On Thursday we had a special lunch date at Nice Matin on West 79th Street on the Upper West Side. The delightful French-Mediterranean restaurant is located in The Lucerne hotel — the hotel where Eugene O'Neill's parents stayed in the early 1900s. But you knew that.
I had the nice Crab Cobb and Marlene had the wonderful Moules Provencal, with a side of yummy frites. But this lunch was not about the food.
Crab Cobb — avocado, hard boiled eggs,
green beans, tomatoes,
Moules Provencal — PEI mussels cooked
with garlic, shallots, Arthur and Barbara Gelb are one of the byproducts of my obsession with the playwright Eugene O'Neill. Arthur was the former managing editor of the New York Times. Barbara is an author and playwright. We first met the Gelbs in Provincetown in 2005, and subsequently dined with them whenever we came to New York to talk about O'Neill, theatre, politics, food, family and more. The Gelbs wrote the seminal biography of Eugene O'Neill, published in 1962, and a new version of that biography in 2000. A final volume — their pièce de résistance — will be published in November of this year. We were fortunate to read an uncorrected advance proof. It's amazing.
We had dinner with Arthur and Barbara in October of 2012, at a time they were feverishly working to finish their final tome. As we talked about the book that night, I told Arthur I was sure it would be a best seller. Arthur quickly exclaimed, "I don't care if it's a best seller. We just want to finish the damn book! It will be a monument to the two of us." Indeed it will be. Arthur Gelb died in May of 2014 at the age of 90. Barbara pushed onward with By Women Possessed, polishing final drafts, obtaining permissions and working on a multitude of details. Marlene and I lunched with Barbara at Nice Matin. It was the first time we'd been with her since Arthur's death. We talked about O'Neill, theatre, politics, food, family and more, as we had in the past. We love Barbara. And we miss Arthur.
Thursday evening we had tickets to Incognito at the New York City Center. Nick Payne’s cerebral play centers around a young pathologist who has stolen Albert Einstein's brain. There are multiple intertwined stories and twenty-one characters, embodied by an exceptional cast of four. The players spun around the stage and kept our heads spinning as we tried to untangle the puzzles they presented. We're still trying to figure them out. It was a wonderful play.
After the theatre, we walked to The East Pole. This was our fourth consecutive after-theatre visit to the Upper East Side restaurant, a few blocks from our apartment. We always plan it towards the end of our week of gourmet gluttony for their palate cleansing cheeseburger. It was messy and delicious.
The East Pole Cheeseburger — bacon, duck fat chips, pickles Copyright © 2016 TwoForTheTable.com |
