STEAL THE MENU: A MEMOIR OF FORTY YEARS IN FOOD

It’s hard to believe in these gourmet-mad times, but 40 years ago the U.S. had “no radicchio, no world-class restaurant, no foie gras, no Sichuan food.” So recalls lifelong food writer Raymond Sokolov in this entertaining memoir. Mr. Sokolov fondly recollects his tenure as the Times restaurant critic in the mid 1970s, just as the city’s food scene was coming alive, launching a “covert plan to overthrow established order in the New York restaurant world,” lambasting snobbish French restaurants (the since-reformed La Grenouille) and championing the elegant, pared-down nouvelle cuisine arriving stateside (the late, beloved Lutèce). Ever irreverent, he reviewed dog food and dueled with the White House chef over the recipe for Tricia Nixon’s wedding cake.

The book doubles as a breezy, ranging history of American food, and the sociopolitical events that shaped it, like the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, which allowed a flood of Chinese immigrants to bring their local cuisines to New York. His four-star review of a Hunan pioneer led to accusations of bribery, and the arrival at his house of the confused proprietors, who thus thought they were supposed to bribe him.

The food revolution has been “more potent across the breadth of most modern societies than the avant-garde achievements of any other modern art,” he argues, and while it’s a pleasure to read about decadent meals in Vegas and Copenhagen, he’s a down-home guy at heart, happiest when correcting assumptions about everyday foods (the lime vs. the Key lime, “don’t get me started about the yam,” etc.) and remembering treks through the heartland in search of the country’s best barbecue, registering “an honest blow for the stubborn practitioners of quality, tradition and, sometimes, worthwhile innovation.” —Andrew Russeth

THE WORLD IS A CARPET
ANNA BADKHEN
(Riverhead Books, 288 pp., $26.95)

Collecting kindling, watching copulating camels, quieting crying infants with opium, baking naan and gossiping over the loom: these are but a few of the activities that Anna Badkhen vividly captures in her account of daily life in Oqa, a tiny desert settlement so remote that it doesn’t appear on any map. In The World is a Carpet, Ms. Badkhen, a Leningrad-born foreign correspondent who began visiting northern Afghanistan long before 2001, charts the process of weaving a carpet over the course of year. Like so many pieces of yarn, she weaves the words of Persian poets, Western explorers, contemporary journalists and scholars into her narrative, enriching her own account with those that came before. As the Taliban begins laying claim to villages near Oqa and rumors of atrocities travel across the desert, Ms. Badkhen evokes the many invasions that have wracked the land for centuries, from Alexander the Great to Genghis Khan, Soviet armies to American troops.

Ms. Badkhen’s keen observations and compassionate portrayal of the people she lives with are sometimes undermined by her occasionally overwrought writing style. Words too conspicuous to overuse, like “crepuscule” and “strabismic,” resurface repeatedly.

Despite these distractions, Ms. Badkhen’s prose is predominantly poetic, and she delivers a powerful, unsentimental study of life persisting in extreme conditions. Perhaps the greatest testament to her success is that, upon reading the final page, the reader wonders how the people populating her narrative are faring, and desperately hopes that they are all right. —Zoë Lescaze

This is the sort of crime we associate with locales far removed from the Village, the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement. Here in New York, we believe, gay people can live and love as they please, thanks to the pioneering activism of those who demanded an end to bigotry, discrimination, and hate decades ago.

Then a shot rings out, and we are reminded that even in Manhattan, even in the Village, hatred has not been banished. Gay people still put themselves at risk by being who they are.

The Police Department reports that bias crimes are up significantly. At this time in 2012, the department had registered 13 bias-related incidents. This year, the number is 22.

That figure should be zero. Until it is, New Yorkers need to bear in mind that intolerance remains a hazard, deadly at times, that confronts gay people and other traditionally marginalized individuals in this city, no matter its reputation for acceptance.

Mark Carson ought to be alive today. But he died at the age of 32—because he was gay.

He should—he must—take the lead on authentic reform and genuine accountability in Albany. He has to change, and he has to create change. Calls for independent commissions simply won’t get the job done. But through his absolute control over the Assembly, Mr. Silver already has the power to enforce change.

If he doesn’t act decisively, Mr. Silver will be remembered as a leader who didn’t have the guts to challenge a dysfunctional legislative culture, an apologist who refused to name and shame a rogue’s gallery of crooks, misogynists, and hacks more concerned with brute power than the common good.

Mr. Silver’s legacy as Speaker is in jeopardy as a result of his admitted mishandling of sexual harassment charges against former Assembly member Vito Lopez.

The Speaker approved a hush-money settlement last year for two women who accused Mr. Lopez of harassing them, a move he said he now regrets. An independent investigation by Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan asserted that by not referring the case to the Assembly’s ethics committee, Mr. Silver’s office opened the door for subsequent allegations of harassment against the boorish Mr. Lopez.

Mr. Lopez resigned on Monday. He tried to delay his departure for a month; expulsion threats and public pressure shamed him into stepping down immediately. But nobody believes the legacy of the Lopez case—or the boys’ club culture in Albany—will vanish as quickly.

Corruption comes in many forms in the state capital, as any semi-informed voter knows by now. The recent revelation that at least two members of the Legislature wore wires during confidential talks with colleagues has sent a shiver down the capital’s collective spine. More than two dozen state officeholders have been indicted or reprimanded in some way over the last several years.

That’s the sort of corruption that can end with a perp walk. But there’s another sort of corruption, too: the sort Mr. Lopez represented.

It’s no secret that some male legislators regard the women they work with as potential sexual conquests. The most vulnerable are the legions of bright-eyed, idealistic interns who arrive in Albany every September. They often leave Albany with a much seamier perspective.

One current member of the Assembly, Amy Paulin of Westchester, was a victim of sexual harassment when she worked in Albany before her election to the legislature. She has spoken eloquently about the need to change Albany’s culture. Mr. Silver’s resignation, she said, would do nothing to achieve that goal.

Mr. Lopez might be one of the more egregious sexual harassers in recent Albany history, but he is not alone. That’s the mindset Mr. Silver has to change.

He is, however, an unlikely agent for an enlightened code of conduct. More than a decade ago, he defended his chief of staff, who had been accused of raping a legislative staffer. Nothing happened. Two years later, he was again accused of rape. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.

Mr. Silver has been in power for a ludicrous 20 years. His conduct at the time of the first rape accusation was as inexcusable as his cover-up of the initial harassment claims against Mr. Lopez. Those who seek his resignation are not without an argument.

But Mr. Silver now has an opportunity to redeem himself.

The question is whether he has the will to do so. He certainly has the power.

Even if we knew where David Chang partied, we wouldn't tell.

The James Beard Awards, which took place last week at Lincoln Center, have rightly been described as the “Oscars for the Food World.” But because they reward chefs and not good-looking people, and because many in the food world are functioning alcoholics, the whole point of the Beards isn’t the ceremony itself, which is boring, but the parties that follow.

This year’s circuit followed thusly: as the gala ended, the really important OGs—Thomas Keller, Jacques Pépin, Daniel Boulud—headed to Per Se, which was closed for the event. Sad people not invited learned as much from a sign on the door. And even though Mr. Boulud stopped by Per Se, he opened Boulud Sud, which is right across the street from Lincoln Center, to welcome the hoi polloi. Vive la différence!

Next, half the crowd went to Del Posto, which won a Beard Award for Outstanding Service. Lidia Bastianich stood on the stairwell and gave a speech. Bartenders were manhandled and the place was packed. The other half of the revelers—the cooler half?—went to Mission Chinese. That was a hot and sweaty tangle of glory and champagne, because Danny Bowien, who had amazing multicolored hair and wore a white Dries Van Noten suit, had won Rising Star Chef.

Across town, the third floor at The Spotted Pig—yes, there’s a third floor; it’s where Jay-Z eats gnudi—was essentially a hot box, packed with chefs like Ignacio Mattos, formerly of Isa, Frank Falcinelli, one of the Prime Meats Franks, and Michael Schwartz of Michael’s Genuine in Miami. A bunch of Mission Chinese people were there too, somewhere.

David Chang was almost certainly getting drunk somewhere as well, and likely encouraging others to do the same, having won yet another Beard Award (this year, it was for Outstanding Chef). A few years ago he had a party bus with a stripper pole and a nondisclosure form. That’s all we’ll say about that.

On this night, all roads eventually led to a Garment District loft where Will Guidara and Daniel Humm of The NoMad and Eleven Madison Park were throwing an invitation-only rager. By invitation-only, of course, we mean there was an invitation that said “invitation only,” but anyone could show up, and everyone did. GM Jeffrey Tascalrella stood at the door on a deserted stretch of 27th Street. “We have Manhattans on tap,” he said excitedly. “It’s an experiment.”

Anxious not to trash their very nice restaurants, Mr. Guidara et al. had hired out a Spartan flat, filled it with Christmas lights, bottles of Maker’s, kegs of Manhattans and a deejay and opened the doors. I saw Andrew Zimmern, not drinking but wearing Stubbs & Wooten slippers. Brian Canlis of Canlis, the best restaurant in Seattle, exuded a combination of excitement and sweat. Even though Mr. Canlis had lost, he said, “This is the best weekend ever. I never get to see all these guys.”

More and more people showed up until you couldn’t move or breathe, but you were so drunk it didn’t matter. Was it the disco ball that spun, or did everything spin? Was there even a disco ball? Was that Jacques Pépin dancing dirty with Stephanie Izzard? (No, he wasn’t there.) Did we get into an hour-long conversation about Tumblr with someone who works at Tumblr? (Yes.) Was it time to go? (Certainly.)

In the elevator, Paul Bartolotta congratulated the Transom on our Beard Award, which is something he made up, while his wife complained that she was hungry.

But even as we left, more arrived. Kate Krader, restaurant editor of Food + Wine, was there with an entourage that included Sang Yoon from Los Angeles’s Lukshon and Chris Cosentino from San Francisco’s Incanto. Around 2 a.m., some more people showed up who weren’t dressed in tuxedos at all but in NYPD uniforms.

That’s when the party ended and a yearlong hangover began.

Apparently not. Here’s the latest—you may recall that last year four women filed sexual-harassment allegations against Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito Lopez. There was some question about how Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s office handled the complaints. A full and impartial investigation was ordered, and rightly so.

Now legislators are demanding the opportunity to edit the results of the full and impartial investigation conducted by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, a state agency. Apparently, the lawmakers fear that the investigation was just a little too full and impartial.

Here’s the worst part: the co-chairs of the bipartisan Legislative Ethics Commission are behind the effort to edit—some might say “censor”—the as-yet-unreleased report about the Lopez scandal. Reports indicate that lawmakers object to any discussion of how the Lopez matter was handled, even though that was the impetus for the investigation in the first place.

All of this is unfolding in the midst of a corruption scandal that has led to the arrest of several top-ranking legislators in recent weeks. If legislators are worried about public perception, they have an odd way of showing it.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, an old Albany hand, knows that legislators are not keen about outsiders snooping around the Capitol. As The Observer reported, the governor doesn’t want what he dubbed “Scandalmania” hijacking his agenda. That’s why his recent threat to empanel a Moreland Commission—an independent investigative body that could look into broad ethics complaints—was a shrewd one.

If lawmakers can’t be shamed into getting serious about ethics reform, the governor’s threat may simply force the issue.

Sadly, it may be the only way to change the culture in Albany.

A gaggle of candidates seeking to succeed Mr. Bloomberg turned up at a forum the other day that was sponsored by the biggest obstacle to fundamental school reform, the United Federation of Teachers. Sadly but not surprisingly, it turned out to be a pander-fest that bordered on the pathetic.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio set the tone by pouring praise on the UFT’s resoundingly mediocre leader, Michael Mulgrew, comparing him to one of his most notable predecessors, Albert Shanker, who led not one but two illegal teachers’ strikes in the 1960s. (Some will recall that when Woody Allen’s character in the movie Sleeper is awakened in the distant future, he is told that the world was destroyed because Albert Shanker got his hands on a nuclear weapon. The joke may have required some explanation west of the Hudson River.)

Several of the candidates eagerly noted that family members or friends or friends of family members or family members of friends are teachers or union members or know somebody who is. All in attendance—there were five Democrats and an independent candidate—maintained that Mike Bloomberg’s 12 years as mayor have been a disaster for the city’s schools. Coincidentally, that’s precisely how the UFT regards the Bloomberg era.

But Mr. Bloomberg wasn’t the event’s only tackling dummy. The candidates did their best to prove that they despise former Councilmember Eva Moskowitz even more than the UFT does. Eva Moskowitz? She’s been out of politics for years.

Of course, Ms. Moskowitz has gone on to become one of the city’s most effective voices for authentic education reform. In fact, she’s more than an advocate—she’s an activist. She is the head of an extraordinary organization, Success Academy Charter Schools, which is bringing quality education to poorly served neighborhoods—and doing it without the UFT.

Few people inspire greater loathing among the UFT’s leaders than Ms. Moskowitz. And so Council Speaker Christine Quinn singled out her former colleague for criticism, charging that Ms. Moskowitz’s anti-UFT rhetoric has “ripped us apart.” The teachers in attendance loved it. Parents, however, should be concerned. There is no reason to think that any of the candidates at the UFT forum intend to build on the successes of the last 12 years.

The issue, of course, goes deeper than cheap criticism of Ms. Moskowitz and the schools with which she is associated. It’s about one union’s refusal to recognize the need for change, and it’s about candidates who seem more than happy to indulge the union’s retrograde views.

From charter schools to teacher evaluations, the UFT has fought every attempt to fix what is so obviously broken. It claims to act on behalf of children, but seriously—does anybody really believe that? This is a union that has protected incompetence for decades. Whose interests have been served by unacceptably high dropout rates and archaic work rules? Whose interests have been served by the UFT’s costly refusal to implement a new evaluation system?

Only the naive would expect a mayoral candidate to challenge the union directly in such a setting. So a certain degree of pandering to Mr. Mulgrew and his members was to be expected.

But the candidates’ hyperbole was so over-the-top—even Mr. Mulgrew must have been just a little embarrassed— that voters are left to conclude that post-Bloomberg school policy is destined to go back to the bad old days, when the UFT essentially ran the system for the benefit of its members.

New Yorkers have good reason to be anxious about the arrival of January 1, 2014.

Designer Kelechi Odu trades jabs with model Charlie Himmelstein. (Photo by: Federico de Francesco)

Fashion is a knockabout business, but it’s rare for a model to actually deck the designer during a show.

The mannequin was “Rockstar” Charlie Himmelstein, a 6’4” sapling grown in Brooklyn, unusual among the model-slash crowd for his participation in the city’s underground fight scene. He sent menswear designer Kelechi Odu to the mat in round three of a boxing match staged while both were wearing Mr. Odu’s latest collection, Gilded Beast, which debuted on Sunday.

Eleven other male models, who had just “walked” in Jimmy Fusaro’s tiny 12^th-floor boxing gym on W. 27^th Street, stood by the ring, cheering. The competitors went four rounds, their suits being artfully snipped away with dress shears during the breaks, so that both admirably toned men finished the match, sweating, in their gloves and trousers. A referee generously declared the contest a draw.

Mr. Odu, 35, said his inspiration was to unify Edwardian, Jekyll-and-Hyde ideas of masculine brute force and respectability. A Nigerian partially educated at Eton in the United Kingdom, his collection featured wing collars under lapel-less suit coats with strips of bear fur down the spine and sleeves. Other shirts were beaded in patterns meant to represent male chest chair.

“This show was more a performance piece, closer to the art shows that are coming up than a fashion show,” Mr. Odu said, his chest heaving after the match. “It was more for my buyers and customers in Africa, since they know me as a New York designer, and want to see what I do here.”

The intimate invited audience of around 30 downtown types contained one slender man wearing a woman’s fox fur shrug over a camouflage shirt and two with their hair in samurai-style top-knots. Wan-looking girls posed for pouty pictures next to the boxing ropes, as a small-boned woman recorded it all on a Super 8 camera.

But who wore it best? (Photo by: Federico de Francesco)

Mr. Fusaro, the bluff 51-year-old proprietor of the X-Fit gym (“that’s Ex-Fit, not Cross Fit,” he stressed) seemed delighted by the spectacle. “I’ve been here 13 years, and I don’t want to say it’s ‘refurbished,’” he said, indicating the somewhat rag-tag collection of weight benches, heavy bags and martial arts equipment that had been moved aside for the show, “but someone threw this stuff out, and I found it.”

He watched the hipster crowd stream to toward the elevators and the promise of an after-party at the Hudson Clearwater.

“My wife hates me,” he said. “I mend everything with duct tape.”

Natalie Ross and Michelle-Marie Heinemann.

On the first Wednesday in May, a rather large tent pops up behind the Vanderbilt Gate on Fifth Avenue between 104th and 105th Streets with the sole purpose of shielding the over-the-top headgear of 1,300 ladies who lunch, a handful of men and one Martha Stewart from the elements as they duke it out for millinery supremacy at the Frederick Law Olmsted Awards Luncheon—or, as anybody who’s anybody calls it, The Hat Luncheon. At this year’s event, the tent proved unnecessary, as honorees Jenny and John Paulson had pledged a cool $100 million to The Conservancy Fund, the exact dollar figure necessary to ensure perfect weather.

Arriving on the scene, the Transom quickly sussed out an early front-runner in the hat arms race: Carole McDermott, a sprightly darling decked out in heritage pearls and a Chanel suit. She skipped the small-time weaponry and went straight for the nuclear option with a towering scale replica of Central Park strapped to her dome, complete with an adoptable bench.

“I have every year gone a bit bigger, and I’ve never once regretted it,” said Ms. McDermott, who stands at 5-foot-3 sans heels but checked in at close to 7 feet with her choice chapeau, which she said took an estimated three months to put together.

We then found the gorgeous Lizzie Tisch standing contrapposto, surrounded by an iPhoned throng. She was wearing an anatomically correct garden snake made entirely from mother-of-pearl. The “hat” was apparently the handiwork of Aaron Keppel, an artist who, Ms. Tisch was quick to note, is not to be confused with “your grandmother’s milliner,” a sentiment echoed by gal pal Amy Fine Collins, who was wearing a snow-white barn owl on her forehead, precariously perched.

“He’s just the most incredible artist. Look at the detail—the wings were made from tearing up thick stock paper and putting it back together,” Ms. Fine Collins said of Mr. Keppel’s handiwork. “The eyes! Look at the eyes! They’re perfect replicas of the real thing. He even constructs them as they would be found in nature. Breathtaking.”

The Transom had only a moment to acknowledge the breathtakingness of the owl peering over her forehead before Ms. Tisch and Ms. Fine Collins continued almost in unison: “Our park is truly our city’s greatest gift. What better way to tip our hat to it than to literally tip our hats to it?”

Making our way into the tent for lunch, we found Gillian Miniter, former president of the Conservancy’s women’s committee, wearing a fluorescent firecracker above her head. We asked her about the logistics of something so delightfully impractical.

“The real art is getting past your doorman in one of these things without him making some slick remark,” she said, gesturing toward the large group of gathered women who would help raise $3.3 million while nibbling on avocado lobster salad. “People fly in from around the world for this lunch,” she continued. “People slave for months getting their hats ready; people open their checkbooks and really have a chance to make a lasting gesture to the city they love. One hundred percent of the money raised here will go to park programs and initiatives, and I think that’s just great.”

As we eventually teetered out of the tent after one too many white wines, clutching a Tiffany tote bag (the perfect Mother’s Day re-gift) stuffed with Estée Lauder’s finest, the Transom had a hard time disagreeing.