So much rain this winter in San Francisco! My meeting had run late, and there was no way I felt like firing up the stove at home to cook for my wet and solo self. Two blocks away, the answer to this dilemma just reached out to me: “Come In,” whispered the canopy above the sideway entrance to The Big Four Bar at the Huntington Hotel on California Street where it meets the steep part of Taylor.
Actually, that canopy has seen me a lot. It was my “local” for the months that I’d spent living on Nob Hill. Ty, the bartender of some renown, has been hospitable to clients for 18 years. Jeffrey, his younger counterpart, was behind the bar that fortunate night that Opus One and I made acquaintance.
Comfort food ordered – don’t chide me, diet coach, I really needed that chicken pot pie! – and a glass of decent wine en route, I settled in for the collegial conversation for which the Big Four bar denizens are noted.
Hmmm. The fellow next to me, a business type in his mid-forties, was busily punching at his iPad screen. I’ve been thinking about getting a reader to pull in the multitude of ebooks, so I asked him to tell me what he likes about the iPad.
Fred was very obliging.
My food arrived, and at the same time, so did two bleached blond twenty-something girls. Two seats on Fred’s right were open, and down they plunked, talking about their shopping expedition of the day. Not surprisingly (like I haven’t seen this before!), the man from Miami turned in their direction.
“Oh,” said those Valley Girl Voices, “what wine will go with a hamburger?” They fluttered their eyelashes at Jeffrey – he IS a cutie – but Fred picked up the cue.
“Opus One,” Fred said. “Bring me a bottle of Opus One, and give those young ladies some glasses.”
Oh my heart! Life is just so unfair! Admittedly, if you added their ages together, you’d have to put on a few years more to get to my Certain Age. Still, what about ME?
My mother, born Mary Elizabeth Taylor to a family of style but no wealth in English Canada, taught me an important lesson early on: “Even a cat can look at a King.” Certainly this is one of the great Mary Elizabeth adages … and handy tonight.
Without hesitation, I gently tapped the back of Fred’s hand and asked, “Oh, do you mind if I have a taste?” Jeffrey sat a glass in front of me before the girls could flutter another time.
It was divine. It was also $250 a bottle. Not in my budget so late in the month…
Four glasses poured equal an almost-empty bottle. Fred ordered another. Jeffrey apologized; they had no more Opus One 2003 at hand, would be 2004 be okay? “Put it on my tab,” Fred said.
I noticed the difference in color as the 2004 was poured; more purple, but still a clear and lovely wine. I was interested to note that between the 2003 and 2004, the cabernet had decreased from 92 to 86% of the blend, and the merlot went up. A good lesson in taste and texture for an always-learning wine lover.
The girls didn’t care. They slurped it down like soda pop as Fred leaned ever closer, hoping for some small physical sign of gratitude.
I didn’t wait to see that play out. I thanked Fred profusely, put on my raincoat, and said goodbye to the whispering canopy. As I told this story to a wine-envious friend, the lesson became apparent. If you are young, pretty and somewhat giddy, always sit next to the midforties-something-by-himself guy at the bar. He’s likely to have more dollars than sense.
.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Thank you Bemelman's
“Thank you,” she said. Thank you thank you thank you.
It seemed to be an automatic refrain to every conversational tidbit. I’d said, wonderful music at this bar. I haven’t been here for almost 35 years, and thought I should check it out. Thank you, she said.
We sipped our drinks at Bemelmen’s bar in silence for a while, and when the social space seemed to grow beyond polite proportions, I turned to this large woman with the many shopping bags, perched so incongruously at the very end of this tony bar in the upper east side on a midnight on a Friday in December and extended my hand and said, “My name is Barbara.” Thank you, she said, my name is Vera.
I proferred the little tri-partite snacks dish that the bartender had put near us and Vera said, sadly, oh the chips are all gone.
The bar was packed. I’d waited for my barside seat for almost thirty minutes, taking a rickety bar stool along the side until one became available. Some late-life lovers had separated long enough to hand me the drinks menu when the bartender five feet away had boomed his how can I help you in my direction. The wine by the glass list was reasonable, and a Laetitia Pinot Noir was handed through the crowd some five minutes later.
When the couple left, I had moved to take over their position. It still was not a great position for seeing the trio that was playing, but better acoustically and far better for checking out the denizens at the rest of the bar. In California, we’d be suspicious that the men were professors, with their carefully/carelessly combed back silvering hair hanging down over their shirt collars. Here in the dim light of Bemelman’s, they looked somehow suave and vaguely romantic, like characters from La Boheme. The women, however, all looked distinctly California, with blonde streaks in sleek shoulder length hair. Except for the furs. No no no no furs in California, at least not in San Francisco. Maybe down in la la land, but I haven’t been there in a while to verify that.
The crowd thinned, and I asked the bartender for another tripartite dish, and when it came, moved it closer to Vera, chips at the fore. Thank you she said.
Do you live in New York, I asked. Thank you sometimes. I lived here for nine years a long time ago, I said. Thank you I came from Virginia. Are you working in New York, I asked. Thank you, I am between jobs. Oh that is difficult, I said and nodded my head sympathetically, this economy is so difficult.
Not many days before, a well known bartender who’d been serving drinks at Bemelman’s for decades was the subject of a newspaper article. He’d said, in the article’s closing paragraph, that there was no recession on the Upper East Side.
But regardless of that optimistic economic news and the old foxes eyeing the wanna-be California girl women-of-a-certain ages at the crowded bar, the cheerfulness at Bemelman’s seemed tenuous. And my conversation with Vera was proving difficult, since the thank yous did not always seem to be of the kind that would grammatically be followed by a you’re-welcome.
The bar atmosphere was already close and stuffy; there was simply too much carbon monoxide and not enough air came in through the glass-and-brass entry door as newcomers whisked in to the low-ceilinged-heavily-upholstered room. Soon I noticed that my square foot of air was joined in its aroma spectrum by the whiff of someone near me who had soiled themselves. The trio was on its break anyway, and the bar crowd was thinning. Well I said, I’m going to call it a night, this little walk down memory lane. Thank you she said, and slid with some difficulty off her bar stool and nicely held a corner of my coat as I struggled into the heavy wrap that December's freezing weather had mandated.
On Fifth Avenue in a few minutes, hailing a cab since it didn’t seem to be a good idea to stand at the side of Central Park by myself in the midnight dark waiting for a nevercoming bus, two taxis screeched to a halt at an angle and the drivers started screaming at one another over whose fare I was to be. I considered my options quickly, and decided that the taxi in back was a better bet since my entry into his carriage would effectively prevent him from ramming the taxi in front. I opened the door, climbed in and said…. thank you.
It seemed to be an automatic refrain to every conversational tidbit. I’d said, wonderful music at this bar. I haven’t been here for almost 35 years, and thought I should check it out. Thank you, she said.
We sipped our drinks at Bemelmen’s bar in silence for a while, and when the social space seemed to grow beyond polite proportions, I turned to this large woman with the many shopping bags, perched so incongruously at the very end of this tony bar in the upper east side on a midnight on a Friday in December and extended my hand and said, “My name is Barbara.” Thank you, she said, my name is Vera.
I proferred the little tri-partite snacks dish that the bartender had put near us and Vera said, sadly, oh the chips are all gone.
The bar was packed. I’d waited for my barside seat for almost thirty minutes, taking a rickety bar stool along the side until one became available. Some late-life lovers had separated long enough to hand me the drinks menu when the bartender five feet away had boomed his how can I help you in my direction. The wine by the glass list was reasonable, and a Laetitia Pinot Noir was handed through the crowd some five minutes later.
When the couple left, I had moved to take over their position. It still was not a great position for seeing the trio that was playing, but better acoustically and far better for checking out the denizens at the rest of the bar. In California, we’d be suspicious that the men were professors, with their carefully/carelessly combed back silvering hair hanging down over their shirt collars. Here in the dim light of Bemelman’s, they looked somehow suave and vaguely romantic, like characters from La Boheme. The women, however, all looked distinctly California, with blonde streaks in sleek shoulder length hair. Except for the furs. No no no no furs in California, at least not in San Francisco. Maybe down in la la land, but I haven’t been there in a while to verify that.
The crowd thinned, and I asked the bartender for another tripartite dish, and when it came, moved it closer to Vera, chips at the fore. Thank you she said.
Do you live in New York, I asked. Thank you sometimes. I lived here for nine years a long time ago, I said. Thank you I came from Virginia. Are you working in New York, I asked. Thank you, I am between jobs. Oh that is difficult, I said and nodded my head sympathetically, this economy is so difficult.
Not many days before, a well known bartender who’d been serving drinks at Bemelman’s for decades was the subject of a newspaper article. He’d said, in the article’s closing paragraph, that there was no recession on the Upper East Side.
But regardless of that optimistic economic news and the old foxes eyeing the wanna-be California girl women-of-a-certain ages at the crowded bar, the cheerfulness at Bemelman’s seemed tenuous. And my conversation with Vera was proving difficult, since the thank yous did not always seem to be of the kind that would grammatically be followed by a you’re-welcome.
The bar atmosphere was already close and stuffy; there was simply too much carbon monoxide and not enough air came in through the glass-and-brass entry door as newcomers whisked in to the low-ceilinged-heavily-upholstered room. Soon I noticed that my square foot of air was joined in its aroma spectrum by the whiff of someone near me who had soiled themselves. The trio was on its break anyway, and the bar crowd was thinning. Well I said, I’m going to call it a night, this little walk down memory lane. Thank you she said, and slid with some difficulty off her bar stool and nicely held a corner of my coat as I struggled into the heavy wrap that December's freezing weather had mandated.
On Fifth Avenue in a few minutes, hailing a cab since it didn’t seem to be a good idea to stand at the side of Central Park by myself in the midnight dark waiting for a nevercoming bus, two taxis screeched to a halt at an angle and the drivers started screaming at one another over whose fare I was to be. I considered my options quickly, and decided that the taxi in back was a better bet since my entry into his carriage would effectively prevent him from ramming the taxi in front. I opened the door, climbed in and said…. thank you.
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