Rain, Restaurants and Real Estate

Today is the first day of spring. It's grey and raining and the thermometer in the garden is hovering around 40 degrees. But that is an improvement over the forecast, which called for temps in the 30s and snow. My husband and I got ourselves out of bed before noon and took the subway into the city to pick up a book from Barnes & Noble, and a couple of bagels and egg salad. The rain had stopped (or taken a break, as it turned out) so we didn't bring an umbrella. But it started drizzling as soon as we emerged from the subway station. My hair frizzed up, but we didn't get soaked.
Our friend, Justin, had stayed with us last night but he'd woken up five hours earlier to catch a plane to Canada from JFK. He and his wife used to live in Brooklyn, but they got burnt out on the city and moved first to Paris, where he went to business school, then to Vancouver, where he is working as a music industry analyst for Nokia (he was in NYC on business). Justin said he likes living in Vancouver but he really misses NYC, and still considers it home. He said it took him a few years--and a couple visits back to NYC--to realize what he'd needed was a break from the city, not a permanent move. It may be a long break though, since they've got a baby on the way, and a big apartment in Vancouver that would be hard to replicate here on the same salary. That's the problem with NYC. So many people want to call it home that we're driving up the cost of living here, and pricing ourselves right out of the city we love.
Last night, I got a glimpse of the kind of place I'd love to own one day in Manhattan (well, if it was about 60 blocks further downtown). I went to my friend Pam's birthday party, while my husband and Justin went out for sushi with another couple of guys. Pam's boyfriend was playing host. A successful musician who's worked on Broadway shows and toured with Bette Midler, he owns a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side complete with jacuzzi bath, recording studio, and a kitchen to rival that in many NYC restaurants (it includes a full bar, and an industrial-sized refrigerator and cooler). For Pam's birthday, he'd hired a local catering company. For hors d'oeuvres, the tuxedoed servers brought out trays of smoked fish, skewered shrimp, crostini with sliced portobello mushrooms on wasabi, crab cakes on spicy wafers, and corn salsa served in pastry cups. That was followed by two main courses: halibut with caramelized bananas (an odd combination, but better than I'd expected) and short ribs with mashed potatos. Then they sliced up Pam's birthday cake and served it with lemon ice cream and chocolate wafer cookies.
After the caterers had cleaned up, Pam's boyfriend sat down at the piano, his musician friends pulled out their guitars, and they all started jamming in the living room.
Meanwhile, a half-dozen of my friends and I stood around in the entry way, picking at the chocolate cookies and poking fun at the pure food movement. Two of them had gone recently to a raw food "cooking class"--and, yes, the irony was not lost on them--where they'd paid to watch an aging hippie blend several different types of purees then pitch the natural food store's products (including a $25 cannister of Himalayan salt, which as our friend pointed out, came from salt mines that had been carved into the side of the mountains...not really the sort of thing you'd expect a self-described environmentalist to be supporting). NYC is one of the few places with restaurants (plural) to accomodate every type of dietetic preference--from macrobiotic vegans to meat-eaters.
And it makes for endless conversation as well as gastronomic adventures. After living in Manhattan for three and a half years where she's been working in non-profit and fundraising, my friend Joy said that she has figured out that as long as you are well-versed on the subjects of restaurants and real estate, you can hold your own conversationally in any social circle. (She'd moved from L.A. where all anyone talked about, at least in her circle of friends and acquaintances, was The Industry--a.k.a. Hollywood--which had made keeping up with the conversation in NYC a bit of a challenge in her first few months here, she said).
I'd add politics and art to the mix too, though you don't have to be particularly well-versed in either to have a strong opinion. We'd spent a good 20 minutes arguing the merits and artistic value of Christo's The Gates over dinner, though two of us hadn't even walked through them. Those topics can prove contentious, however, depending on the company (there are some Bush supporters in the city, though they are vastly outnumbered by Bush bashers). While any New Yorker, regardless of how wealthy he or she is, can commiserate about the relative absurdity of real estate prices in NYC and can also appreciate a good deal (or a host successful enough to have an apartment big enough to accomodate a catering staff, 40 guests, a large piano and several guitars with space to spare).