The Rake Magazine

Today is my birthday.

I'm not afraid of coming birthdays, and I don't intend to stop the count-up. Despite all of its challenges (living with teenagers, IRS tax audit, five year old with pneumonia), through the mud and the stars, life on the whole is pretty good.

So today is MY day, the one day a year that I book solidly to do whatever I want (sans Fiji, of course). And because this is the last year I'll have a five year old in tow, I plan to have some silly fun.

To start the day properly, we're off to Isles Bun & Coffee. I just want to live there for twenty minutes and watch them roll and bake and smear the living daylights out of the best sticky buns on the planet. Jake goes in for the puppy-dog tails.

Then we'll stop at the Walker, where we like to look at stuff. Truthfully, Jake likes to imagine that we're in a space ship and run up and down the halls more than actually ponder significant pieces. We wager on who could duplicate the art better from our home craft-bucket.

Next, it's off to Wild Rumpus, because by law you have to pet an odd-looking chicken on your birthday. Look it up, I swear.

Before we go to lunch, we must have our dessert. Just a quick cup at Sebastian Joe's. For me it's the triple threat of Pavarotti, Oreo and Raspberry Chocolate that brings me back to my heady twenties. Sharing a house-apartment off of 19th and Franklin, we spent many thick summer nights sitting on the front steps drinking beer and eating SebbyJ's ice cream. That was a wonderful life.

Our actual lunch will be a world buffet: strolling the narrows of the Midtown Global Market, we will snack and sample as many different countries as we can. Jake is partial to calamari from La Sirena Gorda (Mommy, I'm eating Squidward!) while I know I'll start with a gordita from Los Ocampo and end with some fries from Andy's Garage.

Before we head Westward again, I have to stop at Patina to pick out my yearly treat: locally made jewelry and a sassy bag.

Then it's homeward bound for the 7th grader's basketball game and a good round of Mom-Chat "Do you think the referendum will pass? Are you doing all-day kindergarten next year? Where are the kids going for Sadie Hawkin's this year?" All part and parcel.

Saving the fancy restaurant dinner for this weekend, today will be capped off with a dinner cooked by my personal favorite, non-celebrity Chef Hubby. My requested meal is simple, but decadent. What I want to eat tonight (for this traditionally sub-zero event) is a creamy, unctuous pasta, namely orecchiette with a thick parmigiano-reggiano sauce topped with just a smattering of rosemary-laced bread crumb. It's the ultimate mac n' cheese.

This perfect day will be finished with all my nuggets crammed around me on the couch while we eat ice cream from the carton and watch American Idol. Not bad for three-dozen plus one.

Did that last post inspire you to gather your recipes and put together a business plan? Have you been thinking "I throw great dinner parties and I make a heckuva salsa, why don't I open my own Tex-West place?"

Whoa there, Nelly. There's more to it than you think. Thank goodness the BBCA is around to provide you with the proof.

Last Restaurant Standing is a new show in which 9 amateur food lovin' couples try to open and run their own restaurants. They're judged by a panel of "inspectors" who'll dole out challenges to the three lowest-rated (unlike real inspectors who'll just pad-lock your doors like they did a few weeks ago to the new cowboy in town).

What could happen? Water pipes might burst over the newly set room just weeks before opening (that happened last month) or the armored car could get lost and just give up for the day, leaving you with no cash on hand (that happened last year). Through all the pressure and inevitable foibles, the teams must outlast each other for a chance to win backing by Raymond Blanc for their own, real restaurant. If they still want one by then.

Grab a sneak peek on Feb 7th at 8pm.

It's an odd feeling when a restaurant closes. If it had a big-name chef or the affection of local critics, the closing can cause much hullabaloo (as was witnessed one recent winter). If the eatery was not-so-celebrated, as is more often the case, the closing happens quietly, sadly.

But what of the space? For a while, many of them exist in a ghostly way, hanging darkened signs from former tenants. I remember peeking into the windows of a shuttered sports bar and seeing the napkin roll-ups still set in the booths, just waiting for the big game to begin. I can't tell you how many pairs of shoes I've seen in abandoned kitchens, as if the cooks were shuttled out mid-shift.

Of course there are the usual post-mortem queries: What happened? Who dropped the ball? Why couldn't they make it? What went wrong? But at some point my brain starts ticking forward: Who's looking for a spot? What does this place need? What could this space become?

It's so exciting! Aren't you ready to jump into the most thrilling industry on the planet? There are more than a few potential spots out there right now. There are a few you might never consider (unless you had the passionate, risk-taking hearts of Niver and Fratzke) but there are plenty of safer-bets for the start-up. Even though I usually get paid thousands of dollars for this kind of "concepting" (shyah), in the interest of The Dream and a bit of January-killing, I'm willing to share my million dollar ideas to get you off your duff and looking for angel investors.

First of all, good luck to anyone trying to open a fine-dining, high-falutin concept in the face of the rumored coming recession. Seriously, it helps to have backers with deep pockets.

When Cosi closed in Wayzata, it left a relatively clean and newish space but a small kitchen lacking most major equipment. Everyone thinks that area bleeds money, and yet the Punch Pizza and Chipotle that opened last year are the most consistently packed. Filling the void of high quality Asian, the former Cosi could easily become a casual sushi spot like Yumi or better yet a robata/sushi joint like Obento-ya.

The space on 11th and Harmon that formerly held Willie's Wine Bar is a tough one. It's not on a main street and it's presence is sort of marred by the overhanging skyway. Still, the law school and growing number of neighborhood residents make this a palusible spot, but not for a wine bar. I think that an upscale burger and beer joint might win here. Not big and splashy but cool and easy, cultivating the off-the-beaten-path thing you could make it a worthy hangout for students. Really great burgers and a stacked beer list (featuring hard to find Belgians with a beer club) will draw the neighbors out of their condos.

The Auriga space deserves to be more than a mausoleum. For ten years it did well as a cutting-edge restaurant, it could do another ten as the same with a new, driven chef. Or it could be lightened up as the modern diner with a killer brunch/lunch, ala the Egg and I meets Town Talk. If there was room for an in-house bakery, I'd even open late-night for post-bar breakfast and cupcakes (our own Magnolia!). There are a ton of young, active people in the surrounding neighborhood, whatever goes in there should do whatever it takes to win those repeat guests.

If you give me a big bag of money, I'll share some of the other winners I have rattling around. Of course I can't gurarantee success with any of these ideas. What sounds bright and shiny to me now, sitting on my couch, could be punched down for a litany of different reasons (permits, liquor laws, recession, tanking real estate values, unruly landlords, etc). But on a blustery winter day, what else would you dream ...

There are those, here in Boston, who will say that Paul Revere never made his historic Midnite Ride, that he actually sent a neighbor to warn the countryside. And some people will giggle at your naïvety when you mention the Boston TEA Party, as if everyone should be so silly to think that it was actually tea being stored in those rum barrels.

It's enough to shake a history buff. But if you run back to your historic hotel, where you decide to take refuge in culinary history, you might not be comforted.

I admit that part of the reason I chose to stay at the Parker House was because it was the birthplace of the Parker House Roll and the Boston Creme Pie. I can put up with tiny, cramped, stodgy rooms and early morning construction noise as long as I can get a bite of the past.

I wasn't expecting much from the rolls. After all, they're white dinner rolls. But after having to actually pay extra to add one to my meal, the forthcoming roll wasn't even warm. And you'd think an icon would deserve to be accompanied by more than just a common foil wrapped chunk of frozen butter. Was a small dish of whipped and salted butter simply too much to ask for a national treasure?

And still, it got worse. It turns out that the place which claims honor for the original Boston Creme Pie (a true inspiration for doughnut eaters everywhere) has done the unthinkable: THEY'VE CHANGED THE RECIPE. Instead of a classic 1855 dessert of dense cake and custard, covered with a deeply chocolate ganache, we now have a fluffy, spongy thing covered with coconut and drizzled with white chocolate in a modern spidery design.

And so you lose a little religion.

But I did find faith again in a little restaurant called The Ivy, tucked away down an alley off of Boston Commons. It's an Italian small-plate restaurant with a nice wine list: any glass $9, any bottle $26. We showed up a little late and asked if the kitchen was still open. The manager at the front was nice enough to run downstairs to check. As we settled into a booth, resigned that we were going to get a glass of wine regardless, he came to inform us that the kitchen had closed. I asked if there was even any bread we could snack on, and he again ran down to check.

Upon his return he informed us that, although he couldn't cook anything from the grill or the fryer, he'd be happy to whip us up a salad or make something from the saute side. We said we'd be happy with just about anything and would take what ever was easiest. When he suggested the bolognese and brought it to us within a minute, it hit us like a ton of bricks..."Is this supposed to be YOUR dinner?" He had given us the meal prepared for himself. As restaurant people, we all knew the value of sitting down for a hot meal after a night on the floor, shuffling plates, dealing with guests, running up and down stairs ... sometimes that meal is the only thing that keeps you going.

Of course we protested, and of course he wouldn't take it back, claiming he ate it every night and could use a break from it. Wide, flat pasta was richly covered in a pink veal and pork ragu. The soft meat was perfectly done and not a bit greasy, like some bolo can be. With a bite of pasta it was almost creamy, yet subtly tangy with just a touch of red pepper. We ate it hungrily and gratefully. We drank our wine and vented our lives and tipped graciously.

That bolognese is my new Boston icon.

I'm out here in Boston during this lovely Nor'Easter. As a true-hearted girl from Minny, it's my duty to throw a few What's-The-Big-Deals around and trudge through the slush in just a fleece declaring the 33 degrees to be a bit "balmy". I wear my Northern pride and January birthday like a fierce badge.

But on to the eats...

Last week, the city happily basked in warmer than normal weather, which made it the perfect walking city. I had pizza on the brain and my local pal Alex told me to walk to the North End and find Regina's.

The North End is the Little Italy of Boston. Down the main drag of Hanover Street, little restaurants and pastry shops glow through the late hours, welcoming locals and tourists alike. Despite the bright neon and hanging Christmas lights, the North End feels less of a tourist trap than Mulberry St. in NYC. We had to ask a few locals for directions to Regina as it wasn't on the main street.

The side streets in the North End are crooked and twisty, just like you want them to be. We passed apartment buildings that were so close together that we imagined neighbors hanging out the windows having a chat. In the middle of a five-way intersection, on the corner of Thacher Street we found Regina's.

Since 1926, Regina's has been serving up brick-oven pizza. Walking into the dingy, tightly packed room, that seemed evident. The room was covered with black and white photographs showing stern waitresses and proud pizza cooks. The yellow walls were framed with woodwork that had seen many coats of dark paint and the booth tops were marked from years of hungry patrons waiting for their pizza.

We were brusquely waved to a booth that could seat two larger people, or four in a pinch (we smashed in, we're low-maintenance like that). Three waitresses worked the room and managed to deliver drinks and take orders while holding a converstion with each other, at top voice. Before we even got our taps of Moretti and Peroni (we'd ordered bottles, but whatever, beer is beer), we'd heard about how one girl had taken a few days off and the others had begrudgingly covered her shifts. "It's a wicked pissah when you can't even say thanks!" she shouted as she dropped our pizzas on the table.

The pies were beautiful. The Pomodoro Formaggio was covered with dappled cheese and freshly torn leaves of basil. It was simple and salty and completely fresh. The Capricciosa was an ode to the perfect bite with a mouthful of fluffy ricotta, soft mushroom, prosciutto and their wonderfully tangy tomato sauce. With just a touch of char of the bottom, the crust held a nice balance between soft and crunchy.

Our waitress sloshed a measure of beer from the glasses as she plonked down our second round. We were left to deal with it, and we did. When the barman told her it was last call, she turned to the room and to all of us shouted "You done, right?" A couple of hands shot up for a few more Buds and we paid our bill. Walking out, the pizza man in the kitchen shouted a Thanks as he threw another disc of dough into the air, and we left Regina feeling great.

Regina Pizza has grown into a local chain with quite a few locations. I don't know if any of them could live up to the night we had on Thacher Street, so I'm afraid I'll have to pass them by. What a wicked pissah.