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My mother has her own business; actually, she has had three businesses in all. The first two were taken-over by computers and the third, based on her creative strengths, remains intact. For while there are computers which can play chess, paint pictures, plot the stars and tell fortunes, they have yet to develop one with can create gift baskets.
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The baskets themselves reflect my mother in every way: they are colorful,
classy, styled with a perfectionistic eye for detail, filled with only the
highest quality of goodies and framed in bright bows and shread or tinsels
and ties. Her market is corporate gifts, a very exacting clientele, and
"specialty" baskets for certain dietary requirements (vegan, kosher or
diabetic) or palatial passions (chocoholic, spicy-addict or java-fiend).
Nothing is placed in one of her baskets that is not pleasing to the eye as
well as the tastebuds, and she is a very demanding buyer. I am one of her
most loyal pseudo-staffers.
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Being across the States makes it more challenging to lend a hand, although I
do lend an ear for copy proofs or a brain synapse for an inspirational
glitch. But once in a while, Mom comes out East to attend one of the
affluent "shows" which parade the latest goods for the market and if I can,
I tag along as another set of senses for next year's offerings. In this
case, I was joining Mom at the Fancy Food Show in New York.
Selfless as I may be, I was actually eager to learn what the companies had come up with since the Millenium hype and, since no one blew up during the dreaded Y2K Apocalypse, they'd have to have something on the floors by now. Mom and I track the trends as they flow, noting colors or flavors or items that are "big" from year to year: in 1998-9 it was key lime goodies (from mustards to cookies), tapenades including traditional black olive to sundried tomato and basil, and everything else was being made with wine (wine crackers, wine jellies, wine cookies and wine-flavored snack sticks, etc.); in 1999-2000 the Millenium hype had spoken and its theme was royal blue and silver (which was all the packaging as far as the eye could focus) and champagne was the flavor of choice in everything the wine once claimed. Cuisine Perel's exquisite vinegars were gaining new recognition ever since Oprah had brought them into the limelight and cheesecakes were taking a back seat to lighter fares like gelati; this year, the focus shifted again (as the ripening process does) from the wines into Muscats, mustards and flavored vinegars were now trying to gain on Perel's success (not even close!) and I noticed more colorful holiday packaging in the works -- I guess the near-disaster-minded wanted to be thankful for Christmas this season. I tagged along dutifully with my pad of paper and pen, marking down the new items of interest in the Focus Foods section and cross-referencing their booth number and info number for literature to be sent back to the home office. Mom made notes about new basket ideas pushing into new corporate markets or emphasizing cultural diversity in a new line of global giving. I made suggestions and she returned the serve, we'd walk through aisles sampling and debating. Some neat ideas were taking shape punctuated by sweet, savory and salty delights. |
Now if the idea of tasting some thousand samples of everything from sauces
to salad dressings, fudges to frappes, coffees to chocolates and mustards to
mousses for five days straight sounds good to you, well... it is. For the
first few hours, anyway. Then you start to have burn-out, blurred vision,
aching feet, nausea, bloating and dehydration. You also forget that you're
trying to do, can't sense what you're trying to taste, and swear if you see
one more frosting-gilded truffle you're going to puke. (This is from the
reknowned chocoholic and self-admitted gourmand hedonist here -- trust me
on this one!) It is not for the faint of heart or stomach, but I would brave
the temptations for my dear mother!
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Before you beginners aim to try this yourself, please be warned that we have
developed a system for dealing with this type of activity heads-on and I
would advise you to consider your plan of attack. We eat a breakfast of
protein (eggs or cheese) and a good dose of plain water. We taste during a
show -- either nibbling a bit and throwing out the rest or, for the
diet-minded, tasting it and spitting the goop back out into a napkin. We
stop and drink lots of water and are careful how often we sit. Once you sit
down, your feet will start crying as the floors are barely-covered cement
and no matter what shoes you wear, eventually your arches will feel it.
Lunch is a joke; you'll never be hungry. Dinner is more protein and lots of
vegetables; no fancy sauces and no rich foods. For the real brave souls, you
can join the Tastemakers dinner one evening where chefs from New York's
finest restaurants have created two or three prize samples of their finest
fare, and you run around like mice in a maze trying to get all the wonderful
nibbles without knocking into anybody else and staining suits or shoes.
Essentially, this is business. My haughty recommendations include: the ever-favorites Koppel's cordials, Joseph Schmidt's chocolate truffles, JellyBelly's latest flavors (although this year's strawberry popcorn was grossly disappointing -- emphasis on 'gross'), Cuisine Perel's oils, vinegars, mustards and anything else they make since it's all so fabulous, Patsy's vodka sauce, Walker Brother's shortbread (get the Champage, or better still, Whiskey Shortbread while they last - this year only!) and a blood-orange gelati ice which I shan't tempt you with, since they seem to have replaced this phenomenal flavor with (brace yourself) peanut-butter-and-jelly sorbet... don't laugh, it's the new rage flavor and it "tastes JUST like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches" which doesn't seem like a real winning goal to me. |
Anyway, new things on the horizon included: Max Brennan's "Chocolates From
The Bald Man", an Israeli chocolatier who brings an Art-Nouveau flair to his
exquisite truffle squares and cocoa-dusted praline pecans; laser-printed
chocolate bars with photo-quality reproductions from Renoir to your child's
first baby pictures; the maker of Terra Chips coming out with an incredible
Red Bliss Potato with Sundried Tomato and Balsalmic Vinegar; and Max's new
beautiful marbelized packaging for their highest quality peanuts and peanut
brittle.
>sigh< But as I said, this was business. There's no humor to be had here. Where we were staying at night, now that was funny! Actually, it was Mom, Dad, Jon and I who attended that first day as a mob of well-wishers trying to be helpful to Mom (a.k.a. The Boss) before the men jumped-ship and departed on Sunday night. The hotel that Mom had reserved was unknown to her, since her regular place was booked in advance and she was without options for the first time in years. Thus, we drove past the address a few times, owing to the fact there was no sign or indication from the doors that it was a hotel and not some avante-garde storefront jammed into the middle of a busy backstreet in the Theatre District. Once we concluded this was the place, which I will call "The Den" for safety's sake, Jon and Mom volunteered to go check it out. They slipped through the tinted glass doors framed in concrete blocks freckled in red rose heads and into darkness. Dad and I waited. Jon emerged laughing and said this was the place and the men proceeded to unload the car. I waited in the car so it wouldn't be towed. All three came back looking vaguely mystified and shaken. Mom smiled and warned me this was going to be "one of those adventures" and Jon complained that when he went to the bathroom, the urinal was mirrored on both sides so you had to see yourself pee in infinite directions. Colorful, but I doubted it would have much pertainance in my life. We exchanged hugs and kisses and I went into The Den. |
It was dark as a cave with a highlight of a magenta spotlight against a
burnished metal wall which reflected it like a sunset on acid. The first
thing my eyes focused on was an armchair that was bright red velvet with a
slavering head of a pit bull painted on its back cushion. I then noted that
all the chairs in the lobby were different art deco things from wooden slabs
to liquid silver droplets and afghan-covered wingbacks. All the attendents
wore grey suits with white T-shirts and black shoes. The light changed from
magenta to aquamarine.
"Well," Mom said with a chuckle, "do you want to take the green elevator or
the red?" The door chimed open and I saw what she meant: past the funhouse mirrors in the shadowy hall were tiny metal-box elevators which would not have been so unusual had they not been outfitted with a giant light in the floor that shone one color up into the mirrored ceiling, subsequently bathing the tiny cubicle aglow in its primary hue. The effect was something like a cheap version of a Star Trek gimmick. We walked in and pressed our floor button. |
"I have to warn you, our room is small." I know my mother's taste for
comfort and high standards in her travels and shrugged nonchalantly. She
shook her head. "No, I mean it's really small. I think it was the broom
closet before they made it into a room." Again, I figured she was doing her
usual over-exaggerating.
Okay, so she wasn't over-exaggerating. We halted as we got the thin door open because otherwise we would have barked our shins on the bed. The room was entirely white. Everything: floor, ceiling, walls, beds, bedsheets, pillows, small table, stool and TV stand. There were no dressers. We banged into the closet door which swung over and banged into the bathroom door like dominoes. Yep, it was that small. Mom supposed it was painted white to make it look bigger. I suggested maybe knocking down a wall would make it look bigger. I'd heard of minimalist, but the only color in the entire room was the black/grey of the TV perched atop its waify stand and the bedframe. By this I do not mean the frame in which the bed is laid, I mean at the head of the bed, against the wall, was an enormous (4'x6') gold-painted frame. Just a frame. There was nothing in it but white vinyl. I thought it might be more interesting if they had left a cup of washable Crayola markers or something inviting you to create your own masterpiece as a headboard, but no such luck. Mom thought that was a clever idea. Before we had departed our little nest within The Den, I opted to use the taboo washrooms in the lobby. I have to say, whatever Jon had tried to prepare me for, I was not aware of my reaction until at least ten minutes after we left when the shock wore off. Then I laughed in astonishment in the cab. I will refer to my favorite descriptor of this architectual wonder as such: ever hear of the Fashion Police? I imagine this is where they'd throw you into lock-up. |
The room is small, a common theme of The Den, its frosted-glass door giving
only a hint that its for women by the fact that there is a faint outline
reading 'Women' is you put your nose up close to it. The room is sterile:
tiled in white with one silver sink resembling a long funnel touching the
floor, one silvered mirror and one silver towel box. There is a long metal
stick that squirts soap. There is a red rosehead stuck impossibly out the
side of the sink. The toilet is, well, a toilet. White on white tile with
white walls. The kicker is the toilet paper dispenser: it is silver metal in
the shape of a large comma, another red rosehead sticking out of a hole in
the side of the comma, and the toilet paper is inside the "head" of the
comma with a small opening for it to thread out...which it does not. The
opening is rather small, but if you have thin fingers and a touch of
desperation, you can claw it out against its maker's best wishes. You wash
in the upside-down Tinman's hat of a sink reflected in the stark mirror with
harsh overhead lights beaming down on you from above.
"What jeans are you wearing?" So visit The Den! Heartily recommended for you and your heroin chic D.I.N.K.s when attending the Fancy Food Show in fabulous New York City. We'll be happy to fish-out the toilet paper for you as you cater to your bulemia in the fashionably hip water-closet. We'll leave the magenta light on for ya! |
