A SMALL SLICE OF ITALY

RESERVATIONS START SIX WEEKS OUT AT THE EVER-POPULAR SFOGLIA

By Danielle Friedman

For Ron Suhanosky, a great Italian meal is about more than just food. A truly great meal is “an entire experience,” he says, and a memorable one—the ambiance and service, conversation and wine. And yes, the food. Read more

A GRAPPLER FROM THE GET-GO

HORACE MANN SENIOR NOW HOLDS SCHOOL RECORD FOR WRESTLING WINS

By Adam Bloch

Cameron Wertheimer seems a natural for the water. He’s a solid water polo player and describes waterskiing as his best sport. His great grandfather was an accomplished swimmer in his native Austria and another forebear was known for being able to hold his breath underwater for more than two minutes. Read more

CRASH LANDING

KRAMER GIVES A CRASH-LIKE PATCHWORK OF INTERCONNECTEDNESS IN CROSSING OVER

by Armond White

Not a single film nominated for this year’s best picture Oscar had the excitement of Wayne Kramer’s 2006 Running Scared. It was a thrilling, beautifully acted consideration of parenthood, adolescent terror and warped immigrant ambition, all in the framework of a chase movie-—genre usually ignored at award time. This year’s Oscars reflected how movie taste has become high-minded, humorless and unresponsive to such kinetic style as Kramer displayed. So maybe there’s Oscar potential in Kramer’s less flamboyant new film Crossing Over. Read more

NO GREATER GLORY IS THIS WEEK’S MUST-SEE AT FILM FORUM’S CHAMPAGNE & BREADLINES SERIES

by Armond White

“They took our marbles!” a boy cries when one neighborhood gang in 1930s Budapest humiliates another. That’s how Frank Borzage’s No Greater Glory brilliantly sums up war as boys’ folly. Classical Hollywood’s most spiritual filmmaker, Borzage made nothing so trivial as an “anti-war” movie. No Greater Glory starts out with a sad-satirical war montage and a post-WWI schoolteacher romantically telling his juvenile students, “There is nothing finer than patriotism, nothing nobler than war in defense of the country we love.” Read more

COMING OF AGE ON CAMELOT’S FRINGE

AN AMERICAN AFFAIR SUSPECTS GRETCHEN MOL OF ASSISTING IN JFK’S ASSASSINATION

By Mark Peikert

To dismiss An American Affair as a cliché-ridden hodgepodge of film genres (a coming-of-age story; a nostalgia-infused look at the early 1960s; a JFK assassination conspiracy complete with shady CIA operatives in dirty trenchcoats) may be an apt assessment, but it’s not quite the whole truth. Read more

WORTH A DETOUR

LINCOLN CENTER OUTING OR NOT, CHODOROW’S NEWEST STEAKHOUSE IS A DINING DESTINATION

By Tom Steele

Given that thousands upon thousands of people—most of them hungry—come to Lincoln Center every day of the week, it never ceased to amaze me that decades passed with nary a good restaurant in the immediate area. The nine years I spent as editor of Opera Monthly entailed spending a good five nights a week at Lincoln Center’s Metropolitan Opera House and New York City Opera at the State Theater. I often came directly from my office and many were the nights when my growling stomach nearly drowned out the singers. Read more

BLOW YOUR MIND, ON A BUDGET

HOW TO CHEAT YOUR WAY OUT OF CHATEAU LATOUR PRICES

By Josh Perilo

During a private wine tasting that I conducted a couple years ago hosted by a very wealthy man (who was convinced he knew more about wine than I did), I had a rather unfair gauntlet unexpectedly thrown down. I had offered his friends tastes of several wines I had brought with me, all of which retailed for less than $20 a bottle. At the end of the tasting, “The Client,” as I will refer to him herein for legal reasons (he was a corporate lawyer), pulled out a ringer of his own that I knew nothing about.

A pristine bottle of 1945 Chateau Latour.
I reeled at his audacity, but quickly collected myself and, like a true sport, poured his much more expensive wine for everyone at the tasting.
There are two things that I know to be absolutely true in this world: You can’t buy black slacks at Brooks Brothers, and Bordeaux is either cheap and disappointing, or expensive and mind blowing. Is it fair that a legendary wine like an older vintage of Latour should cost more than $2,000 for four measly pours? Of course not. Is there a way to cheat the system? You better believe it.
For you, the worshippers of les vins du Gironde, I offer the following alternatives to amaze and astound your friends and family with the deepest of pockets and least regard for frugality: If you are craving the deep, concentrated flavors of a Left Bank Bordeaux, like Chateau Latour, you don’t need to take out a third mortgage to access that kind of flavor.
A century ago, a grape called Carmenere was regularly used in Bordeaux as a blending grape. At the same time, it was being planted in Chile, and it thrived. Now the grape is no longer grown in Bordeaux at all, but in Chile it produces some of the richest, most robust reds that South America has to offer: big structure and supple mouth feel, with notes of espresso, cocoa powder and baked cherries.
If you have a sweet tooth and have a hankering for a pricey Sauternes like the famed Chateau D’Yquem, look a little farther east. All the way to Hungary, as a matter of fact. The famed dessert wine Tokaji (pronounced toke-eye) is made in the same manner as the ultra-expensive Sauternes of Bordeaux, but sells for a fraction of the cost. Truly excellent bottles of Tokaji can sometimes sell for $40 or $50, but considering once it’s opened it has a shelf life of several weeks due to its high sugar levels, it is still a bargain compared to the $700 one would pay for a half-bottle of D’Yquem.
If, in fact, you are craving an actual bottle of 1945 Chateau Latour, save your money—even if you have it to spare; 1945 was a spectacular year for many of the chateaux on the Left Bank…but not for Latour. It’s regarded as one of the five worst vintages for that house in the 20th century, yet bottles still regularly sell in the thousands.
After The Client had me open and pour his expensive bottle of rancid juice for his confused guests, I promptly opened a spare bottle of Carmenere I had with me and relieved their palates with something that actually tasted like wine.
Drink what you like, not what you think you should like. I do, and I haven’t second-guessed my palate once.
Josh@pennilessepicure.com

DESIGNER SLICE

by Nancy J. Brandwein

It seemed fitting that I happened on this tiny purveyor of “designer pizzas” after visiting the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. In fact, this pizza shop could fit inside of one of the compact housing units we had visited in the “Solos/Tolou Affordable Housing for China” exhibit there. Read more

RETAIL HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

SEAFOOD SWEEPS THE UPPER EAST SIDE, WHILE BUSINESS GROWS UNDERGROUND

By Sarah Liston

Every year, when I leave New York City to visit my family in Texas for half of December and all of January, I return to find that at least half a dozen businesses in the neighborhood have either popped up, moved, closed or are on the verge of opening their doors. This year is no exception. And despite the economic woes we’re experiencing, I’m happy to report that most of my news is of new businesses opening—particularly seafood spots and subterranean studios. Nice to know that hope still springs eternal. Read more

WHEN NATURE DOESN’T CALL AS MUCH

HOW TO FIGURE OUT IF YOU’RE CONSTIPATED—AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

By Fred Cicetti

Q. When my husband misses his daily BM, he complains that he’s constipated. Don’t you think that’s a bit of an exaggeration? Read more

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