New York Saturday Morning

It's so warm today, you would swear it was spring. We decided to walk to Whole Foods for some shopping. We crossed Houston Street and walked down 1st Street, an eccentric byway that runs on a diagonal from lst Avenue to 2nd Avenue. It felt like I had entered a secret world with the sun on my back on a January day.

Have you read Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton? This is her restaurant, Prune. Her book is a good read, especially when she writes about her magical childhood in New Jersey. Her father did huge set designs and her mother was French. Every spring they threw a huge party and roasted lambs. When she describes her job of putting the Coca Cola bottles in an icy stream for the party, you can just taste the sweet drink. According to her book, when her parents divorced, she was virtually abandoned and had to make her own way in the world at a young age. She's a tough cookie.

Update: My sister, Jeanne, has sent me a photo of Prune's private dining room, under the stairs and with a view of the toilet. She has a lot of pull with Gabrielle, or maybe I should say "push" -- rhymes with tush.

The private table next to the privy at Prune.

 I'm talkin' to you, reader.

 Has Amélie been here?

Right on, sister.

Maybe Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan lives here?

At John Derian's shop, clever dishes with letters of the alphabet. This is where you can buy the beautiful glass paperweights that everyone covets (and copies).

We stopped for a bit of breakfast at Peel's on the Bowery and 2nd Street. The same restauranteurs own Freeman's on Freeman's Alley off Rivington.

 Richard made this fellow laugh when he said, "You broke the camera!"

The former home of the Amato Opera. Anthony Amato, the founder of the opera, died last month at age 91.

"Anthony Amato, the founder and artistic director of the Amato Opera Theater, the scrappy, often threadbare and very rarely dull chamber opera company on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that was a mainstay of New York’s cultural life for 61 years, died on Tuesday at his home on City Island, in the Bronx. Mr. Amato, who was also the company’s stage director, music director, prompter, vocal coach, diction coach, caterer, broom pusher and emergency tenor, among other things, was 91." The New York Times, December 11, 2011.

We arrive at our destination.

Have a great Saturday!

À bientôt!