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Added: May 27, 2004, 10:49 am
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Tom Wolfe and the Tragic Flaw
By Delaney Oser
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DO - What is the tragic flaw with all of the restaurants East of the Hudson River?
TW - Actually, the tragic flaw is with restaurants all over America. It's very simple they don't serve turkey every day and it's such a great dish! Breast of chicken, ah I mean I love chicken too but oh turkey's better. What a great business well talk is cheap I think that people would really go for it. There are never sweet potatoes and I never see them in restaurants one hour boiled string beans. If you boil string beans for an hour, hour and a half and you chop up onions and put vinegar on the beans it's so great.
It amazes me that you are such an interesting, creative intellectual and you are such a culinary traditionalist!
It's so traditional that it is kind of coming out the other end it's kind of radical now. Can you think of any reason that they don't have turkey every day?
Come on, I have turkey in my shop every day
Well, you're exceptional. You are above all rules at Thyme & Again! You know that.
I didn't know that I was above all rules I thought that I was following them pretty well.
I didn't say it right you transcend all rules, regulations and standards.
Is there a restaurant out here that you enjoy dining at?
Oh, I go to many of the restaurants. I love the restaurants of the East End. I really do; I just think they are fabulous. By and large, I think that the restaurants out here are as good as they are in New York. I think that New York is very hard to top. I shouldn't name any because there are just so many that I like but two that just suddenly came to mind are (and they are quite different) one is Yama Q (Bridgehampton) and Silver's (Southampton).
What is your favorite dish to order at Silvers? I don't think they serve turkey
Well, I said that the turkey is a national problem. Sweet potatoes are a national problem.
I think that the turkey council might hire you as a spokesman.
Why do people just have it on Thanksgiving and maybe Christmas?
I do think that turkey has made a bit of a comeback over the last few years. I'm surprised that you have such a hard time finding it
I never see it in a restaurant.
I think that you'd have to seek a restaurant that really serves American comfort food-
Well, it has to be avante garde. It's a fantastic delicacy. Also in the dessert line, no one has baked apricots for dessert. Baked apricots, baked plums, with some fat free vanilla yogurt ah we're talking heaven now! But, I don't see that anywhere, as I say, this is a national problem that needs to be dealt with on a national basis. Who do you go to if you want to change menus?
I suppose the National Restaurant Association?
Is there a central association? Sure, I don't know what input they really have.
There should be a central cuisine command somewhere around the country.
What do you order at Silvers?
I love their crab cakes. It is just out of this world. The soups too I am just crazy about soups they have a borscht that is great. I've never had a bad meal at Silver's. One thing, it is very much home cooked. Everything is their own specialty.
What do you order from Yama Q?
Almost any of the fish dishes. They are famous for sushi but I am not a sushi lover. They'll have halibut, salmon, flounder almost anything. Also, I think that the vegetables are very good too. I tend towards things without butter and creams and things like that. I don't think that either place takes reservations.
That's the only thing that your two chosen restaurants have in common they are both small restaurants that don't take reservations. The food could not be more different.
No reservations are a bit of a down side, but I've never had any great problems.
Well, this is definitely more optimistic than having you tell me what is wrong with every restaurant east of the Hudson River
As I said, it's a national problem. I shouldn't even say Hudson River & East it would include all of Manhattan. I don't know of one restaurant in Manhattan that serves turkey except at Thanksgiving. It is the best meat in the continental United States except maybe Hawaii I haven't been there.
Now, If Sherman McCoy your character from Bonfire of the Vanities was seeking comfort in food would he dine on turkey & sweet potatoes?
Nah, he's too much of a snob.
So, what would he eat?
He'd probably still like see he wasn't really on the cutting edge of things like this but he'd probably go to a French restaurant. Nothing wrong with French restaurants though He'd go to a place with a name that he'd heard of before.
What meal would Charlie Croker buy with his last $20? Would he buy turkey & sweet potatoes?
He'd probably go to the market himself and get well, yeah, he'd love turkey and sweet potatoes. But, he's a steak man basically. I have a meal described in great detail in terms of what people are saying and eating
Incidentally, I think it's a bit snarky to call it comfort food.
Well, comfort food can be anything it just depends on what makes you feel better.
Oh, come on admit it there is a connotation.
Well, for me, it has a pleasant one.
I don't believe you for a second.
Turtle soup was the first course. Turtle soup can be really great stuff and one of his employees (Croker's) would catch it on the plantation by putting a tree branch over the river and you just wait. Eventually, one of the turtles will go for the lure and you'll have yourself turtle soup. Have you have had turtle soup? I bet you'd love it really it really is good.
OK. Now, we get to the main course
It's about 70 degrees outside but Charlie has to have his air conditioning on so that he can have a fire in the dining room. The main course Quail served with a special gravy, plus smoked ham. I don't know if you ever have smoked ham but southern smoked ham is really a little taste of heaven.
Smithfield ham?
Yes, Smithfield ham. Smithfield really does taste different than any other ham. Mashed potatoes, okra
this is sounding like comfort food to me
well, okra is pretty subtle stuff, collard greens, snap beans boiled with ham fat served with sliced onions and vinegar
which happens to be a favorite of yours
yes, god I didn't know that I'm so like Charlie when I'm so different than him in so many ways. Then there are homemade biscuits, homemade cornbread and homemade Sally Lunn. Sally Lunn is an old, old recipe; you can get that in restaurants in Colonial Williamsburg - lots of bread and butter. I like the bread; I don't like the butter much.
What about dessert?
One of the guests who is kind of social x-ray and chic in Atlanta society says to the cook I never order vegetables I really don't like beans and collards but yours taste wonderful. How on earth do you do it? The cook says welcome to grease! You know in the old Southern way you'll use a chunk of ham fat to cook the beans. The body really craves fat.
We live in a society that is cutting all the fat out.
I know. I notice that everyone today is absolutely lethargic because they don't eat carbs. Manhattan is now full of zombies. They can barely move. God, they look great; they're thin. But, they can't move and it's such a shame.
Oh, dessert. Three kinds of pies pecan pie, lemon meringue and apple. Three kinds of ice cream vanilla, peach & peppermint. All of it was homemade. The ice cream had been hand churned out on a screened porch outside the kitchen. That could be really good too hand churned ice cream. That's a little bit much to expect the restaurants to be out there hand churning ice cream.
Out here, that might be a really good gimmick especially if people could watch the poor person standing out there churning ice cream while they eat their meal
Well, that's the meal. Oh, I didn't mention the wines. Gewόrztraminer a peppery white wine. "Traditionally, South Georgia plantation country had not been an area where anyone when in for something so effete as European wine. Charlie had discovered a heavy slightly spicy white wine called Gewόrztraminer that was delicious with Auntie Bellows quail and vegetables. So, he was now knocking it back at a pretty good clip."
That's page 288.
In the late 60's you wrote the Electric Kool-Aid Acid test, in the year 2004 what would you use the Kool-Aid to test for?
Kool-Aid has such a bad reputation.
If you are going to sing to me the promise of Kool-Aid I am going to have a problem with it
No, after Kool-Aid and its involvement in the self massacre in Guinea it kind of took the luster of Kool-Aid. Oh boy, I wouldn't have the test. The Merry Pranksters who did the test for how far you could swing on LSD. I don't want anyone to do that today. Well, Kool-Aid is so innately tasteless I think that we would have to use Diet Coke. Plain Coca Cola is pretty good stuff. Plenty of people who grew up in my neck of the woods grew up on Nabs and Coca Cola.
Who are your favorite real life dinner companions?
Many, many I really shouldn't say who is. Among my many favorites are Counselor Eddie Hayes and his wife Susie and their children. They in the summer and on the weekends go to the Un-Hampton-Bellport. I always mention the counselor when things come up.
And of course, your wife your beautiful wife
Well, it's assumed that she is going to be there and if I can get my beautiful children to hold still they'll be there as well.
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Delaney Oser owns and operates Thyme & Again, a catering-event planning business and take away food shop in Southampton.
