NY STORIES

57 Cumberland Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
Phone Number: +1 415 738 2112
Nadine m: 415 595 0023
Colman m: 415 871 9920
Skype: nadinemellor

Dearest Family and Friends

Happy New Year!
2006 universally was proclaimed a difficult and depressing year – certainly globally despair politically and environmentally was felt by us all. For us it marked the start of a new chapter by moving to friendly and fun San Francisco, yet despite the relentless busyness and logistical detail required for the relocation, 2006 had many magical moments:

Marvellous parties especially our epic farewell to No.83 house party, and including several 40ths (am I allowed to say I thought mine was tiptop? Loved Adam’s and Dan/Dave’s too, also Jessica’s 38&3/4th);
Singing my heart out to Up the Junction watching Glenn Tillbrook play at The Big Chill with a peg on my wings and having SO MUCH FUN with friends who are now families and part of my family;
Being asked to be godmother to Rose at my niece and nephew’s christening (yes I cried);
Our weekend in Cornwall in Feb with fireworks and treasure hunt;
Intimate dinners with close friends including the Last Supper;
Thanksgiving in Russian River with the drunken boys;
Wonderful weddings in N.Ireland and Cornwall (fairylove cosmic);
Dad’s 70th birthday weekend (packed schedule of walking, Scottish dancing and rounders);
Getting on Australian TV after the ball tampering row; volunteering for Islington
Very special glorious Dublin weekend in September;
Annual excursions to the Lake District (what a wuss - poleaxed after climbing Binsey) and to Essex;
New Year in Sydney in a fierce heatwave involving lifts, dancing the conga with a dog, whips, Bondi beach and Colman frolicking with lesbians);
Living with my parents for 3 weeks (really lovely) and dancing to Incey Wincey Spider with Lizzie my niece;
Walking in the snow-capped Pyrenees in April after visiting the vineyards in Bordeaux;
The atmosphere in the streets for Highbury’s last day and being at the new Arsenal stadium for the Bergkamp Testimonial;
Singalonga Grease at the art deco Castro Theater;
Fond emotional farewells to all friends and family in the UK;
Friendly welcomes in the US, especially from the DLG;
Christmas in Ithaca; sightseeing in New York.

Christmas in Ithaca
It’s easy to forget this is a vast country. Ithaca was a six hour flight via Philadelphia. Its a small university town where he teaches, 5 hours north of NYC in NY State. Global warming dashed our hopes of a white Christmas – a flurry of snow one day didn’t settle.

We had both been working pretty intensively in the run up to Christmas so it was so nice to stay in Hugh and Sally’s lovely 150 yr old home filled with gorgeous furniture and art.

We had a relaxing and charming time with them, Max (with the impossibly long eyelashes) and his baby brother Zack, born a month before. Zack was the perfect baby – hardly wailed and slept 18 hours a day or more. Above is him with his Christmas presents; Max’s lorryload of presents, in common with all little boys of 5, had a dinosaur theme.

We cooked, ate huge amounts, drank delicious wines, read, wandered round antiques malls, curled up in armchairs, played with Max, and went for a constitutional walk to a waterfall / bird reserve / through the woods / by a river every day. Ithaca is near the FingerLakes. Scored with canyons and waterfalls it has a remote air about it..

Max and I made apple and almond pudding for Christmas Day; we went to a local drinks party one night consisting of a full on Ceol Agus Craic Irish music session – Colman and I had no shame and demonstrated our woeful folk dancing.


New York City
We took an overheated bus from Ithaca for 5 hours. There is something so evocative about seeing the Manhattan skyline getting closer across the suburbs and detritus of the urban sprawl, as the bus inched its way through the traffic. We rented an apartment off Craigslist in the West Village which turned out to be perfectly located, incredibly hot (what is it with NYC that they feel the need to exist in sweltering temperatures at all times), unpleasantly grimy in the corners with the most antiquated bathroom we’d seen in ages.

We saw my friend Ian for a drink at a tiny stylish Italian wine bar the size of a living room. Lovely to see him and we consumed two bottles of tasty wine, copious nibbles and put the world to rights. We went for tea with Colman’s friend Jane Cox in Greenwich and walked around the brownstones of the village and along the river – glorious winter light at late magic hour over the Hudson River which contrived to make even New Jersey look fabulous. Lots of Christmas decorations but the light shows on the skyscrapers was the most charming and NYCish – the Empire State glowed 5 different colours simultaneously, the Chrysler's display so cool.

We went to the newly refurbished MOMA, where I charged round and saw almost every piece of artwork in the place and can tell you that Rauschenberg is wholly overrated, and what is it with these post-war artists’ belief that big is better with their ego-driven vast canvases? Still it allows you to gallop all the faster through the rooms. The photography portfolio felt randomly positioned but was very fine, and there’s no question that the gallery is an amazing space with an extraordinary collection. Colman took a more leisurely pace and savoured the work better.

We also did the Guggenheim on the same day – AT LAST I got to see it – on my 5th attempt – I usually find it closed. The main exhibition was Spanish art over the past 500 years curated in terms of themes – religion, mothers, still life, death etc – which saw Goyas next to Picassos next to El Grecos next to Miros. Such a special building.

NYC is also a shopping mecca and I spent my hard-earned pounds with gusto (great exchange rate!) on some lovely clothes – trousers, cardigan, top, vintage piece, jumper and skirt. Great second hand designer and vintage shops especially in Soho and Nolita. The shops all had discounts already due to the unseasonably warm winter – the winter coat market had collapsed – typical that I wasn’t in the market for one….

New Year’s Eve
Back to SF for NYE - to a warmer, cleaner, calmer, smaller city and mused that it didn’t feel like ‘coming home’ just yet, although it was lovely to be at home again. We had arranged to go with our new best friend, Adam, to a Kinky Salon party, conveniently round the corner in the Mission.

We hosted pre-party drinks at the apartment and were joined by Adam, Sofia and Gerardo, Jennifer and Don, and Stuart and Danielle visiting from London – great entertainment was had in persuading Stuart to come out to play with us and to wear a marvellous pink wig to ensure entrance – dress code stipulations were no street clothes allowed.

At about 1030 we all stumbled round the corner and entered a dingy suspicious looking venue revealed inside to be a Tardis of confectionary. It was like a very decorated Coalesce. Amazing efforts had gone into creating sexy intimate spaces with disco lights shown to best effect by the free 3D glasses, vivid colours, a rope web with a bondage master, silver draped walls, two small dance floors, a smoking room and darker lounging areas.

Although the music was a bit patchy, they did do a good NYE countdown and provided us all with champagne – and it was all BYO – how civilized! The crowd dressed in an extraordinary array of corsets, feathers, wigs, flesh, chaps, fairies, tassels and sequins, were very friendly and welcoming.

Colman was insulted when a girl told him that no real woman would put those two reds together! All good fun. We lasted until 3ish - not bad considering we were on NYC time – a great night.

Food Moment of the Holiday
Contenders included Colman’s perfect hollandaise followed by the delicious gammon on Christmas Day, and Murray’s bagels on Felicity’s recommendation for breakfast in the Village (a quintessential NYC moment – I had the full lox with all the trimmings), but our visit to Yama – a Japanese sushi restaurant on the East side with my cousin Guy and his wife Haruko – was one of the most memorable occasions ever.

We suggested eating Japanese partly because Haruko could properly translate the menu for us, but also because we had all eaten so much over Christmas a light and healthy meal was required. Mr Nakamura is a friend of Guy and Haruko’s through the Japanese school their kids go to, and he has a chain of four Yamas. This was the newest and he was in charge; to say he pushed the boat out for us is no exaggeration.

We ordered our appetisers and said we wanted a few specialities for main – up to him – but that was all. First arrived an hors d’oeuvre that was off menu, specially prepared for us as a new experimental recipe – monk fish foie gras style that melted on the tongue. Then came the smoothest and classiest sake any of us had ever had. Next, another free sublime starter of ginko beans and tofu and stuff. Followed by the appetisers we had originally ordered including a tower of scallops, avocado and three kinds of roe, and a squid dish.

We all remarked how we were totally full and couldn’t eat another thing. Guy then looked up and said, Oh my God, I think that boat is about to set sail! A huge bamboo ship with mast and rigging was being loaded up with a cargo of the most delicate and finest sushi; we said surely not for us – it must be for that huge table of people over there. Whereupon sure enough, it set a straight course east by south east directly towards us. Haruko and I cried with laughter for the next 20 minutes. And the really funny thing was that we knew we’d get through it.

And we did, bar 3 pieces. Exquisite. Colman had a panicked moment when he thought the waiter was bringing us the dessert menu, but luckily a false alarm. So we were totally caught off guard when the puddings were then handed to us – a baked Alaska affair with green tea ice cream in the middle. We were dreading the bill but couldn’t believe it - $180 for 4!!! So we tipped them very handsomely. Thank you Mr Nakamura!

Restaurant of the Holiday
Lupa, Soho, NYC. Second (more affordable and relaxed) restaurant from the stable of the celebrity chef Mario Babbo (see Heat by Bill Buford). Rustic-chic dining room, warm colours and brick walls, walk-ins allowed - hence how we got a seat at the candle-lit bar. I had beautifully prepared salt cod for starters; Colman perfect sardines. For main my pork shoulder in honey and spices was impossibly tender; Colman’s pasta special sublime. We finished up in a jazz club.

Wine of the Month by Mission Boy
Hermitage 1998
GAEC Belle
It was one of those wines that on first appearances seems to be past it.

Now Hermitage is a style that is normally stil in its gawky adolescent stage after nine years. Back in the nineteenth century it was the only wine of the Rhone that had any credibility. In fact it was often used by Bordeaux chateaux to beef up their own blends in weak years.

So you can imagine it is a beefy, dense drink. This example looked very evolved with a brown rim. Plunging your nose in the glass you found all those glorious developed aromas you can only get with aged wine: inky, vegetal, Brussels sprouts (yes really) and cabbage. Only perhaps too much. You wonder what on earth this is going to taste like. Is it really over the hill?

No it isn’t. A deep draught reveals a really coherent integrated texture. Fruit has given way to savoury flavours but the finish still has notes of that distinctive peppery finish you find in Ozzie Shiraz. (Did I forget to say this is made from Shiraz/Syrah).

Twenty minutes of air and the most pronounced vegetable stink had blown off leaving an intriguing instant coffee note. But the wine is still most satisfying in the mouth. Plenty of body and weight. So much in fact that the second half of the bottle was still enjoyable the next day… just.

Worlds away from supermarket blandness this wine was a lesson in why we should bother with those wines that can’t be drunk for ten years.

Bird of the Month
Northern Cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis – a distinctively crested flame-red medium sized bird that flits in small groups, whose colouring stood out a mile in the subtle winter hues of the Ithacan woods – a cheery sight on a day with very flat grey light.

Bumper Sticker of the Month
Plants and animals are disappearing to make room for your fat ass

Missing you all very much – come and visit – great exchange rate!

Adventures Ahoy for 2007!

Love and hugs Nadine and Colman xxx