St. Louis Eats and Drinks

Truffles

When Truffles opened, just over a decade ago, within earshot of the venerable Busch's Grove, it looked to many people that Charles Cella and his daughter were tossing a red challenge flag at the fading jewel next door. Well, they won. The space to the east, now a grocery store, can be described as Busch's Grave and Truffles stands alone as Ladue's top restaurant. That may be slightly hyperbolic; Truffles' excellence spreads far beyond the tony suburb, and is a tribute to John Cain, its long-time general manager, and a series of first-rate chefs.

At the moment, John Griffiths, formerly the executive chef to Larry Forgione at An American Place, is settling in as the head man in the kitchen, with some menu jiggery-pokery in process. Cain has an excellent eye for talent (he probably would have made Sam Bradford a No. 1) and for trends. Truffles began as a steak house, added French touches here and there. When Hurricane Katrina sent Mark Serice in search of work, Cain hired him and the menu shifted into New Orleans mode. Now, Griffiths is turning it slightly toward Italian, but the bouillabaisse, which we raved about nine years ago in "Beyond Gooey Butter Cake," remains brilliant.

We ate very well there the other night, enjoying the changed focus and the fact that Griffiths has added a few Italian-inspired dishes that we have not seen on local menus. (Please don't expect perfection from us, we haven't seen every menu.)

The Italian version of steak tartare, carne cruda, is a sure winner. Excellent raw beef, without egg yolk, is seasoned with a little chopped, roasted chile pepper, giving flavor, but little if any discernible fire. What lifts it to the unusual is the sprinkling of roasted hazelnuts, adding a woodsy note and a delightful textural lift to the meat. Served alongside is a little arugula and slivers of red onion, a fine combination wearing such a light slick of olive oil that they could dance in a club on the East Side. Burrata also is new to us on a St. Louis menu; it's a fresh cheese, made in-house, a pouch about the size of half a baseball. The exterior is mozzarella, its soft interior a combination of mozzarella and cream. Simple but rich and sophisticated, it comes with grilled bread on which to spread it or merely as a mop to pursue any cheese that escapes the fork. An apple-fennel slaw gives some crunch and flavor contrast, but it, too, is understated.

And then there were the agnolotti, little pillows of pasta filled with pumpkin. Yes, pumpkin, a traditional filling around Mantua, Italy, although we're not sure if the ones there are sauced with a little prosciutto, as Griffith's was. Light, so light, the pumpkin savory--maybe a little sage in there?--a revelation. 

Not all the menu is Italian, and we suspect/hope it never will be. Bouillabaisse arrived with a fine aroma, the outstanding, garlicky, rusty-colored broth holding scallops, shrimp, mussels and a white-fleshed fish. Topped off with a couple of the traditional toasted slices of bread, each wearing the garlic mayonnaise known as aioli, it was succulent. Our only quibble was that the fish, unlike their shellfish cousins, was quite overcooked.

 

It's the time of year for game, and the idea of pappardelle with a boar ragu was alluring. Pappardelle, the wide noodle, is traditional with game sauces; Truffles' pappardelle is fresh rather than dried. For those who haven't tried it, fresh pasta is a whole different beast than dried, the texture quite different, a little chewier without the graininess that can mark dried pasta when cooked al dente. And the ragu wasn't the tomato sauce that the commercial name has made a whole generation expect. Rather, this was smallish chunks of the meat cooked to fall-apart, fork-tender with aromatic root vegetables plus onion and celery, a little grated orange peel and some wine. The resulting liquid, mainly the meat juices, sauced the pasta to perfection. Despite the seeming simplicity, this is deeply flavorful, clearly a reward for venturing out in the increasingly cold weather.

Bananas Foster is something we seldom succumb to, as much as we like it. The dish is a house favorite, with Cain delighting in the service. The kitchen also is making its own gelato, giving us another--and sufficient--excuse to splurge on dessert. Rather than the usual vanilla, we opted for pina colada sorbet and capuccino gelato. The pina colada was extremely good, first the pineapple hitting the mouth and then a lingering coconut, but to our surprise, it was completely overwhelmed by the banana-brown sugar-ness of the Foster. But the capuccino stood up nicely, adding its own delicious notes.

Service is always first-rate here, unobtrusive and knowledgeable. And the wine list, as we said, is deep and wide--Hallelujah!--thanks to Cain. We drank an excellent, nicely priced (about $40) Spanish grenache blend, which did particularly well with the carne cruda, but was sufficiently balanced that it handled both the boar ragu and the bouillabaisse.

Please note that the web site menu is not up to date.

 

Truffles

9202 Clayton Rd., Ladue

314-567-9100

www.trufflesinladue.com

Lunch Mon.-Fri., Dinner Mon.-Sat.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: Yes

Entrees: $18-$30

Steve Ross

Steve Ross exemplifies style and grace like few other people, and he displayed it before a full house last night at the Kranzberg Arts Center. He will repeat tonight (Saturday). The apparently ageless cabaret singer is in an "out-of-town" run with his new show, "Rhythm and Romance," which is scheduled to open at the Algonquin in New York in mid-January.

So it was opening night, with some new material and some that was reworked from his earlier cabaret shows. There were a few missed notes and a few missed lyrics, but it was, in the Ross tradition, an satisfying evening of entertainment. Most of the songs came from a couple of Ross favorites, Noel Coward and Cole Porter, a pair of writers who wove risque lyrics into their songs with the greatest of ease. Coward's "Bar on the Piccolo Marina" and "Have Some Madeira, M'Dear," are delightful examples.

Ross' exemplary diction and phrasing, singing with a raised eyebrow, as it were, are perfectly suited to Coward, who viewed the world with a jaundiced eye. "And Her Mother Came, Too," is a perfect example, and on a more serious note, "Sail Away" could almost be an autobiographical song of loneliness.

Porter was well-represented by "It's De-Lovely" and "Just One of Those Things," and Ross also scored with the Porter ballads, "Down in the Depths (on the 90th Floor)" and "I Am in Love."

As always, Ross, definitely dapper in his dark green dinner jacket, worked his own touches into music and lyrics, and he offered one number, not normally considered a cabaret song but a lovely, winsome tale of memory and loss, "Mira," in which a young woman mourns the fact she left the small town where "everybody knew my name." It's from a 1961 musical, "Carnival!" written by Bob Merrill and sung by Anna Maria Alberghetti; the show is also noteworthy because it was Jerry Orbach's first major Broadway role.

Ross closed with a piano piece that offered a medley of songs made famous by Edith Piaf, returned with an encore, an effective version of "For All We Know."

-Joe

This Week's Wine, November 27, 2010

I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving.

And now that the niceties are out of the way, we can get down to the serious business of fun and frolic during the holiday season.

I was filling out a questionnaire the other day, sent by a wine p.r. person to wine writers, and she asked, "What aspect(s) of wine do you most enjoy covering?"

The immediate response is, "Drinking it!" but that was a little too simple, even if truthful.

"Drinking it in the company of a winemaker," was next. I've known many winemakers over the years, and have had outstanding experiences. Whether we're drinking their wine or someone else's, I learn something. More important, I enjoy the conversation. Most winemakers love their work and are proud of what they do, but are not pretentious about it. After all, most begin as growers (i.e., farmers) or lab rats (i.e., chemists or biologists).
Greg Harrington came from a different direction. A New Yorker, and a graduate of the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, he came to winemaking from wine-selling. He was a Master Sommelier and director of wine programs for Emeril Lagasse in New Orleans and Las Vegas, then became wine director for the Spago restaurants.

He was neither a farmer nor a chemist, but he knew wine, what it should taste like and look like. He tasted some Washington State wines from the Walla Walla area, and he and his wife, Pam, left the Big Apple and crossed the continent in search of the little grape. They founded Gramercy Cellars (a little nod to Gramercy Park, a lovely, peaceful enclave in Manhattan) and started making wine with a touch of the Rhone.

We sat at the bar at Robust recently, tasting a little sparkling wine from another maker, and talking of this and that, primarily about wine. Greg was in town to display some of his wines--two Syrahs, a Tempranillo, a Cabernet Sauvignon--and perhaps to sell a few, too. His love of big wines, and talent for creating them, was on display in his voice and in the bottle, and his affection for the quieter, lower-key lifestyle of southeastern Washington.

"I've probably tasted more wines than I can count," he said, "from great bottles from great vineyards and vintages to stuff I could barely swallow, but when I tasted some of these, I felt at home. The wines from Walla Walla all are from old vines; we never got phylloxera up where we are; maybe that has something to do with it. But they have a richness, and a clean flavor, that I knew I wanted to try making them."

Greg brought a double-handful of wines to try, many from Wines of Substance, a creation in a partnership with Jason Huntley and Jamie Brown of Waters Winery in Walla Walla. The wines have delightful labels, designed in bold black and white to look like symbols from the table of elements, so that Sy equals Syrah and Pg is Pinot Gris. The wines range in price from $16 to $21.50 and are fine values. The '09 Riesling, for example, showed a touch of sugar, enough to make it a fine companion to Asian cuisine (see more Rieslings, below) and a pleasing aperitif.

Like his Gramercy wines, Harrington is strong on the grapes that grow along France's Rhone River, like Roussanne, Grenache, Viognier, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, even the rare Counoise. By the way, Roussanne and Viognier are white grapes, the others red, the Counoise dark enough to be almost black.

He had two 2008 versions of Syrah from the Columbia River Valley, one very good, the other just short of great, both at about $45 a bottle. The good one was 100 percent Syrah, dark and rich, with a touch of leather and tobacco and a warm, smooth finish that lasted much longer than expected. But the other, dubbed Lagniappe Syrah, just blew me away. "Lagniappe" is a tribute to Harrington's years in New Orleans, where a "lagniappe" is a bonus, like a couple of extra oysters on your platter. Harrington's "lagniappe" is the effect of 7 percent Viognier blended with the Syrah. The wine seems brighter in the nose and on the palate, the flavors of berries sharper. It was a superb drinking experience.

The '08 Tempranillo ($44) was another winner, its round, dark richness making it a glorious accompaniment to some dark chocolate. And an '07 Cabernet Sauvignon ($44) also was terrific, among the best Washington Cabs I've tasted.

And speaking of Walla Walla, I must dip into a couple of moments from long, long ago. When I was a boy, in the 1930s, a comedian named Danny Kaye sang a novelty song called "Triplets," by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, about three identical siblings who hated one another, but in one of the nonsense lyrics, Kaye sang, "Every summer we go away to Baden, Baden, Baden; every winter we come back home to Walla, Walla, Walla." I laughed, learned all the lyrics. Some 25 years later, in 1953, here came a wonderful movie, "The Band Wagon," with Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Jack Buchanan and Nanette Fabray. Lots of great song and dance, and then, Astaire, Buchanan and Fabray, sitting in high chairs and wearing identical toddler outfits, sang "Triplets."

 

* * * *

RUN AMUCK WITH RIESLINGS: Besides the Wines of Substance Riesling mentioned above, I sampled, a pair of tasty, inexpensive samples recently in a discussion and some tastings with Asian food. As noted above, the slight sweetness and crisp minerality of the Riesling grape is excellent with spicy Indian, Thai or Chinese cooking. The touch of sweetness rounds off the spicy tang of chiles or lemon grass; a swallow of the wine emphasizes, and yet controls the flavor from the ingredients.

J. Lohr Bay Mist White Riesling from Monterey County (2009, $10) has excellent balance, the sweetness arriving on the late palate, and good mineral qualities, with grapefruit flavors and hints of citrus in the aroma.

Clos du Bois California Riesling (2009, $12), in an jinteresting contrast to the Lohr, hits with the sweetness early, balanced by some citrus and melon, then slides nicely into good balance, like a child adjusting his position on a teeter-totter. Quite tasty, with a nice finish.

--Joe

127 Hours

The all-time, absolutely perfect, first-date movie opens here today. I can hear the dialogue now:

Boy: Hi, would you like to go to the movies tonight?

Girl: Sure. Where shall we go?

Boy: It's a new movie. It's called "127 Hours."

Girl: Sounds awfully long. What's it about?

Boy: It's about a guy who cuts his own arm off.

Girl: Sorry, I'm going to wash the dishes and scrub the floor and do the laundry.

The story of Aron Ralston, trapped in a Utah canyon in 2003, is fascinating. Carried along by immense ego and belief in his own ability, he went hiking alone, without telling a soul where he was going, and fell into Blue John Canyon, dislodging just enough rocks to trap him by one arm. Eventually, realizing that the most drastic of action was vital if he were going to live, he amputated his arm below the elbow, using a knife that wasn't very sharp. In an amazing display of tenacity, he then climbed out of the canyon and walked until he found some other hikers and was rescued.

His book about the events, aptly and wryly titled, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," tells his story, and provided the material for Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy to write a screenplay.

Yes, it's the same Danny Boyle who directed "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Trainspotting," among other fine movies.

Many critics have heaped praise on the film, but I consider it an exercise in voyeurism, a titillating dramatic retelling of a horrible, stomach-turning event. The cinematography, by Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak, is remarkable, even as it shows the beauty of the Utah wild lands, contrasting with the pain--physical, mental and emotional--that Ralston lives with as he ponders his choices, remembers his family and friends, fights off hysteria. James Franco is excellent in the role, showing a wonderful, rollicking, Devil-may-care attitude as he goes deeper and deeper into the desert.

Early on, he meets a couple of young women, also hikers, and he offers directions and advice with joy that he has met people who may like the outdoors and the freedom it offers as much as he does. The actresses, each with with strong pedigrees (Amber Tamblyn is the daughter of actor Russ; Kate Mara is the grand-daughter of NFL owners Tim Mara and Art Rooney Jr.) and considerable acting style, though they don't have the opportunity to show much here.

But the movie itself gets as painful as afternoons in the desert heat. We all know what is going to happen, and that it's going to be bloody. The only tension is waiting for it to occur, and sometimes quashing the desire to speak to the screen. "Get on with it! It's getting very boring," is what you want to say.

127 Hours opens today on several screens

--Joe

Eclipse

We're great proponents of late-night dining, since both of us have spent many years in jobs that weren't 9-to-5, so when we walked into Eclipse a little before ten and found the joint jumping, it was a splendid feeling. While the bar of the handsome restaurant in the Moonrise Hotel was considerably busier than the dining room, people were indeed having dinner, and dining parties continued to arrive until midnight or later. We managed to get in on the full dinner menu, but after 10 p.m., there's still a lot of good stuff on the late-night menu, served until – whoa! – 2 a.m.

The menu has just gone to its fall iteration, which gave us the chance to kick things off with a cup of hearty venison stew, thick with ground meat, sweet potatoes and the expected onions and celery. A soft cloud of paper-thin prosciutto slices was mounded on toasted olive bread, savory and crunchy and a little chewy. But the appetizer star was deep-fried calamari, which sounds totally mundane but was remarkable. The batter was light-light-light, and somehow it remained crisp despite being tossed in a peppery, garlicky butter sauce. Slices of jalapeno garnished the dish to alert the unwary, which doesn't include us. We are very wary, and we thought it absolutely superior.

More venison was in the special, a meatloaf sauced with mushrooms and served with mashed potatoes. Very moist, not an easy trick with venison, and full of flavor, including a faint hint of the gaminess that sets venison apart. The accompanying mushrooms were just right, and the potatoes were fresh and the perfect accompaniment. The same potatoes rode shotgun with boneless short ribs braised in ale, the brew amping up their rich meatiness. Another side, along with some roasted potatoes and carrots, was a small Yorkshire pudding. Essentially, Yorkshire pudding is a bread; it's made with the same batter as popovers, and produces an airy, slightly chewy crust that is excellent for wiping up gravies and sauces.

A fine fat pork chop from a Berkshire hog was splendid, sitting on a tangle of delicious roast fennel and pearl onions and joined by first-rate apple chutney. Perfectly seared scallops smiled happily under a killer sauce of crab, cream and white wine, the sauce studded with orzo pasta.

Any item with a name like Twenty Dollar Burger is just asking folks like us to see if it lives up to the that promise. Eight ounces of beef, more of that paper-thin prosciutto, a fried egg, and foie gras butter on a brioche bun. And some field greens, although they came alongside, not on top. This is a sandwich far too tall for the human mouth, and we know some would worry about dripping egg yolk on a shirt while eating in the traditional way. Clearly a knife-and-fork job, although we suspect the burger was engineered to be eaten otherwise, with the foie gras butter and egg meant to add richness, and a stained shirt front be damned. However, it just doesn't bring the feeling of indulgence that spending a double-sawbuck should, offering nice enough material and flavor but lacking the necessary wow factor. The fries alongside also flopped, the potatoes tasting sweet, as though they had been too long in cold storage.

The wine list is modest--the crowd looks as if it leans to fancy cocktails--but has a fine variety, at good prices and with a selection that included a couple from Missouri vineyards. A sparkling rose, dry and delicious, delivered the perfect aperitif, especially with the calamari, and a Rhone from Guigal was just right with dinner, especially with the venison and the pork chop.

Apple bread pudding was an outstanding dessert, moist and fluffy, with generous chunks of Granny Smith apple giving tartness to offset the sweet elements. Definitely what the British would call moreish . The blondie sundae had dark, dark chocolate ice cream that we suspect came from Serendipity atop a blondie with coconut, chocolate chunks and nuts, caramel sauce ladled over all, plus the traditional whipped cream, of course. The combination was excellent; our only quibble is that the blondie by itself was dry, but perhaps that provides a reason for an otherwise cautious diner to spoon up more ice cream or whipped cream.

Crackerjack service, with a chap who clearly picked up our group's rhythm of eating and adjusted things accordingly. The restaurant, like its hotel home, is decorated with a bow to outer space, or space travel, or "Music From the Hearts of Space," but on display, here and there but never ostentatious, are some of Joe Edwards' baby dolls, toys and other ephemera from the first half of the 20th century. 

Eclipse

The Moonrise Hotel

6177 Delmar Blvd, University City

314-726-2222

www.eclipsestlouis.com

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and late-night, every day

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $14-$28

Yummy Architecture

To kick off the holiday season, we'd like to share a little architecture we recently inspected. We haven't been traveling; this is local. And it's different. We encourage the departments of architecture at the local universities to check out these houses and consider the possibilities.

Lydia's House, a St. Louis group that provides transitional housing for abused women and their children, is sponsoring its annual gingerbread house competition at Plaza Frontenac. For the past three years, we've been honored to serve as judges, a job that's both easy and difficult.

Entrants range from high school students to professional pastry chefs. There's always a great sense of whimsy about the entries, which must be entirely edible – no plastic reindeer. Some of the work is so delicate, it's hard to imagine it's not porcelain.

They're on display on the upper level around the atrium in front of Nieman-Marcus. Visitors can view the houses, buy raffle tickets to win one, or even purchase one to take home when the contest ends Dec. 5.

We think university architects--faculty and/or students--should consider entering; the next Norman Foster or Frank Gehry could have some great ideas for constructing in carbohydrates.

Enjoy the pictures.

They go from a whirl around the world

 

to a wintry day in Paris

 

and a stop to check the time in London

 

and then a visit to a village in South Africa.

 

 

 

Elise LaBarge

There was a most auspicious debut in St. Louis last night. Soprano Elise LaBarge, showing more of a feel for the world of cabaret than singers twice her age, offered her first program, about 75 minutes of Kurt Weill music delivered in an unassuming manner, but with great promise for the future. Young and attractive, with a smile that went from perky to sexy and back again without apparent effort, LaBarge sang, and chatted, and sang some more, charming a sellout crowd in the Kranzberg Arts Center.

There were a couple of rough spots, and early on some harshness in the high notes, but she caught every word to perfection and she sang with an understanding and command of a mature performer.

LaBarge, a St. Louisan educated at Washington University, has performed around town as an actress, and as a singer with the Union Avenue Opera Company. In fact, that company's conductor and artistic director, pianist Scott Schoonover, was her accompanist, and Victoria Bannon joined in on both violin and viola. Allyson Ditchey directed.

Weill, a German composer who moved from Berlin to Paris in the 1930s, and then on to New York and Hollywood, had a superb sardonic touch, and a singer, Lotte Lenya, who had the same attribute. Weill and Lenya, by the way, married, divorced and married again. LaBarge chose music from each of his three homes. She came on stage with long, bright red gloves and sandals for "Mack the Knife," "Barbara's Song" and "Pirate Jenny," with Bertolt Brecht's lyrics from "A Threepenny Opera," along with a powerful rendition, in German, of the Marlene Dietrich favorite, "Falling in Love Again," but with a less husky voice. LaBarge then to Paris and exchanged the gloves for a beret for a good cover of the Edith Piaf standby, "La Vie en Rose," and a better one of Mistinguette's favorite, "My Man," later a trademark for Fanny Brice and then Barbra Streisand as Brice in "Funny Girl."

Arriving in this country in the mid-1930s, Weill created a number of Broadway musicals, beginning with "One Touch of Venus," whose lyricist was Ogden Nash, the creator of wonderfully humorous doggerel like "Candy is dandy/ But liquor is quicker." LaBarge really scored with "I'm a Stranger Here Myself," playing, in order, innocent, winsome and sexy.

A nod to three great American musical theater composers followed as LaBarge offered a fine rendition of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes," from the show of the same name; Leonard Bernstein's "Little Bit in Love" from "Wonderful Town," and the Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein II "Hello Young Lovers," from "The King and I." It would be terrific if LaBarge pronounced Bernstein's name correctly before she next sings one of his songs--it's Bern-STINE and not Bern-STEEN.

She closed, in delightfully witty style, with "The Saga of Jenny," singing Ira Gershwin's lyrics for the ground-breaking 1941 musical "Lady in the Dark," with Gertrude Lawrence as Jenny, who "would make up her mind."

Weill (1900-1950) was a talented composer, working with a variety of the lyricists. His music often was political, bitter and sardonic, an understandable attitude for a German Jew driven out of his own country by the Nazis.

LaBarge, with excellent stage presence, demonstrated it when she veered far away from one of her numbers, but stopped, explained briefly and scored high marks with it on the second try. She has a bright future ahead, given the rough road of show business, and will sing again tonight, but promoter Jim Dolan happily reported that it's already a sellout.

Elise LaBarge's cabaret performance opened Friday night at the Kranzberg Arts Centre and continues there on Saturday.

--Joe

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

They're getting a little old to remain as the Magical Three Mouseketeers, but Harry, Hermione and Ron are back again, continuing the transformation of the magical series from light, optimistic and beautiful fantasy to just another horror story, with almost-continual explosions to serve as punctuation. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I," opens today, offering pre-Thanksgiving indigestion with the realization that there's still another one to come.

Watching the three kids go through puberty has sparked some interest, and the fact that Daniel Radcliffe has played "Equus" on stage, and soon will be on Broadway as J. Pierrepont Finch in a revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," shows there is life beyond Hogwarts. And the many veterans who have found some good paydays with Potter are hanging around. People like Alan Rickman, John Hurt, Robbie Coltrane, Miranda Richardson, Bill Nighy, Helena Bonham Carter, Julie Walters, Richard Griffiths, Ralph Fiennes and Michael Gambon always are fun to watch. And the voices of Simon McBurney, as Kreature, and Toby Jones, as Dobby, are just right, even if they seem to have been pilfered from "The Lord of the Rings."

 I have two complaints, one with the movie, the other with the book that sparked it.

 At almost 2 1/2 hours, the movie is way too long. And J. K. Rowling's tone is too dark. The early volumes had a charming quality, with Rowling writing lines she knew we would laugh at, and us looking for them, finding them and chuckling. Everything has become heavy-handed and grim, though maybe that's the way the world has become.

 But on the plus side, this is a gorgeous movie, a treat for the eyes. Director David Yates, directing his third Potter film, has gathered a technical crew that has amazing skills. The cinematography is glorious, showing English countryside, its lights and darks, that make one want to immediately book a flight. Special effects also are imaginative and impressive, like the scene when a half-dozen Harrys suddenly appear is a delight. The story deals with friendship, loyalty, jealousy, the constant struggle between good and evil and lots of other things.

 Too many of the actors are way over the top, but that's obviously the way Yates's vision is, and in many respects, that's the way Rowling wrote it.

 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I, opens today on several screens.

--Joe

A Film Unfinished

The more that long-hidden evidence is revealed, the more horror is found. "A Film Unfinished," which opens today, is true to its title. It never was finished. But what there is shows scenes of unspeakable cruelty that took place in Warsaw, in May, 1942. It's a German film, shot in the Ghetto, whose purpose was to show then world what a nice life the Jews were living under German occupation.

     To that end, German cameraman were sent to Warsaw and ordered to stage scenes--scenes of parties, parades, concerts, theater pieces, even a lavish funeral.

     Ghetto residents, starving and fearing their ultimate end, were ordered to bring out their party clothes, ill-fitting as they were, and to participate in these events, often stepping over dead bodies in the street as they did.

     At the end of the war, three reels of film, labeled "Ghetto," was stored in a cave with thousands more reels of film. It was found and used as a research tool, and then a fourth reel was found and it began to make more sense. Men with cameras shoot a lot of film, and there's a lot of non-staged footage of people struggling to live, to eat, even to die. Dignity was stripped of these people, and watching scrawny, naked, dehumanized bodies pushed into a crude slide to end in a mass grave is unnerving.

     Rudiger Vogler, one of the cameraman, is interviewed by Alexander Beyer, and tells stories of the experience, admitting that it affected him for years afterward. Writer-director Yael Hersenski has done remarkable work in putting this raw footage together, sometimes showing all the takes that the cameramen shot. The film never was finished, though the pictures, and Vogler's stories, demonstrate this piece of propaganda in the making, given the lie by all the people in the ghetto who were dying every day.

     Not fun at all, but should be seen--and remembered.

     A Film Unfinished opens today at the Plaza Frontenac

-- Joe

Fair Game

While spies always are exactly what the title of "Fair Game" implies, they are entitled to better treatment by their employers than Valerie Plame got from the George W. Bush White House, which leaked her name to a newspaper columnist after her husband, Joe Wilson, found no evidence to support the Bush Administration's rush to war in Iraq. The movie, with excellent performances from Sean Penn and Naomi Watts as the embattled, but innocent couple, opens today.

Based on memoirs from both parties, whose marriage was strained during their ordeal, Jez and John-Henry Butterworth wrote an interesting screenplay, and director Doug Liman got powerful performances from both stars, in their third film together.

Plame obviously loved life as a CIA agent. The travel, the at-a-moment's-notice adventure, the high-pressure dealing were thrilling to her, and Watts's posture, her purposeful walk, her entire attitude shows that the job had rich sexual overtones for her, not that she was unfaithful to her husband, but that the lifestyle tingled throughout her body.

Wilson a long-time diplomat in Iraq and Africa, was minding his own business when the yellow-cake episode took place. The White House, looking for something--anything--to help take the U.S. to war, followed a rumor that Iraq was buying fissionable material in Niger, and sought proof. Wilson had been stationed there, knew government officials there. The CIA asked Plame for an endorsement, followed her recommendation and sent him to investigate. He found nothing, no evidence of fissionable material, no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, came home and reported it.

The White House ignored him, Condoleezza Rice talked of mushroom clouds, Dick Cheney railed about righteousness, and we went to war, trailing lies about weapons of mass destruction.

None were found.

Wilson was so angry that he wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times, accusing the administration of telling lies and leading the nation to war under false pretenses. The administration retaliated by revealing that Plame was a covert CIA agent, which happens to be a federal crime. Columnist Robert Novak received the information from Cheney's right-hand man, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby. Libby eventually was tried and convicted, but his prison sentence was commuted by Bush, though Libby did not receive a pardon.

Once outed, which came as a great surprise to the Wilson's friends in Washington, she still refrained from commenting at the time. Wilson let his anger out, and Penn is multi-layered and exciting in the role. Their problems put great strain on the marriage, though her father (a small but effective role by playwright-actor Sam Shepard) stood up for Wilson.

 It's a fascinating movie, and political thinking will be a factor in enjoyment, but this critic was filled with shock and awe in watching how the rewards for patriotism are handed out.

Fair Game opens today at Plaza Frontenac.

--Joe

Christmas Windows and Food

Just a note to say that our pals at Zagat have blogged about the foodie windows this season at Barney's NY, the downtown Manhattan department store. Pretty amusing, and you can read about it and look at photos here.

The Crossing

Is St. Louis' best bang for the restaurant buck (to use Tim Zagat's phrase) the tasting menus at The Crossing? Quite possibly. Jim Fiala's flagship restaurant offers a delicious, flavorful four-course meal for $32 or $45 per person, in a location where menu entrees range from $26 to $38. Yes, St. Louis, the servings are smaller, but if you can taste more and not stagger out feeling like the Goodyear blimp, what's the downside?

Over the years, The Crossing has grown more relaxed. That's to be expected, of course; we can't think of a single local restaurant that's moved in the other direction. While it's not unusual to see movers and shakers, servers don't wear ties, and later at night the clientele often tips toward the young. Chef Ian Vest can be seen intermittently chatting with guests. Some folks complain that chefs belong in the kitchen, but we politely disagree with isolating them; most are well-traveled, interesting and knowledgeable, and if they've taught the staff properly, food won't suffer. This doesn't mean they should spend all their time walking and talking, but there's nothing wrong with occasional visits. Both sides may learn something.

Dinner always begins with the house appetizer, a blue cheese souffle, actually closer to a custard in texture. The cheese notes are well-woven with onion, and it's well-nigh impossible to resist piling it on the housemade toasts that accompany it. A split of prosecco worked well with it, all the better with which to study the menu.

And so we did choose the two tasting menus. The soup du jour was a brodo, or broth, rich, redolent of mushrooms, with tiny dice of housemade sausage and a few white beans, which kept it light and, at the same time, created one of those big-flavor dishes we enjoy.

The Caesar salad explained why we shudder at the bottled Caesar dressings that creep onto so many plates. This is about as close to a perfect rendition of the classic as we've seen lately. Yes, romaine, and homemade croutons, flakes of real Parmigiano, a lovely salty, peppery, slightly tart dressing with the right flavors, all topped with white anchovy fillets. (“How are you with anchovies?” inquired the server; the anchovies are mentioned on the menu. Nice of him to ask, but we're more than fine with them.)

Three seared sea scallops sat on a bed of leeks, lettuce and shiitake mushrooms, the vegetables quickly sauteed to leave a little crunch in the romaine. Just a touch of truffle on it, and a little lemon, and it was ready to go. One scallop was overcooked, but the other two were perfect. A crab cake with a crunchy panko exterior tasted more like crab and less like seasoning, which is how it should be. Nearby was a small puddle of a basil aioli, tasting like a combo of garlic mayonnaise and pesto, and a handful of tender greens.

One of the house's signature dishes is available sometimes on the tasting menu. Beef cheeks would be the perfect dish for someone who likes short ribs but finds them too greasy. It's the same sort of rich, tender meat and subjected to the same sort of long, slow braise in red wine and aromatic vegetables. Served over crushed potatoes, which remind us of the lumpy school of mashers, it's succulent comfort food.

For those who have heard about heirloom breeds of hogs, here's a chance to taste their pork. When the menu says, “wooly pig rib-eye”, it's a little disconcerting. Lamb? Pork? Beef? “Wooly pig” is a nickname for the mangalitsa breed of hog, and this is a rib chop from a Missouri-grown mangalitsa. One of the reasons heirloom pork is so popular is that the breeds escaped the pressure to produce meat as lean as possible, and the result is meat that's more consistently tender and flavorful. The server pointed out that since this is a rib-eye cut, there would be more fat, and there was. (Tasted good, too.) The meat was sauteed and served with a sweet-sour pan gravy (balsamic, maybe?), some chanterelle mushrooms, a handful of pea sprouts and a few roasted new potatoes. Absolutely delicious, and the best dish of the evening.

 

We're never sure when a menu talks about a “tort” if it's a typo for “tart” or a misspelling of “torte” (or perhaps even a civil wrong, as in the legal system). The Crossing's chocolate tort is closer to a torte, being an individual warm cake, served with vanilla ice cream. Great texture, and perfectly baked, with none of the burnt-edge taste that plagues many similar desserts including the thankfully-disappearing molten chocolate cakes. We were intrigued by the date cake, which turned out to be the same size, a warm, chewy cake that reminded us a little of banana bread. The date flavor was pretty mild, but the toffee sauce served with it was a good complement.

The wine list is long and excellent, with a nice twist. When a particular wine is down to its last few bottles, it goes on clearance sale, which offers some fine bargains. We spotted a French Burgundy whose label looked good and was at an excellent price. It was delicious, and when we were told it was the last bottle, we grinned like a pair of Cheshire cats.

The Crossing was the first of Jim Fiala's restaurants, followed by LiLuMa, Acero and The Terrace View. Fiala, who trained under, among others, Daniel Boulud in New York, believes in emphasizing service as well as food, and we were pleased with the attention we got, which included a highly professional sensitivity to our unspoken signals about the rhythm of the meal that we wanted.

 

The Crossing

7823 Forsyth Blvd., Clayton

314-721-7375

www.fialafood.com

Credit cards: All major

Wheelchair access: Fair

Smoking: No

Entrees: $26-$38

My Tehran For Sale

Filmmakers don't care about "fair and balanced" any more than Fox news does,so "My Tehran for Sale" is an interesting look at popular culture and youthful rebellion in Iran, as seen through the eyes of writer-director Granaz Moussavi. Her sometimes feisty, sometimes tragic film plays tonight (Nov. 16) at 7 at the Tivoli Theatre as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival.

Marzieh (Marzieh Vafamehr) is an actress, rehearsing with an underground theater group. She seems to be from a comfortably middle-class family and is in a relationship with Saman (Amir Chegini), an Iranian who moved to Australia for enough time to become a citizen, and has returned to Tehran to take Marzieh there with him. She is estranged from her family, for reasons never stated but probably as a result of her theater work, or perhaps her living with Saman.

She's also soft-hearted, taking care of her neighbor's fractious, impatient, childlike child, even when she has to rehearse, or visit doctors. As she tries to convince an Australian government official that she really needs a visa, Moussavi uses flashbacks around the Tehran arts community, including underground performances, parties and a lot of pot-smoking. She also works a great deal with a hand-held camera, with its jerky movements, to illustrate the instability of society. There are police raids, and people disappear, and Marzieh's medical problems begin to play a larger role in her life.

As a first effort for Moussavi, it's an excellent film, and Marzieh Vafamehr is striking as a conflicted woman, struggling against a restrictive society and some of the problems that she has created for herself.

My Tehran for Sale plays Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Tivoli Theatre as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival

--Joe

Entitled

Looking for the woman who took your order? How do you call for her? Joe talking about that in St. Louis Magazine's blog Relish last week.

The Good Doctor

The charm of the short story is in its brevity. There is no time for unnecessary characters, overdrawn exposition. Things happen. An action. a reaction. Bada-bing. Michael Frayn described it best in "Noises Off." "Get the sardines on. Get the sardines off. That's life, that's theater, that's art," he wrote

A lot of Neil Simon plays, whether comedies or not, follow that pattern, like "The Good Doctor," a bright and mostly effective play based on eight short stories by Anton Chekhov, the tone ranging from comic to whimsical. Mostly, it crackles pleasantly, like a bowl of Rice Krispies. Produced by the Avalon Theatre Company in its Crestwood space, it opened over the weekend and will run through next Sunday.

A solid five-person cast, working nicely together and showing excellent timing under Jim Anthony's well-paced direction, moves things along at a fine pace. The cast includes Larry Mabrey, Avalon's producing artistic director; Dean Christopher, in a welcome return to the stage after eight years as a cabaret performer; the brisk and delightful Judi Mann; and two younger players, Austin Pierce and Theresa Hermann.

Pierce has one of the evening's high moments, "The Drowned Man," in which he tries to convince Mabrey to pay him as he leaps off a bridge. He also shines as a shy teenager in "The Arrangement," where Mabrey, as his father, bargains with Hermann over the price of a sexual initiation as a birthday present.

Christopher and Mann give a burlesque, slapstick touch to "The Defenseless Creature," (that's Mann), and Christopher and Mabrey do the same thing with a meeting in a dentist's office. Mann is excellent with Hermann where she is an employer who steals the cowed young woman blind. Then five actors play on a minimal set by Igor Karash, and Soon V. Martin's costumes help establish proper moods.

"The Good Doctor" is not Simon at his best; some of the stories are lack some of the special Simon snap, others feel old and tired. But he's certainly not at his worst, and Simon at half speed is better than most writers at the top of their game. Besides, there may be an extenuating factor for the author, like other things on his mind. After all, Simon met St. Louis native Marsha Mason, who was in the original cast, and they were were married during the run of the play.

The Good Doctor, by Neil Simon, produced by the Avalon Theater Company in its Crestwood theater, through Nov. 21.

--Joe

Fat City

Once upon a time, in 1972, when I was a young(er) film critic at the Post-Dispatch, one of the first movies I wrote about was John Huston's "Fat City." A boxing story set in seedy Stockton, Calif., it resonated with me for its stark honesty, and I remember it often as a comparison with sloppy, careless, overstated movies of today.

So it's to the credit of the St. Louis International Film Festival that we can see it tomorrow, even if it is shunted to the campus of Lindenwood University in St. Charles, where it will be screened at 1 and 4:30 p.m. Stacy Keach, who stars as Billy Tully, and who is receiving an award from the festival, will be on hand, and will be interviewed by Dennis Brown of the Riverfront Times at the latter show. The event is free, but reservations (636-949-4411) are necessary.

The movie is based on Leonard Gardner's gritty novel, and Gardner wrote the screenplay. For Huston, it marked the midpoint of a movie career of glorious achievement as an actor, writer and director. His first directorial credit--he owned 47--was for "The Maltese Falcon" in 1941, his last for "The Dead" in 1987. In between were such gems as "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," (1948), "Key Largo" (1948), "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950), "The African Queen" (1951), "The Misfits" (1961), "The Night of the Iguana" (1964), "Reflections in a Golden Eye" (1967), "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975) and "Prizzi's Honor" (1985). And those are just some personal highlights.

One of the most amazing things about the film is the performances that Huston drew from a group of former professional boxers, not usually the most well-spoken of athletes. Art Aragon, once nicknamed "The Golden Boy," Sixto Rodriguez, Ruben Navarro and Curtis Cokes are among them, and Cokes offers a terrific performance in one scene. He and Ona (Tyrrell as a matchless slattern) have resumed their relationship after she ended an episode with Tully. Tully goes to her residence, hoping to move back in. Cokes quietly and carefully explains that Tully will have to go somewhere else, hands him a box of his clothes and wishes him well. It's an impeccable little scene.

Speaking of Tyrrell, who was nominated for a Supporting Actress Oscar, she plays a round-heeled drunk in amazing style, throwing caution to the winds and living completely in the part. Watching her is simply scary.

There's also splendid work from Jeff Bridges, just after his breakthrough performance pursuing the uncatchable Cybill Shepherd in "The Last Picture Show." His portrait of Ernie, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is excellent as another would-be boxer who settles for catching Candy Clark in the front seat of his rattle-trap car and later marrying her.

The splendid cinematographer Conrad Hall ("Cool Hand Luke," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid") gives a perfect look to Stockton, from its down-at-the-heels downtown to the shabby quarters of the local gym. He also shows the grimness of stoop labor in the fields as immigrant Mexicans and boxers without prospects gather before dawn and, by the dim glow of pickup headlights, respond to foremen's offers of a day's work in the onion fields or the walnut groves.

Tully, who does all these things, lives from drink to drink, and Keach brilliantly delivers as a man with little past and no future. A sad movie, but a brilliant depiction of the soft, vacant underbelly of society.

Fat City plays at Lindenwood University, St. Charles, a 1 and 4:30 p.m. tomorrow (Nov. 14), as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival.

--Joe

My Dog Tulip

A man and his dog. The subject of hundreds of stories of loyalty and friendship and love, from Albert Payson Terhune's "Lad, a Dog," and John Steinbeck's "Travels With Charley," to the Welsh legend of Gelert, Prince Llewelyn's hound, killed in a tragic error and memorialized in the little Welsh town of Beddgelert.

"My Dog Tulip," an animated feature by the husband-and-wife team of Paul and Sandra Fierlinger, is a painfully delightful story of a reclusive English author, J. R. Ackerley, and the dog with whom he spent 15 years, an Alsatian bitch named Queenie who later received the movie name of Tulip for some obscure reason. It's part of the St. Louis International Film Festival and will be screened at the Hi-Pointe Theatre today at 1 p.m., tomorrow at 5.

The animation is whimsical and delightful, though the Fierlingers' women resemble those drawn by James Thurber. The story is less whimsical, since Ackerley takes constant notice of Tulip's excretory habits and the cleanup thereof, and also is concerned about her sex life. Given a man who is something of a fuddy-duddy, his discussion of her "marriage" is a little on the ludicrous side.

But the Fierlingers are extremely talented, and realistic, so anyone who has owned a dog and accompanied it on its growing-up process will understand and be sympathetic.

My Dog Tulip plays at the Hi-Pointe Theatre today (Nov. 13) at 1 p.m., tomorrow (Nov. 14) at 5 p.m.

--Joe

Rock 'n' Roll

By the time Tom Stoppard was nine years old, he had lived in four countries and survived a war. Born Tomas Straussler in Zlin, Czechoslovakia, in 1937, he and his family moved to Singapore in 1939 to escape the Nazis. When a Japanese invasion was imminent, in 1941, he and his mother fled to Darjeeling, India. His father remained in Singapore and died in the invasion. His mother married Kenneth Stoppard, an English soldier, in 1946 and the family moved to England.

A mix of comedy, drama, political argument and convoluted word plays, Stoppard's "Rock 'n' Roll" had its St. Louis premiere last night as a St. Louis Actors Studio production at the Missouri History Museum, where it will run through Nov. 21.

"Rock 'n' Roll," a rare look by Stoppard at his birth country, with a background of the Prague spring of 1968 and the formation of a Czech band, the Plastic People of the Universe, spans the 1968-90 period and is set in Cambrdge and Prague, with panels alongside the stage identifying the place and the year while music from the year is playing. It's part of Patrick Huber's set and light design, teamed with Robin Weatherall's fine sound design. Huber's set must place us in both Prague and Cambridge, and while some of the scene changes are a little long, it's probably the best that can be done on the limited stage at the History Museum.

Stoppard's plays are not easy to follow, and director Milton Zoth's pacing took some time to get rolling, leaving some confusion, especially in the first act, as we straighten out the various characters. Besides politics, communism and academia, this also is a love story, and a tale of patience and persistence in the face of adversity, so it's right that Carrie Hegdahl's powerful portrayal displays her as Eleanor, and later as her daughter, Esme.

Eleanor, battered by a series of surgeries, is betrayed by her body. Esme, having been taught that life is brief, then leaps at a romantic way out.

Jerry Vogel is outstanding as Max, Eleanor's husband and Esme's father. He's a Cambridge professor, an outspoken communist who almost voted for Margaret Thatcher, and he's the actor that gets Stoppard's best lines. "In an alternative society," he proclaims, "success is failure," and in a reminiscent mood, he notes, "I was embarrassed by the 60's. It was like opening the wrong door in a highly specialized brothel."

Interestingly, the play also serves as a tribute to its music and to Syd Barrett, who wrote and sang with Pink Floyd. A charming opening scene has Ben Ritchie playing pipes to Rachel Fenton as a young Esme, leading her into the land of musical fantasy. There's also good work from Michael B. Perkins as a reporter and Emily Baker as another student.

Charlie Barron also is excellent as Jan, a Czech scholarship student at Cambridge, and a student and devil's advocate to Max. Jan is fired up by rock and roll music, and by the quiet revolution of the Prague spring of 1968. But he is betrayed by his friend, Ferdinand (Chris Jones), and jailed by a repressive regime. Like all of Stoppard's plays, "Rock 'n' Roll" involves long conversations, but all of Stoppard's plays are as interesting as they are intricate. He's a master of the English language, and a delight to hear.

Rock 'n' Roll, a production of the St. Louis Actors Theatre, is at the Missouri History Museum through Nov. 21

--Joe

Valerie Lemon

Valerie Lemon has a lovely voice with an embracing tone, and she looks good in an outfit that took its inspiration from a tuxedo, with a black cravat over a flowing white collar and outsized white cuffs. She opened a four-night cabaret run at the Kranzberg Arts Center last night, and the 75-minute set allowed all of us to clear Grand Center before the curtain dropped at the Fox.

It was a pleasant evening, more enjoyable than watching the Blues get hammered or anything else on television, but as a writer and a man who has made a living with words for a long time, I was bothered. The evening was billed as Lemon "singing the music of Marvin Hamlisch." I always have thought that one played music and sang lyrics.

There's an old show-biz story, possibly apocryphal, in which Mrs. Oscar Hammerstein II, wife of the famed lyricist, heard her husband's composing partner on "Show Boat," Jerome Kern, complimented for writing "Ol' Man River." "I'm sorry," snapped Mrs.Hammerstein, "but Jerome Kern wrote 'la, la, la-la.' My husband wrote 'Ol' Man River.'"

I feel much the same way. Hamlisch wrote "la, la, la, la-la," but Edward Kleban wrote, "What I did for love."

Coincidentally, one of Hammerstein's greatest sets of lyrics, "South Pacific," is playing practically next door.

Lemon told glowing stories about Hamlisch after every number, and the homage was charming, but I've always considered him a good writer of popular music for movies and theater, not a great composer. When it comes to the Great American Songbook, my money would be on people like Frank Loesser, Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington and Cole Porter, to name a few.

Still, Lemon scored with "What I Did for Love," "At the Ballet" and "Nothing," all from "A Chorus Line," with lyrics by Kleban. "A Beat Behind," from "The Goodbye Girl," (lyrics by David Zippel) and "Smile," from "Smile" (lyrics by Howard Ashman) were first-rate, with accompanist and music director John DiMartino joining in from time to time. DiMartino, making faces from a large repertoire as he played, is in line to be a wonderful grandfather.

Dipping into the early days of Hamlisch's career, Lemon showed considerable skill in "Sunshine and Lollipops," a 1965 creation with lyricist Howard Liebling, and "Life Is What You Make It," (lyrics by Johnny Mercer), a 1971 song from the little-known film, "Kotch," directed by Jack Lemmon and starring Walter Matthau, and providing Hamlisch with his first Academy Award nomination.

Valerie Lemon Sings Music by Marvin Hamlisch, at the Kranzberg Arts Center through Nov. 13

--Joe

South Pacific

It was truly an enchanted evening at the Fox Theatre last night as "South Pacific," in all its tuneful glory, opened a two-week run with the splendor and style that have made big Broadway musicals such an exciting part of the American theatrical canon.

The touring company of the 2008 Broadway revival (the first Broadway revival since the show opened in 1949) filled the stage with 34 performers and, perhaps more important, had a pit orchestra of 26 under the baton of Lawrence Goldberg, making it sound like the good old days of musical theater. The technical work earned four well-deserved Tonys two years ago, for sets (Michael Yeargan), costumes (Catherine Zuber), lighting (Donald Holder) and sound (Scott Lehrer). It's easy to see why.

Vocally, the evening was magic, and the Fox sound system, which sometimes seems to be marching to a different drummer, has never been better. On stage, David Pittsinger was the best Emile de Becque I've heard since Ezio Pinza, who I saw way back when, originated the role. Pittsinger, his rich voice caressing the Oscar Hammerstein II lyrics in remarkable manner and rolling across octaves with ease and grace, was a joy to hear. Carmen Cusack, as Nellie Forbush, was an excellent contrast. She was, as Carol Channing once sang, a fine example of "just a little girl from Little Rock," and her big numbers, capped by "Honey Bun," were outstanding. I was slightly bothered by the fact that she sang some numbers as "a hick from the stick," others in a more polished style and neutral accent, but that's a minor complaint.

Jodi Kimura was a fine Bloody Mary, and Timothy Gulan was strong as Luther Billis, the busy Seabee who loves "projects," and was constantly on the hustle in a charming and effective style. Running his shrunken head business and his grass skirt business, in addition to his laundry and beach club, certainly kept him on the go. Of course, in the Pacific, as in any war before or since, there was much boredom, alternating with periods of sheer terror. And there was good cause for Billis and the other enlisted men to roar from "Bloody Mary" into "There is Nothing Like a Dame."

Director Bartlett Sher, also a Tony winner, brought great focus on the socially conscious aspects of the play. Lyricist Hammerstein and composer Richard Rodgers looked at American society in each of their musicals, and took a stand for social justice and equality in every one.

 

Perhaps "South Pacific" is a little stronger than most, but it came out right after World War II, when President Harry S Truman was abolishing racial segregation in the military (a lot easier, obviously, than abolishing homosexual segregation) and it explores two interracial relationships. When Anderson Davis, a concerned, introspective Lt. Joe Cable, sings "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught," there should be a shudder of recognition. He also has the wondrous love song, "Younger Than Springtime," to Liat, the sweet and lovely daughter of Bloody Mary, who swears like the sailors she tries to swindle. "Stingy bastard!" taught her by Billis, is her favorite expletive.

Pittsinger's "Some Enchanted Evening," reprised several times, is memorable, as was "This Nearly Was Mine," which follows "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" like a right cross after a left hook..

Cusack has more songs than Pittsinger, and delivers with "A Cockeyed Optimist," and "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair," which she recants almost immediately with "A Wonderful Guy." Christopher Gatelli's musical staging is delightful, but the women's dance numbers have a simple feel, as if he were conscious of the fact that the he was dealing with Navy nurses and not the Rockettes. Works like a charm, as does everything else about the production. And Rodgers and Hammerstein may presage a great theater week--after all, O'Neill also is in town, Tom Stoppard arrives tomorrow and Neil Simon on Friday. What could be bad!

South Pacific, a Lincoln Center Theater production, will be at the Fox Theatre through Nov. 21

--Joe

This Week's Wine November 9, 2010

With the holiday season coming over the horizon, it's time to prepare for visitors, for groups (some would say hordes) of friends, relatives and neighbors, dropping by to wish you well. They may be carrying empty wassail cups in hopes of receiving a refill, in the style of a friend from Dallas who used to carry an empty martini glass while trick-or-treating.

Big box wines, those three-liter containers that are priced in the low $20s, seem to be gaining in popularity or exposure, and can be seen in many wine shops. Like most bulk wines, they're better than they used to be. Many are quite acceptable in terms of quality, and since three liters equals four 750-ml bottles, they're quite a bargain.

Underdog Wine Merchants and Octavin Home Wine Bar, based in Livermore, Calif., make and distribute a number of octagonal wine boxes (hence "octavin"), with both red and white wines from California, New Zealand, Spain and France. A soft-sided plastic container, inside the box, holds the wine, and there's a nifty spigot to decant it. According to Underdog, the wine will keep 4-6 weeks after opening. In addition, the Underdog folks report that using the box instead of four 750-ml glass bottles will reduce packaging waste by 92 percent and decrease carbon emissions by 55 percent.

A couple of Underdogs who had slipped their leashes wound up at my back door recently and, generous soul that I am, I opened the door for a 2008 Boho Vineyards Old Vines Zinfandel ($24) and a non-vintage Spanish red by Bodegas Osborne called Seven ($22) for the seven red varieties that comprise the blend. It begins with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot (25 percent each) and continues with Syrah (18), Petit Verdot (8),Tempranillo (8), Grenache (8) and Graciano (8). The latter is a Spanish grape used in Rioja. The wine is very pleasant, similar to a Syrah or to a wine from the Languedoc region of France. It's dark red, with berry and plum flavors and excellent body. I liked it a lot.

I'm a major fan of Zinfandel, but the Boho was a little light and lacked some of the complexity that is present in better Zins.

* * *

AND CHILE, TOO -- Don Sebastiani and Sons winemakers, negociants, importers and members of a legendary California wine family, also have a box-wine outlet. Pepperwood Grove's Big Green Box offers Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay and other wines, at about $20, which breaks down to five bucks for the standard 750-milliliter bottle. I sampled the non-vintage Cab and was delighted. The wine is a touch light (no one would confuse it with a French Bordeaux), but it has lots of fruit, good balance and is delightfully drinkable with, say, meat-sauced pasta, right now.

* * *

STYLE AND SUBSTANCE -- Napa Cellars is offering a couple of '09 Chardonnays, one from various Napa areas, including Atlas Peak and Oakville, another, which could be called a reserve, strictly from the small Mount Veeder appellation. The latter ($35), smooth and oaky, has the buttery overtones that distinguishes the better California varieties; it spends nine months in French oak, with two-thirds of that time on the lees. A quarter of the former ($24) is fermented in stainless steel, the rest in French oak, and its six months in steel or wood includes malolactic fermentation. The resulting wine is brighter and crisper, with citrus overtones and a bit of the French Burgundy aura. Very tasty.

* * *

AND SOME OTHER NEW OFFERINGS -- Dry Creek Vineyard's 2009 Sauvignon Blanc ($16) is a delight, with smooth, delicious fruit, pleasing citrus overtones and nice acidity. . . An all-stainless steel version from Bogle ($9) is a splendid value from the same vintage, but lacks some of the finesse shown by its cousin. . . Riesling fans will be pleased by a 2007 from Firestone Vineyards  on the Central Coast ($11). It would work very well with Asian dishes. . .

Trefethen, a long-time Napa producer of elegant wines, now has a second label, Double T, with a 2008 Napa Chardonnay ($17) that is a winner in its price range, with aromas of peaches and flavors that are burnished with a hint of cinnamon, a fine accompaniment to roast pork. . . Another Chardonnay, from Dry Creek Vineyards and the Russian River Valley ($20), is rich and buttery and shouts its California heritage.

--Joe

City Diner at the Fox

The big thing to remember about the City Diner at the Fox is that it's a diner. Despite the delightfully retro décor, lava lamps and all, this is not a tongue-in-chic “interpretation of” a diner. Located next door to the Fox Theatre, it's open late and serves breakfast at all hours, more diner qualities that make it endearing. Yes, there's a liquor license, and a bar, but it doesn't seem to be a place--at least not yet--where the current manifestation of lounge lizards hang out. Plenty of big windows for booths with views of Strauss Park and the Grand Center scene, and lots of room for eaters, with tables also stretching back along the Washington Avenue side.

From the breakfast menu, we sampled the chorizo scramble and some French toast. The scramble had plenty of chorizo sausage, as well as some onions which were very tasty, slightly spicy and redolent of the cumin used in the sausage. With sides of refried beans and a few foil-wrapped flour tortillas, it's a good starter for those who prefer, or who would like to try, a lively morning opener. French toast was deep-fried to a crispness that was just right. And the batter, with a light hit of cinnamon, was just barely sweet, but enough so that the syrup was mostly superfluous. Unfortunately, it was extremely greasy, the single disappointment for the dish. Bacon on the side is of good quality, and not paper-thin, a nice touch.

 

Manhattan clam chowder, a soup du jour, is seldom found in St. Louis. It's one of Joe's favorites, and the tomato-ey, thick chowder had a good amount of clams, some potatoes and onions and, surprisingly, a little corn. Good stuff. Chili, of course, is a standard on diner menus. Unlike that which originates in a vat-sized tin can, this was clearly homemade, with kidney beans, chunks of tomato and onion, not very hot-spicy, and slightly sweet behind a little acidity. It could have been warmer in terms of both temperature and spice.

Onion rings, too, don't seem pre-made, a light beer batter, with an overtone of yeast, and the onions not sliced too thickly, a worthwhile splurge for the dieting. And the chicken wings were outstanding, arriving very meaty, sharply crisp and just hot enough for us, which means they were pretty spicy.

We've been partial to the meatloaf omelet at the South Grand location, and they do make a good meatloaf in Midtown, too. However, in an even trade, we went for liver and onions. The liver, thinly sliced but still tender, was gristle-free, topped with plenty of onions and a couple of strips of bacon, The green beans were fresh, not overcooked, and dressed with a little of the bacon grease: Excellent. The only drawback was the unremarkable brown gravy, quite skippable.

 

City Diner's Cuban sandwich replaces ham with chicken, a variation that either mellows the sandwich or removes some of its piquancy, depending on the diner's point of view. We go with the latter, but aside from that, this is a good sandwich, nice and crunchy, slightly gooey from the melting gouda cheese. Kicking it up a notch is the side sauce, presumably for dipping the sandwich as if it were filled with roast beef sandwich. It's a first-rate mojo sauce, a very orange-y one, in flavor as well as color, as garlic-laced as it should have been, a delight.

City Diner is making its own desserts, and red velvet cake was a winner, moist and with an actual note of chocolate, something missed by too many bakers. A thick layer of cream cheese frosting was gilding for the lily. Dangerously good.

Visiting when things are quiet has been an assurance of good service, though we've heard tales of a certain amount of chaos when they're slammed. A late-night, post-theater visit was a delight, though, with folks literally from 8 to 80 reviving the old tradition of a snack and a sip and some conversation at that hour. Later, groups of theater people arrived. coming down from a post-performance high. We'd certainly be excited if this place turned into the equivalent of the Stage Delicatessen, or P. J. Clarke's, or the late and long-remembered Schrafft's or Toffenetti's in New York, alive and jumping at 11:30 p.m. or later. We're sure it will do well before shows and concerts, especially since the Grand Center folks realized the correct way to attract people and removed the increased cost and time on parking meters in the neighborhood.

 

City Diner at the Fox

541 N. Grand Blvd.

314-533-7500

www.citydiner.us

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner daily, all night Friday and Saturday.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $9-$15

Welcome Back, Marcel

His smile is as wide, his English as fractured. His hair is grayer, his cooking skills as comforting and refined. Marcel Keraval is in the kitchen at Chez Leon, which means the joy of classic French cuisine has returned to St. Louis and a great weight has been lifted from the shoulders of owner Leon Bierbaum.

Keraval and his late brother-in-law, Jean-Claude Guillossou, brought classic French styles to St. Louis with L'Auberge Bretonne in 1976, and Keraval moved downtown to Cafe de France in the early 1980's. His wife, Monique, ran the front of the house.

Keraval is expert with the classic sauces--lots of butter and garlic--for everything from scallops to sweetbreads, but as we noted in a book a few years ago, he seems happiest when he is baking. Dessert souffles, which crowned many a meal at Cafe de France, are not yet on the menu at Chez Leon, but we'll wager they will be there soon. In the meantime, tartes and gateaux will certainly substitute handily. We had a first-rate meal over the weekend at Chez Leon, but we wonder when the espresso machine will be operating. It's been on the disabled list longer than Brad Penny.

Long Day's Journey Into Night

The dysfunctional families described in plays by Edward Albee, Harold Pinter and Tennessee Williams are extremely dysfunctional, but they can't hold a candle to the Tyrones, created--and lived--by Eugene O'Neill in "Long Day's Journey Into Night." The searing drama opened last night in a solid production by Muddy Waters Theatre, and will run through Nov. 21 at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

Cameron Ulrich's clean, careful direction brings fine work from the entire cast, led by Kari Ely as Mary Tyrone, who mourns her life in a morphine-induced haze. Robert Ashton is her husband, James, a world-class tyrannical cheapskate who uses whiskey to fuel his dreams of being a Shakespearean actor, dreams which died in a series of successful one-night stands in a vehicle that made him a lot of money but little satisfaction. Joshua Thomas is their elder son, Robert, a classic sot who may have talent, but never is sober enough to find out. Aaron Orion Baker is the younger son, Edmund, based on the playwright himself; he coughs a lot, and in 1912, when the play is set, that's the sign for approaching tuberculosis, or consumption, as it was called in those days.

Dashiell Hammett, the great mystery story writer, had characters with those symptoms in almost all of his novels, and referred to people like that as "lungers."

As the title indicates, we spend a long day and go deeply into the night with the Tyrones, with three meals more-or-less eaten and a great deal of whiskey consumed.

Ashton, with a light, rollicking brogue reminiscent of Frank McCourt, worries excessively about money, predicting the poorhouse as a result of all sorts of endeavors, the one exception being his participation in real estate deals that were precursors to the derivative market that wreaked such havoc on American dreams in the last few years. When Edmund's tuberculosis is confirmed, and young James challenges his father about an inexpensive sanatorium's worth, Dad crumples, regroups and announces, "We want the best, no matter what it costs," then adds, "but we want to get our money's worth."

He speaks lovingly of Shakespeare, but he scorns the more radical writers and poets that Edmund loves, artists like Rabelais and Baudelaire. With an amazing amount of hypocrisy and lack of honesty, Ashton sounds like one of last week's political candidates, telling lies on top of lies while insisting he has done nothing wrong. His vision also is so clouded by religion that he insists Shakespeare and the Duke of Wellington were Irish Catholics.

Baker, often with a sullen expression, is a dreamer. Neither he nor his brother is afraid to challenge Dad, but they also suffer from an inability and an unwillingness to face the truth. Baker keeps growing as an actor, and it's a pleasure to watch him work. Thomas is excellent as James the Younger, with slicked-back hair. He complains a lot but seems happy to live off Dear Ol' Dad, patronizing the local taverns and brothel, with a special interest in fat prostitutes.

Jennifer Theby adds brightness as the sassy Irish maid, who accompanies Mary Tyrone to the local drugstore (the Tyrones are wealthy enough to have a car and a driver) so Mary can pick up her "medicine," which makes her arthritic hands "feel so much better."

And saving the best for last, Ely is brilliant as Mary Tyrone, a spoiled and rich child who attended Catholic schools and didn't know whether she wanted to be a nun or a concert pianist, until she met the handsome actor. Ely handles all the many facets of Mary with understated skill. She worries about her children, is filled with remorse about a son who died and about Edmund. She lives largely in a drug-induced haze, relating stories about her youth that sound over-inflated at first hearing and are later shot down by her husband, though his record with the truth is no bargain, either.

Ulrich impressed me most with his direction of actors as people who become drunk or drug-addled. There are no pratfalls, little slurred or stumbling language. The Tyrones are well-practiced drunks who don't fall down and don't play for comedy. They are a beat or so off, they flare into anger at real or imagined criticism, calm down almost as rapidly, are quick to apologize. All three men live to protect Mary, to believe her promises, to hide the truth from her, and they do it admirably. The battles on this August day are neither the first nor the last for the Tyrones.

The action takes place in New London, Conn., where the O'Neills lived, and Mark Wilson's simple set is lived-in and not recently re-decorated, and his version of fog is intriguing. John Ryan's lights are effective and Theresa Loeb's costumes have the proper look. Guitarist Ryan Spearman added some lovely incidental music.

Long Day's Journey Into Night, by Muddy Waters Theatre, at the Kranzberg Arts Center through Nov. 21

--Joe

Inside Job

Horror movies are always popular--torrents of blood, talons tearing flesh, nubile young women menaced by creatures leaping from graves. Given that, here's what I consider the most frightening horror film of 2010, "Inside Job," opening today, and audiences will be slim to non-existent. People will stay away on droves.

Why?

Well, "Inside Job" is a true story, with horror even greater because it is true and because it is affecting most of us right now. A true story about how and why a cabal of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people, including bankers, insurance executives, Wall Street tycoons, politicians and others in the top 1 percent of earners created the current recession and financial scandal with their greed and criminality. Not only did they force millions of people into bankruptcy and out of their homes, but they also increased their own worth immeasurably at the same time.

And too many people don't really believe it can happen here, or to them, and who have been inculcated to--somehow--vote against their own best interests.

Producer-director Charles Ferguson has done remarkable work, with Matt Damon as the narrator (Ferguson's own voice comes to the fore a few times), and a script from Chad Beck and Adam Bolt. And it is not a partisan screed. This financial revolution and war by the rich against everyone else dates from the days of Ronald Reagan, when "morning for America" became "all day and night for financial manipulators." Democratic administrations are as guilty as Republican ones.

Back in the 1930s, during the First Great Depression (if the wealthy have their way, they'll soon be adorned with Roman numerals, just like the Super Bowl), President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who invented the type of Socialism that has President Barack Obama as a believer, convinced Congress to pass the Glass-Steagall Act. That law kept banks out of the investment business, and was one of the first restrictions that Reagan Republicans wanted abolished.

Greed hit a bump in the adventures of the Keating Five and scandals in the savings and loan business, but Glass-Steagall took hit after hit, Copngressional session after Congressional session, until it met death by a thousand cuts. And then the bankers and brokers took off their masks and started robbing people in broad daylight. Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Lawrence Summers, Tim Geithner, Henry M. Paulson Jr., Robert E. Rubin and a large gaggle of government advisers who reaped millions for themselves and their friends all share in the blame, but peculiarly, none was willing to be interviewed for the movie. We see them testifying before Congress and making well-paid speeches, but none talked to the movie-maker. It reminded me of the generals testifying before Congress over the death of Pat Tillman in "The Tillman Story." They wouldn't talk to the movie-maker either.

The details of the derivatives scandal come to light, pointing out the rapacious greed of bankers and Wall Street geniuses who cooked the books until they smoked, who figured out methods to entice people to pawn their houses and their livelihoods while they took their giant corporate bank accounts and bet that the little people would go bust while the bankers got rich enough to make one retch.

There's more, of course, but my own awakening came when Ferguson got around to the academic world and revealed how much money was being paid to the academics listed above. Their books, their lectures, their lies all were being sponsored and promoted-and paid for-by the same people who were getting rich by ignoring the advice of the so-called experts..

This is not Ferguson's first attempt at muck-raking journalism. He also produced and directed "No End in Sight," a documentary about how the U.S. got into the morass known as Iraq. It was an Oscar nominee for best documentary. "Inside Job" also benefits from some superb cinematography and editing. Svetlana Cvetko, born in what was then Yugoslavia, and Kalyanee Mam, born in Cambodia, shared that title. Mam, a human-rights lawyer as well as a filmmaker, also has credits as an associate producer, a researcher and a "special thanks" credit from Ferguson.

Whether it was another power play, or a conspiracy, or whatever, "Inside Job" should be opening a week before an election, not a week after.

"Inside Job" opens today at the Plaza Frontenac

--Joe

Last Train Home

"Last Train Home" is a mind-boggling documentary that one must see to even comprehend. In China, millions upon millions of people work in communities far from their homes, living in uncomfortable dormitories, working long hours in factories. Once a year, around Chinese New Year, they get a few days off to go home and see children, parents, friends.

So 130 million people battle for limited space on trains, ride for several days, see their loved ones and repeat the struggle on the return trip to their menial jobs.

Filmmaker Lixin Fan views a couple who work in Guangzhou and travel to see their children, and their mother, in a small rural town two or three days away. The logistics are absurd. Watching the mobs descend on ticket counters is scary. People wait for days in stations because trains are delayed. They are treated like animals. Lines are unruly, food counters and restrooms seem non-existent.

And when Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin get home, they find Zhang Qin, a rebellious, truculent, hostile teenage daughter, an unhappy pre-teen son and a mother who is obviously tired of the permanent career as a baby-sitter.

It's difficult to envision a society that lives like this, but Lixin shows it to us. Think Highway 270 is crowded? Just check Lixin's shots of the Guangzhou railway station.

Last Train Home opens today at the Plaza Frontenac

--Joe

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf

It could only be a match made in Hollywood--on one side, the huge ego of Tyler Perry, whose every previous film starts with his name introducing the title, whose movies reek of fake sex and faux religion, who seems to pander to an African-American audience at its lowest common denominator on one side. And on the other, the impassioned voice for equality and fearless leadership demonstrated in poetry and prose by the fierce Ntozake Shange.

The result is a passionate, driving, painful, exciting film, "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf." It opens here today, its power extended by Perry's strong direction. He has learned through the years, and has created a superior movie with a large, talented and excellent cast.

Shange, who lived in St. Louis in the late 1950s (when she was 8 to 12), wrote "For Colored Girls. . . ." in the 1970s as a diatribe and protest about the treatment of African-American women by the men of their race. In the play, which opened on Broadway in the mid-1970s and visited the old American Theatre downtown some years later, Shange uses all her verbal power on African-American men, and it isn't pretty. The movie isn't always pretty, either, but it's always strong and loyal to its author. The play involved seven women, each identified by a color. Perry has added two women, and some dialogue, and while he is not the writer she is, his attitude and philosophy are true to her.

The cast is splendid, led by Phylicia Rashad (Gilda), Janet Jackson (Jo) and Kimberly Elise (Crystal, Jo's assistant). Whoopi Goldberg (Alice) and Thandie Newton (Tangie) are mother and daughter. All of them offer strong, insightful interpretations of Shange's always powerful writing.

There's a savage rape scene, but Perry allows some of its impact to be lost by cross-cutting it with a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. Mostly, however, he does a first-rate job, aided by Aaron Zigman's music, Ina Mayhew's production design and some glorious cinematography by Alexander Groszynski.

Opens today at multiple locations.

--Joe

Macon, MO: los Jimadores

We were in Macon, MO, not long ago as we played tourist for a couple of days. We viewed the northern part of Missouri by crossing the state on US 36, which runs from Hannibal to St. Joseph. The highway intersects with US 63, which heads north to Iowa, south to Columbia, and there seemed to be enough places to eat and sleep nearby.

Still, on a Sunday night, we saw almost no restaurants open except drive-throughs or chains. A friendly motel clerk suggested Los Jimadores, a locally-owned, family-owned Mexican restaurant nearby. The parking lot was busy, the restaurant more than half full, the staff offering a nice welcome. But we weren't really expecting much, and we were hungry, so we didn't remember the camera until dessert was served

Chips were warm and fresh, the house salsa not very spicy but surprisingly complex, and the guacamole chunky, with a good zip that made us both smile happily. Margaritas began with a 16-ounce serving, and ordering premium tequila ran the cost up to $5. The bar didn't stint on the alcohol, and while we suspect it was probably a mix, it was a good one.

Camarones Chipotle showed juicy grilled shrimp in a smoky chile sauce. The menu described it as having a “medium spicy salsa” and we asked if the kitchen could crank up the heat a little. The young server's eyes lit up. “Are you sure? Hotter?” Yes, we assured him, we could take it. When he served the dish, he reported happily that he had discussed it with the chef, who added a little extra habanero. The heat was just right, a little above what we consider medium and what maybe Macon locals consider hot. It was an excellent dish, freshly cooked and properly spiced, with the shrimp standing up to the sauce quite handsomely.

And then there was the burrito Jalisco. Pork, along with quickly fried onions and peppers, all in a flour tortilla, topped off with a little cheese sauce, chopped lettuce and tomatoes, and more guacamole. It was a good dish lifted to remarkable by the pork, chunks that had been seasoned with cumin and just the faintest hint of cinnamon, and cooked until crispy. Absolutely mouth-watering. When we finally lifted our face out of the plate, we asked the server, “Carnitas?” as we pointed at the pork. “Yes,” he beamed. “It's my favorite.” Refried beans were tasty, rice was just okay, but we loved the rest of the plates' contents.

We had a sopapilla for dessert, and finally remembered the camera. The sopapilla was topped with lots of ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate syrup and cherries, such a jubilant, over-the-top dessert it reminded us of the British ice cream dessert called knickerbocker glory, which is ice cream with all kinds of other things piled on. Fun, indulgent, a nice contrast of cool and smooth with crispy-crunchy underneath.

 

Macon isn't too far from Marceline, MO, Walt Disney's home town, and it's worth a visit for itself, especially on a cool, overcast autumn morning when one can sometimes glimpse the faint gleam of fairy dust.

 

Los Jimadores

521 E. Briggs, Macon, MO

660-385-3339

Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Fair

Smoking: Yes

Entrees: $9-$15

Excellent News

St. Louis theater-goers and concert fans scored a major ethical victory, and a financial bonus, to celebrate the new month on Monday. Grand Center parking meters now end at 7 p.m., cut back from the 10 p.m. established a few months ago.

Vince Schoemehl, president of Grand Center, phoned me at 10 a.m. Monday to announce the policy change, which means people will now be able to regain a posture balance that had been altered by the weight of more quarters in pockets and purses.

The former mayor's call was a moment of personal triumph because I have campaigned early, often and loudly here and in other spaces against the unfair change.

"When someone comes to Grand Center at 6 o'clock for dinner and a show," Schoemehl said, "it means paying for just an hour's worth of parking."

--Joe

Bixby's: Brunch

St. Louis Magazine''s online site has our review of the brunch at Bixby's in the Missouri History Museum. You can read about it here.