Notes From The City: September 2020

Sunday, September 27, 2020

An Abundant Life - Heart To Heart

Touch The Heart Hoboken opened during the most difficult time in recent years that the area has experienced. All of the restaurants were closed down except for takeout and delivery for several months beginning in March, and as the restrictions began to be lifted and outdoor seating was allowed, I started to hear that Dan Grey who owns Grand Vin and Saku, two restaurants I have written about in the past and wrote updates for recently, was opening a new restaurant on Washington Street. With a focus on small plates, dim sum and fresh and healthy versions of some classic Chinese restaurant menu items with a twist, Touch The Heart was named after the English translation for dim sum.

I have loved going to the Chinatowns in Boston and New York City since I was a child, and I've loved dim sum since the first time I tried it in a crowded restaurant with an open floor plan and tables everywhere with trolleys of delicacies on small plates going by. And so when I heard about Touch The Heart I wanted to try it, and I made a plan with a friend who is a fellow foodie at heart.

The night that we went was a lovely one. There was a hint of rain in the air, and it was warm but not humid. On the sidewalk near the street where we sat there was a lovely breeze, and we chose different items to taste that were all excellent. The restaurant is BYOB, and so we picked up a bottle of white wine and a bottle of prosecco at Antique Bar & Bakery around the corner, and we tasted and sipped and felt like we were on a very special and joyful adventure. Just as we were finishing the rain began lightly, and we sat under the tented awning to have our last sips of sparkling wine.

Touch The Heart is a lovely experience as all of Dan Grey's restaurants are, and the Chefs and staff are wonderful. We had a chance to talk with the Sous Chef, T.J. Denzler, who created an exceptionally delicious dessert the night we were there. He has such a love of creating new things to delight and there is something so light and playful about the choices on the menu and the indoor area with plants and antiques for sale that we found ourselves feeling lighter when we left than when we started our meal. In a beautiful way our hearts and spirits were lifted, and the experience left us feeling filled with the warm feeling of friendship, heart-to-heart conversation and time shared where you feel at ease.

Touch The Heart

324 Washington Street

Hoboken, New Jersey

https://touchthehearthoboken.com/

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

Sunday, September 20, 2020

An Abundant Life - Seeing Beyond

I met Donna L. O'Grady after seeing her work at Choc O Pain Bakery where the owner had an area where she was showing local artwork. A few weeks after I saw her work at Choc O Pain I was at the Newman Leather Building in Hoboken for the Hoboken Art & Studio Tour, and though I didn't know it at the time, she has a studio there. When I first walked into the room and saw her work I recognized it immediately, and asked her if she had her work at Choc O Pain. There is something about Donna's work that is breathtaking. She depicts scenes with such loveliness that you want to go there, wherever the places are, and just be. She often paints on old pieces of tin ceilings and other recycled materials, and the results of those pieces and of her other more traditional paintings create a feeling that is both timeless and of the current time.

She was very cordial that first day in her studio, and there is a loveliness about her personally as there is in her work. I stayed visiting with her for quite a while that day, and felt as if I had been on a much longer journey after I left. There is a depth in Donna that is part of the feeling of her work. She seems to go beyond the ordinary views to look at what lies beneath, and the materials she paints on add to the sense that there are layers of meaning in the landscapes. Somehow they seem to tell stories without words, a beachscape for instance that the viewer can imagine the history of, or a building that seems as if it had years of life hidden away behind its windows and doors.

Donna studied at the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts in New York, and she attends painting workshops in Italy. She is inspired to paint the places she loves, in the New York City area, New Jersey and other places she has traveled, and also paints on board her sailboat. Her portable easel allows her to paint En Plein Air wherever she goes. Hers is a rare gift, one that seems to flow naturally to create both vividly memorable and peaceful images of seascapes, buildings, portraits and other figurative work.

Painting is an art that so many people interpret differently. Using a variety of tools and materials, it is almost as if the soul of the Artist is connected somehow into the work, and the finished product reflects so much more than what the eye can see on the surface. In work like Donna's the layers are so vast, and yet the outward appearance is lovely in a calming way. As we view her work we begin to imagine, and to look within and see beyond to the world she has created.

Donna L. O'Grady

In Her Studio In 2018

At The Newman Leather Building

300 Observer Highway

Hoboken, New Jersey

http://donnaogrady.com/

Recent Work

Photographs Courtesy Of Donna L. O'Grady

Selected Images From A Recent Studio Visit

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

Sunday, September 13, 2020

An Abundant Life - The Golden Hearth

Last January I had what was to my memory the best birthday party I have ever had. Over the years I have thrown alot of parties, some for business and some for pleasure, and years ago I used to have birthday parties that were so memorable that people would talk about them for years after. In those days I would invite everyone and tell them to invite anyone they wanted to, and my apartment would be spilling out into the hallway and if I was on a top floor up onto the roof. But I stopped throwing those parties after one night when I walked into my own kitchen and someone I had never met said, Wow great party, this apartment is terrific, whose is it? and I of course had to introduce myself and say it was mine and it was my birthday. It wasn't so much the awkwardness of that moment as it was the feeling that I just didn't want to celebrate my birthday with people who didn't know me and didn't care about the things I care about. So after that I started just going out for smaller celebrations or having a few people close to me in my home. But this past January my birthday fell on a Monday and I decided to have a dinner party at Antique Bar & Bakery. I kept the number of guests I invited to ten, and asked Executive Chef and Partner Chef Paul Gerard to choose the menu. I always like it when he decides on the menu because he has such a beautiful knowledge of the harmony of food, and he has the expertise and knowledge of years of experience and hard work that go into creating a menu and he does it so much better than I can. People are still talking about that dinner, and over these long months when the restaurant has been closed I was so glad that I'd had that party. I kept the menu Chef Paul Gerard created on my table as a constant reminder of how beautiful and special that evening was, and to give me hope that one day I'd be able to eat the marvelous food he creates again.

Months went by and though at times there would be signs of life, after a while the restaurant began to look very sad and forlorn. There was a time years ago when I used to write fractured fairytales about places I went to and people I knew, and I began to think about the restaurant as having a personality and a life of its own. Early on, before any of the other restaurants had begun to talk about outdoor seating being possible, I had a dream that Antique Bar & Bakery had opened again and there were banquettes down the block and flowers everywhere. It was an extraordinary dream, and in color, and over the long months as I prayed as I looked at my birthday menu and as I walked by the restaurant, I felt certain that the dream had been given to me so that I could keep my hopes up and believe the vision of the dream instead of what I was seeing.

Then one day I started to hear noises inside, and I'd see people going in and out of the restaurant sometimes. It seemed as if it might be coming back to life again. And then I saw a post on Instagram that they were going to be opening. It didn't give a date, but then I saw another post. And then after a few more weeks, they announced that on September 1 they would be opening for takeout and delivery. I planned a dinner party with the Artists Dana Gambale, her husband Eric Sanchez and their friend Alice Hepburn who I had been promising a dinner to for the wonderful work they have been doing on my Love & Plenty project to help restaurants get funding to provide meals for people in need, and the Creative Forces online videos of Artist Talks that are part of that project. I think that day was one of the happiest celebrations in my life. The Artist and Sommelier Joel Liscio helped me pick up the feast I ordered and the group of us sat outside in the lovely plant filled yard of Dana's and Eric's apartment surrounded by old growth trees. The food was even more amazing than I remembered, and with each bite I felt like something very special had happened. It was as if the hearth of the restaurant that is at its heart was creating food that was like a fairtytale feast. I'm a very good cook, and some people think I'm a great one, but there is no one in the world who is as great a Chef as Chef Paul Gerard. Everything he creates is a masterpiece, and he is so highly skilled that he was able to make a menu that would translate to eating at home. I ordered all kinds of things that night, and over the rest of the week and into this past one I've been trying new things as well as familiar favorites. And then they opened their outdoor seating, and my cup is now overflowing with goodness.

Joe Castelo, a filmmaker and the Founding Partner of the restaurant who first bought the building to preserve it several years ago has also been very busy planning and creating different parts of the Antique Bar & Bakery experience for this new time of the world we are living in. The third Founding Partner, legendary nightlife impresario Rocco Ancarola, is adding his expertise in party planning, entertaining, hosting and promoting to help us all feel that better days are here with more on the way. When you go to the website for the restaurant there are new sections where you can buy merchandise, books, records and art, and purchase Hoboken & Sons coffee and t-shirts and caps, and there are play lists on Spotify to bring the music of Antique Bar & Bakery home. There are new things to see and new things on the way, and it's exciting to see how much energy and life are back in the house.

Chef Paul Gerard's new menu is extraordinary, and the additions like the bottled sauces are absolutely divine. Everything he does, he does with excellence, and he has extraordinary patience and attention to detail. I'm as happy with the treasure he puts on a plate as ever I could be. An Artist friend who wrote a book had planned a gathering at the restaurant months ago to celebrate it with the group of us who had worked with her on it. We were all waiting for the good news that the restaurant would be open again, and when we finally met for our dinner and sat outside under the awning we all agreed that the flavors and textures were sublime and the experience and the sensation of every bite of food was better than ever. Proverbs tell us that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, and I'd have to say that after eating a meal created by Chef Paul Gerard, whether takeout, delivery, on the sidewalk or one day in-house again, the hearth where it is created is pure gold, creating flavors that make everyone who tastes them smile with delight.

Antique Bar & Bakery

Open For Takeout & Delivery

And Outdoor Seating

https://www.antiquebarbakery.com/