelchair,” she said.

Thanks to ASR, one of my favorite trenchermen.

Holabird & Root’s Gage Buildings on Michigan Avenue

With the advent/success of Chicago’s The Gage an Irish Pub situated in a handsome building originally built for the milliner Gage Brothers, the insights of Denver columnist Jason Sheehan, in the form of eight steps to creating a great Irish bar, are informative and entertaining.

Step five, for example:

The name. Personally, I like Chang O’Leary’s, but there are two ways to go here: the Apostrophe or the Ampersand. With the Apostrophe method, you just take your already Irish name (see step one) and make it possessive. My bar? It would be called Sheehan’s. Simple. The Ampersand method is only a little more complicated: You take any two things and stick an ampersand between them. The Hawk & Dove works fine. The Fox & Hound. The Pig & Whistle. Anything more witty or clever than this, and you’re running the risk of becoming twee; you might as well hang lace curtains from the windows and start serving tea.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oyTD6JGie0]
Check, Please! has a 2001 episode in which the President-elect talks about a soon-to-be lamented Hyde Park haunt.

This segment (unfortunately snipped) is from YouTube. The original will be rebroadcast Friday night (January 16) on PBS.