It's Snowbird, Ma'am

Dara writes:

Last week James and I returned from our annual ski trip to Alta, Utah, home to probably the best snow in the country. The conditions are always at least good at Alta, though this year they were just that, good, and not amazing, as their base registered only 60 inches, as opposed the usual 100+.

I enjoy Alta, though not as much as James. I like to ski, but not the extreme stuff. I prefer walks in the park. I like to ski down, chat, and go for hot chocolate in the lodge. James likes to push it on a double black. I can get down anything, but groomers are just fine.

Alta is crude and rustic. Elements that to me define a vacation are missing. For instance, you don't go out to eat. Breakfast and dinner are included in the hotel cost. The meals are fine. A prime rib special one night was quite delicious. But there is no gourmet. There is no town. My first year high in the Rockies two years ago, it snowed one foot every day, causing such treacherous avalanche conditions that we were not allowed to leave our hotel after 4pm or before 9am each day. This is called interlodge. But truly, being at Alta anytime is kind of a voluntary interlodge. You ski. You eat. You sleep. You wake and do it again.

James loves this boot camp. He loves the challenge. Me, I don't mind if a "challenge" on vacation is choosing an entree from a delicious list of possibilities.

I could also do without the Alta attitude which is, summed up: Vail is for suckers. To Alta folks, any mountain, however world-class, is for pussies if bars, shops, and eateries distract from skiing. One must pronounce "Alta" with a flat A, not an A like a British "Aunt." James overheard the following exchange between a mountain man and a visitor: "Is it Alta or Ahlta?" "It's Snowbird, Ma'am."

We usually stay at Goldminer's Daughter, essentially a barracks at the foot of the mountain. Each staff member is a skier, which means any guest request involving skiing--lift tickets, a humidifier in the room to sleep better so as to ski better--is ably fulfilled, while any request in the dining room--to be served, for instance--is better filled by professionals. Last year we explored the Alta Lodge, old stomping ground of the likes of Bill Buckley and Milton Friedman. We found it equally bare bones as Goldminer's, but more expensive and with more attitude. The attitude we did like, however, was that of two eighty-plus year old men we met in the Lodge's common room. One of these "Alta cockers," as we liked to call them, lived in an assisted living location in Danbury, Connecticut, but still skied in Alta. Amazing. This man fled Germany on Hitler's arrival, came to America, then enlisted so he could fight back against the Nazis. He skied in the Seventh Mountain Division during World War II. The Alta Lodge requires one to huff down 63 steps upon arriving, has no elevator, and requires one to use an arm-wrenching rope tow, on which I received repetitive stress trauma, to reach it from the slopes. Just visiting the place means one is fit.

This is my view. I think James will write his own perspective...

Music: Critics Search for Street Cred

Dara writes:

I am sorry for the lapse in posting, readers. As you know James's father has been sick. We will soon post an update and photos about that!

In the meantime, when I had some time on my hands recently, I filled it by surfing the iTunes store. I listened to every singer recommended recently either in The New York Times or The New Yorker, two of my most regular reads. Did I say "every singer"? I meant every singer whose CD I was too embarrassed to buy: you know, Mariah, Nelly Furtado, Justin Timberlake.

I have a weakness for Mariah's melisma. But I have to say I did not enjoy the tracks from her latest, "The Emancipation of Mimi," even though "We Belong Together" is fun. I kind of can't stack El Timberlake, but gave him the benefit of the doubt because, in a recent sidebar, New Yorker critic Sasha Frere-Jones called him a "superhero," and exulted:

With neither the frequent traffic infractions nor the rehab antics of his young pop peers, Timberlake is ably sustaining the old-fashioned tradition of physical, real-time entertainment.

In such columns, critics for high-brow publications try to prove their street cred, that they are NOT out of touch with the 18-29-year-old demographic. I say this because I can think of no other reason to laud Timberlake. Frere-Jones's column, and others like it, promote the youthfulness and vernacular of the writer, not the talent or timelessness of the singer.

Bruni throws another hand grenade Meyer's way

Dara writes:

Bring it on, Bruni!

And bring it, he did. Oh yes, the fight continues between NYC restaurateur and NY Times chief restaurant critic Frank Bruni in this week's "Dining" section.

As I have written here and here, there is a war going on between Danny Meyer and Frank Bruni. In his book on the restaurant business, "Setting the Table," Danny Meyer laments how Frank Bruni awarded Meyer's most ambitious restaurants, Eleven Madison Park and The Modern, only two stars. Mr. Meyer felt Mr. Bruni did not give them a chance to evolve before (relatively) slamming them.

Alas, two weeks ago in The New York Times, Mr. Bruni awarded these two restaurants three stars. Hooray! Except Bruni took the opportunity to demote Meyer's most famous restaurants, Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Cafe--a back-handed compliment if ever I have seen one.

In last week's "Dining" section, Mr. Meyer's friends came to his aid by trumpeting, in an ad, the first "six star" review ever in the history of The Times: three stars each for Eleven and Modern. And now, in today's "Dining" section, Bruni lobs a grenade.

In his article today entitled "You May Kiss the Chef's Napkin Ring," Bruni excoriates the latest trend of chefs to conduct their restaurants as temples to themselves. By promoting ten-course tasting menus and blasting their iPod playlists, chefs are preoccupied with their own predilections and desires, not those of their accolytes--I mean, customers. Somehow, although Mr. Meyer is not a chef, Mr. Bruni makes him a prime target of his article, even including a picture of Tabla as Exhibit A in the hubris of restaurant people.

Mr. Bruni whines:

After the restaurateur Danny Meyer’s “Setting the Table” was published last fall, he propped up copies right inside the front doors of Gramercy Tavern, Eleven Madison Park and Tabla, where the book was also displayed above the bar, just to be safe.

Mr. Meyer isn’t a chef. He’s essentially a host, renowned for his humility and hospitality, for rounding out your meal with a prettily wrapped coffeecake for breakfast the next morning.

And yet he set things up so that when you walked into one of his restaurants, your first encounter wasn’t necessarily with a host or a hostess saying hello or taking your coat. It was with a photograph of him on a self-flattering book (“America’s most innovative restaurateur,” trumpets the cover) about how he always puts you, the customer, first.

For one thing, Mr. Meyer is an excellent, skilled writer, and I would put him to test with Bruni any day. For another, how does Meyer's promotion of his book oppose or even exclude his concern for his customers? I'm sure many of them over the years have wondered about how he has done such an amazing job in such a tough city, and many would be interested in learning his philosophy.

Bruni's direct challenge of Meyer's "humility" is ad hominem. I am interested to see where Meyer takes this mano a mano next.