Oh, and one more:
Sondheim's re-write of Weill's "The Saga of Jenny": The Saga of Lenny, written for Leonard Bernstein's 70th birthday bash here.
Thanks much! What a great way to find out that my corporate firewall of youtube has been disabled for now! I'd never seen that, and never read the parody lyrics... Holy toledo, the "picks a/shlimazel or a shiksa" line had me in stitches (can't believe that one got by the 1988 censors).
TOD:
Because of the whole "kosher" thing, I don't really get to sample trendy restaurants, and the food trends that filter down to my level tend to be the ones that have endured. Things that I never tire of, however:
* sushi - My one happy memory from my first job with a tyrannical boss was the short-lived restaurant down the block with a sushi bar (back in 93, this was a novelty in a kosher restaurant; nowadays, you can't open a kosher pizza jernt without a sushi menu). I was there frequently enough that the chef wouldn't let me order specifics; I was only allowed to state how much I wanted to spend, and he'd make up whatever was good that day. One memorable afternoon, I walked in, he looked at me, and just said "you want tuna." He then proceeded to pile the most heavenly, buttery, glistening tuna atop a bed of rice for me... I've since been told that this is more-or-less the "authentic" practice in asian restaurants (telling the chef what *you* want is somewhat insulting, since it implies that you know what's good better than he does)
* balsamic vinegar - unfortunately, almost all of the kosher varieties are of the "wine vinegar with a bit of caramel thrown in" style, but I can't get enough of how wonderfully the stuff works in places you'd never expect it (I've had a strawberry-balsamic dessert dish that was just magnificent, and I'm not the world's biggest strawberry fan)
I don't mind restaurant servers only reciting the daily specials, but I *do* mind ordering one, and finding out at the end of the meal that it was twice as expensive as anything else on the menu. Granted, I don't go out to save money (and higher end kosher restaurants in NYC are
very expensive compared to similar non-kosher venues), but I'd like some warning about paying more for a single entree than my two companions' complete meals combined.