Day 4, NY (May 13)

Day 4:  New York

Weather:  A pretty nice day (except we stayed indoors for 90% of it), low 60s and occasional brisk winds

QOTD1: “Over the city lies the sweet, rotting odor of yesterday's unrecollected sins.” Wolf Hall

QOTD2: I think there’s another bakery near here

QOTD 3:  “Those who are made can be unmade.” Bring Up the Bodies

Sleep in, have Lafayette toast with coffee, THB and DB go to fitness center, attempt again to eat breakfast at Oscar’s and the inevitable “closed for private party” sign is up so go back to 26^th floor lounge where we special order berries for our cereal and pastries.

 

JFK and Tricky Dick on wall outside our rooms

Spend time plotting out some of next week in Paris, then head out for latish pre-game lunch at Chipotle (we’re going simple today: rice bowl with chicken for THB, salad bowl with chicken for DB, with iced tea, $22. In NY fashion, service very gruff and the soda machine broken and no carnitas.

There was quite a line when we got there, went fast 

Game 1: Wolf Hall Part 1, It is very good! We wear hearing sets and that makes it just a bit sharper and focused. It’s different than the PBS version, mostly because in the play it doesn’t really makes sense to have lots of close-ups with facial expressions giving you the character’s emotion. Most scenes the same or similar, just staged rather than a film treatment. And Cromwell is pretty much the same on TV and in the theater, voice is almost identical in timbre and pacing.

Take a break to walk a bit and have an early dinner at 44^th and X. On the way, THB realizes we are very close to his all-time fave NY bakery (owned by his #1 bread book author, Jim Lahey), so there’s a quick detour to pick up biscotti, a few sourdough rolls, and a bomboloni (a jelly donut, stuffed with a tart rhubarb jam) for pre-meal dessert (channeling our inner JOB). Spend only $12, a new low for THB here; we have much bread in WT, so much that THB could open a pop-up.

Sourdough roll

Bomboloni, best eaten on sidewalk outside bakery

Now back on the path to 44^th and X: share a fennel and arugula salad (not quite arugula season, lots of shaved fennel), then DB has a chicken quesadilla and THB has pan-roasted chicken over polenta with a bit of bacon, mushrooms and brussels sprouts. Decent, not quite as good as we’d get in Bay Area; with a drink and a non-NY beer (they’re out of local brewskis), $105. Another oddity: waiter cleared bread plates and butter between courses; did he think THB had had enough bread already on this trip?

Nice stroll back to the theater and Part 2: also very good, though not quite as good as Part 1. Basically, this is more about getting the goods on Anne and framing the men around her (well, not all the men, since Cromwell and the king are doing the framing). Still, quite a strong doubleheader and worked out well to see them on the same day (we had different people around us at Part 2, so not everybody did it the way we did).