Hot you can run away from

Sailing away on the Hudson. 5:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013. Very very warm in New York. Hot you can run away from (remove your hand from the hot stove). Warm you’re stuck, and hazy in your head.

I went to the doctor this morning because I’ve had a queasy stomach for the past four days, off and on but on enough to make me wonder (or fret or obsess). When I see a doctor I always try to recount every detail I can remember so he can get a full picture (including anything stupid).

I was telling him that last Thursday night about midnight, sitting at my computer, I was wishing for something sweet to eat. Like chocolate, or cookies. I purposely didn’t have any in the house. I knew that. But I looked in the cupboard anyway ... and found ... the dreck of a small box of honey roasted almonds from Zabar's. There were probably a dozen of them. They’d been sitting there for a couple of weeks or more.


	The culprit, specifically the honey roasted almonds.

I took it to my desk. And consumed them. They were on their last legs and the heat and had had its way too. But almonds are almonds. I love almonds. Or used to. Then, when I lay down to go to sleep, I had this sudden jolt of pain in my belly. It felt, in my imagination what a lightning bolt looks like. Terrifying.

That’s the story. Adding up the past four days, it was after that moment I developed this lo-grade, vague nausea and sometimes almost-indigestion. It made me very uncomfortable.

So yesterday morning when I woke up and felt worse, I called the doc’s office and asked if he’d see me. Yes. 12:15.

Now this doc whom I like very much always has an office full and there’s always a wait. I took a book with me: Lapham’s Quarterly edition of “Family.” I knew I’d have time to read. The office was very air-conditioned – something I’m not used to. Too much so in my opinion but it wasn’t my office. It was almost cold.

I had to wait more than an hour for the doc. I found that I was feeling so much better that I wasn’t sure what I was going to tell him (“I’m a hypochondriac”). Actually every time I’ve gone to see that doc, I’ve felt better when I left the office. Tells you a little something about me, no? And him of course too.

I got the once-over. He thought it was probably the almonds. I still say: let’s hope so. I won’t do that again.

I took these pictures on Monday night about 8:30 in the evening. A very hot day but leaving us with the most beautiful red and pink skies, casting a glow over the neighborhood.

New Yorkers seem to be going along with this heat despite its intensity. Last night some friends took me to dinner at Sette Mezzo. The place was jammed; lots of friends and friends of friends; a New York local. One of my dinner partners had just finished a book I recommended “Citizens of London,” and loved it.


	Click above to order.

	Click above to order.

Everyone I know who has read that book has loved it. There’s a reason they do. All those historic characters whose names are household words are presented with warts and all (yes, Churchill; yes, FDR), and you can “get” them. You can see how much we are who we are All of us. This is positive bad news.

I was asked what else. I told them “The Patriarch” the Joe Kennedy biography. Big. I think 800 pages. An emotional experience if you take it seriously. You like him, you don’t like him, you’ve met people like him, known people like him, you get how he could be charming, you see how he was very shrewd, driven and clever, and cut-throat in business. He was an operator, a horse’s ass at times; a schemer, a publicity hound, a world class fooler-arounder, a devoted husband, and most of all a devoted father.

You see how Roosevelt could outfox him and he couldn’t do a thing about it (except pretend to try). You see how this man accomplished what he did. The fatherhood was it for me. He gave his love to his children. And his money too, but that’s another part of the forest; love was first. Now you know what I think.

I tell this story because right after describing the man to my friends, I looked up, and sitting at a table directly across the room, waiting for her dinner partners, was the surviving child of that father and his famous brood – Jean Kennedy Smith. (who was dining with Phyllis Newman and Joe Armstrong). This is New York.

They weren’t all inside -- over at the Frick Collection they were holding their annual Garden Party on the lawn in front of the mansion. They didn’t mind the heat obviously and the men were even wearing jackets and ties.

The Garden Party made its debut in 2008. It’s one of the most desirable social events of the summer season because it’s just a party. No other reason to be there except to see and meet people, enjoy the cocktails, the breezy jazz and a splendid night in Mr. Frick’s garden. There were about 500 looking very summery and unfazed by the temperature that I’ve been whining about.

Guests at the Frick Collection's annual Garden Party on the lawn in front of the mansion.

They could have gone (and some did) inside the mansion and enjoyed its fabulous collection of fine and decorative arts featuring masterpieces by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Fragonard, Holbein, Houdon, Goya, Gainsborough, Velázquez, Renoir, and others of note. In the Portico Gallery, there is a current special exhibition Precision & Splendor: Clocks and Watches at The Frick Collection.

The Frick is a very special place in New York. It has a serenity that embraces you when you visit. Its galleries offer a contemplative quality that can only be found in a private space like someone’s home. The setting of the collection is a circa 1913–14 residence of a great steel magnate from Pittsburgh in industrial America. This was his jewel. This was created for just that: contemplation and beauty, and even with you, whoever you are, in mind. It also embodies the other worldliness of the Gilded Age of the City; its dernier cri.

Under the trees at the Frick Garden Party.

So there they were, inside and outside taking in the pleasure New Yorkers have of seeing people known and unknown, often in crowds, small to medium, at the end of a workday in the middle of blazing summer. The signature cocktail was the Garden Gimlet (with American Harvest Organic Spirit — you had to taste it). The jazz group: The Flail. The proceeds from the tickets support many programs including educational and curatorial initiatives and Library activities.

The leadership behind the evening: Pauline Eveillard, Susan Johnson, Martha Loring, Alexandra Porter, Tess Porter, Deborah Royce, Lisa Volling, and Jennifer Wright.

The Garden Gimlet with American Harvest Organic Spirit kept people cool.

In the crowd: Paul Arnhold, Alexander Berggruen, Margot and Jerry Bogert, Emerson Bowyer, Mitchell Cantor, Edward Lee Cave, Tia Chapman, Missey Condie, Jerry Ann Woodfin-Costa and Victor Costa, Caitlin and Michael Davis, Dan Dutcher, Christina Eberli, Allison Ecung, Barbara and Bradford Evans, Pauline Eveillard, Juliet L. Falchi, Jennifer Farrell, Kalyn Fink, Mark Edward Fox, Tiffany Frasier, Sarah Jane and Trevor Gibbons, Mark Gilbertson, Wes Gordon, Gemma Gucci, John Hays, Elizabeth Horvitz, Katherine R. Horvitz, Michael Horvitz, Redmond Ingalls, Susan and Henry P. Johnson, Lucy J. Lang, Christine Layng, Adam K. Levin, Patricia Lovejoy, Amory and Sean McAndrew, Heather McDowell, Sarah Nir, Julie Pailey, Elizabeth and Douglas Paul, Joan Payson, Alexandra C. Porter, Tess Porter, Allison and Peter Rockefeller, Deborah and Charles M. Royce, William R. Schermerhorn, Robert Schneider, Maggy Frances Schultz, Cator Sparks, Lisa and Jeff Volling, Alexandra R. Wagle, Frick Director Ian Wardropper and Sarah McNear, Cameron Wilcox, Coke Anne and Jarvis Wilcox, Courtnay Wilcox, Jennifer Wright, and more.

Union Square Events provided a menu. Here you go:Caprese salad with basil & fleur de sel, mango and Thai basil summer roll, classic Maine lobster roll, sweet corn and Jonah crab croquette with chili-lime crema, tarte flambée, seared sirloin with thyme and shallot agro-dolce, seven-spiced lamb loin with tomato mint chutney and papadum crisp, with passed desserts to follow.

Chairmen Tess Porter, Alexandra C. Porter, Deborah Royce, Martha Loring, Pauline Eveillard, Lisa Volling, Jennifer Wright, and Susan Johnson. Photos: John Calabrese.