Subject: lunch with Holden
From: Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Date: Fri Jun 13 1997 - 22:48:13 GMT
Today I had a not-too-pleasant dental appointment in midtown (Manhattan),
and afterward, while my mouth was still numb and the novocaine had not yet
worn off, I decided to indulge in a bit of whimsy.
There is a little restaurant on 60th Street called Serendipity. It's kind
of an ice-cream parlor that's popular with tourists and -- I don't know,
wholesome people. Me excepted, the customers always look too wholesome to
be human. Certainly too wholesome to be my fellow citizens of New York....
My goal was to have their signature drink, "frozen hot chocolate," which is
a kind of sculpture made of chocolate syrup and crushed ice and chocolate
shavings and who-knows-what-else. I thought it would make me feel better
about the insult to my tooth. Anyhow, while I was at my table nursing my
jaw, I looked through the menu. I don't ever eat anything there; I just
have that frozen hot chocolate once or twice a year. This afternoon I
noticed this on the menu:
The Catcher in the Rye: BLT with chicken, topped with melted
muenster on rye toast with Russian dressing: $11.50
Well, I'm a vegetarian, so I wouldn't go ordering such a thing, but I
confess that it sounded like a pretty gruesome combination (and
outrageously expensive for a sandwich). But the establishment itself is
pricy, not the kind of joint I would ever visit daily.
ObSalinger: These references are everywhere. Sometimes they're so embedded
in our surroundings we barely notice them. I regret that this restaurant
missed the chance to be nicely sly. It might have been a *real* surprise
to find a menu item under that name that was a Swiss cheese sandwich and a
malted.
--tim o'connor
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