Author: Mara L.

Jens is right, I am supposed to be writing about food—about culinary survival in New York!—not complain about life in Manhattan, or even worse, life in general. But what can I do, I am still in my Dante mood.

Here’s a dilemma for people like me, people who spend half of the year in Europe and the other in New York, and consider themselves ‘creatives’. Scientists have found (presumably) that moving twice is the cardiac equivalent of a divorce. Suppose that your yearly back-and-forth is not quite like moving, it’s a little less stressful, but really only a little less. So let’s guess that four such moves (equals two years) are the cardiac equivalent of a divorce, and let’s suppose that one can only take so many divorces without being utterly exhausted. All in all, this means that the oh so trendy life style between two continents speeds up things quite badly. And that, while it is part of the game to consider yourself ‘young’, you might already have gone more than half of your life’s way (that’s where Dante comes in).

But if you do not want to take this mid-point of your life as an occasion for serious soul-searching (such as: exploring hell), perhaps it indeed is time to turn back to the pleasures of eating. Let’s not forget that blueberries have an enormous amount of vitamins and other things that are terribly good for you. Didn’t I do much blueberry picking this summer? And didn’t I eat lots of it? Admittedly, some of it was enjoyed in the not-quite-so-healthy form of blueberry crepes, a kind of crepes which needs much sugar, for the blueberries have all this (healthy) acid. But then there’s consolation in the thought that things can be good for you two ways: for your body or your soul. And isn’t the latter much more important?

This year, the end of my European summer hit hard. Not just because tomatoes and fish in Manhattan don’t taste quite like they do on my favorite island near Napoli, Procida. That’s to be expected, and perhaps it’s even mildly reassuring that things haven’t changed too much in my absence. These days, I think with nostalgia of the times when my worst worry was whether the figs and peaches were perfect. Returning to Manhattan, this year, was like falling into Dante’s hell. To some level of hell were people have self-inflicted ailments, ailments which are reflections of their sins. So what’s my sin? Pointless attraction to Manhattan, which is bound to kill me.

I came back during some of the hottest days, which I shouldn’t have done, but there is this unfortunate element of my life called work. It took me two or three days, then I had multiple minor illnesses, which make me lie awake at night and picture sinners with gaping black and yellow wounds. I have never had a serious existentialist phase in my life, but now there is a big WHY hanging over my head.

And then I ran into one of my European friends who had the luxury to return a couple weeks later, and who says that he couldn’t be better just coming from, as he put it, *his European beach summer*. I want my European beach summer! Now!

[Edit: Mara’s series runs under the title “Culinary Survival In New York” for a reason. But enough whining now. She’s tough, she’ll get back on track and rejoin the Manhattan rat race in no time, I promise. JH]

I’m about to board a plane and get back to Manhattan, so this is my last entry to Jens’ blog from the lovely Mediterranean coast of Amalfi. I’ve been renting a little house here – that is, the island I mentioned last time, Procida. I’ve been rather immersed into one of my architecture projects for a while now. The culinary result of working hard *and* being in this house is: lots of tramezzini. For of course, even the most minimal kitchen equipment of a relatively inexpensive holiday rental down here is luxurious if viewed from the perspective of my starving life in Manhattan. You walk in, and the first thing you notice, with a heartwarming sensation that tells you you shall never go back to Manhattan, is a tramezzini grill.

I asked a couple of my Manhattan friends, gourmets of the New York type (by which I mean: extremely well versed in the names and looks of all kinds of foreign food, if not always in how I think it should taste). They didn’t even know the word ‘tramezzini’! So what are tramezzini? It’s two pieces of tramezzini-toast, a variety of toast that doesn’t have the regular ‘rim’ that toast in the US has. In between you can put all kinds of things, such as arugula with parmigiano, or tomato, basil, and mozzarella, or whatever you like, and then it’s put into a tramezzini grill. Super simple. But with the bread and the cheese and the grill being perfect, the nicest computer lunch ever.

I spent about a month of my first stay in New York trying (a) to find a bar that serves tramezzini (forget it!), (b) an importer of tramezzini grills (forget it!). The disappointment that went along with these searches was mixed with disbelief – tramezzini seem like *the* Manhattan food to me, everybody would love them!

So I am asking all of you out there: Why are there no tramezzini in Manhattan?