Previously: Restaurant reviews from Jimmy Stewart’s character at the end of It’s A Wonderful Life.
Little Park, 85 W. Broadway
It was a sweet kind of madness that drove me here. I came in from the hills to be among men once again (a soul needs bread as well as beauty to keep body and spirit together). Listen, gentles. Between every two trees there is a door, and it was no different with Little Park. From my table I could see a pine being whipped about by a feverish storm, the kind that it seemed would wrench God himself from his mighty celestial seat and send him whirling in a mad dash among the stars. The server would not accommodate my request to eat my meal while lashed to the pine tree outside. He lacks wildness in his soul, this server. I sat instead in a chair, which is only the memory of a tree. For dinner I drank nectar and crumbled a little bit of corn mush into the mug of fresh goat’s milk I carry with me. I was my own master, and no man tried to stop me when I left. Four stars.
Upland, 345 Park Ave
A man brought me a plate of wild mushrooms, and I sobbed for an hour and a half. This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. Three stars.
Root & Bone, 200 E. 3rd St
I grow weary of this life of hotels and chatter and shoe-horns and turn-keys. It was my hope that in its very name, Root & Bone could return me to the solider things in life. “I wish only for the simplest roots,” I told my waitress, “and the merest sliver of bone. I have brought my own marrow knife – a man’s hands. They will suffice.” I received what I asked for. Five stars. I wish to be buried in the heart of a star.
Shuko, 47 E. 12th St
A lungful of God’s clean air is the first meal any human soul gets. A mouthful of dirt is the last. Every meal in between is a gift from the earth. Like a tree, I long to absorb my nutrients by clawing my roots into the rich red soil and sucking them from the very loam before spilling my fruit in abundance over the valleys and ridges of this noble country, but this is not yet possible, and the kaiseki tasting menu was very good. Four stars.
Cherche Midi, 282 Bowery, at Houston St
Our crude civilization engenders a multitude of wants, and law-givers are ever at their wits’ end devising. Chains, chains of duty and chains of habit encompass us. Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony. I cannot rate Cherche Midi, as I walked out to find a waterfall before dinner service began. A man cannot spend his life in restaurants.
Tags: john muir, some of these reviews are actual quotes from john muir
I have deep and abiding love for John Muir and all he did for my Golden State and surrounding West, but this was delightful.
“Five stars. I wish to be buried in the heart of a star.” You are amazing.
“A man brought me a plate of wild mushrooms and I sobbed for an hour and a half.”
Still, he’s had weirder customers. This is New York after all.
<3 <3 <3
…sucking them from the very loam before spilling my fruit in abundance over the valleys and ridges of this noble country.
This calls for a portmanteau of patriotism and erotica. Patrierotica?
Which reminds me of the segment in the Dead Authors Podcast Walt Whitman episode, which includes an in-depth discussion of which state, based on their various shapes, Mr. Whitman would most like to have sex with.
Erotriotism.
The Pounding Fathers.
I could go on all day, but I have work to do.
I move that Nick Offerman be required to read this aloud for our amusement.
And then maybe a biopic about John Muir starring Nick Offerman, with Megan Mullally as, I don’t know, the tree he loved? Wikipedia is broken right now, so I can’t confirm whether he was ever married or otherwise involved with a woman who could be played by Megan Mullally.
I hadn’t realized it until this comment, but Offerman was already the voice reading this in my head.
Same here!
Now rereading this with Nick Offerman’s voice in my head. As if this piece wasn’t genius enough.
Totally married. I watched the Ken Burns’ national parks doc on PBS six thousand times which is about as good as wikipedia for truthiness.
There’s not a lot of information out there on Louise Muir, which I guess means Megan Mullally gets to play her however she wants.
There’s a fair amount on Louie Strentzel Muir, actually. http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/peo…
I will admit that I only went as deep as a Wikipedia search. In any case, I’m not about to tell Megan Mullally how to do her job.
Love this!…but I believe John Muir was more of a preservationist than a conservationist…..
please say you scrunched your nose and pushed your glasses back while typing that comment <3
Oh, I love this man almost as much as I love Mallory’s version of this man. “Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.” I just want to give him a big hug and then make some coffee over a campfire and stare at the sky in silence.
For a long time, the food in John Muir articles was a problem for me.
He describes everything he takes with him: a knife, a pot, two wool blankets, a pound of bacon, a pound of tea, and two loaves of bread. Then he walks from San Francisco to Yosemite, talking lyrically about the vernal pools of the Central Valley as he goes. Then he walks back.
That is NOT ENOUGH CALORIES. For a long time I wondered: did he set snares every night? Did he fish and fish and fish? Were there people living along the way who sold him bread or gave him dinner? If so, why didn’t he include it in his very comprehensive descriptions? He talks about feeding bacon fat to a bird who shares his cave in a snowstorm, shouldn’t he talk about taking shots of brine shrimp slurry?
Eventually I asked a friend who worked at the Cal Academy. “Oh”, she said “He lost thirty-five pounds every time he went; he’d come back as a skeleton, his wife had a system for feeding him up.”
Can you imagine doing nineteenth century cooking to help someone gain back tens of pounds of muscle mass several times? I feel like the perfect audience for this article is Louise Muir.
I hope she milked a cow straight into his mouth every morning.
Darling, I made you this _cunning_ calf costume, just go out and suckle from her udders for a few hours so I can do the laundry today.
And here I thought I was being clever by saving her a dirty pail or two….
I imagine Mallory enjoys the process of writing a lot of these pieces and laughs at her own jokes as they are formed and typed out, this one especially. Hilarious to read, also seems fun to write.
This is fantastic
You should do a follow up with Gifford Pinchot reviewing the same restaurants and completely blasting them, simultaneously launching into an invective about the finer distinctions between conservation and preservation.
Food that offers the greatest good for the greatest number.
Despite the fact that the forestry lab here is located on Gifford Pinchot Drive (and that I looked him up when I discovered that), I still immediately envisioned Bronson Pinchot.
(And Gifford Pinchot and I share a birthday!)
This made me genuinely laugh out loud. I read Muir before going to Yosemite the first time. I was completely unprepared for both Muir and Yosemite. In fact, unprepared is an understatement. I went hiking in 100 F weather and was passed by gleeful kids in flip flops, plus my trail mix melted. I didn’t hug any trees or climb to the head of a waterfall – I was happy to just keep breathing – but it was still pretty damn transcendent.
This made me genuinely laugh out loud. I read Muir before going to Yosemite the first time. I was completely unprepared for both Muir and Yosemite. In fact, unprepared is an understatement. I went hiking in 100 F weather and was passed by gleeful kids in flip flops, plus my trail mix melted. I didn't hug any trees or climb to the head of a waterfall – I was happy to just keep breathing – but it was still pretty damn transcendent.
Best thing ever. Reminded me of a story that appeared in Sierra magazine in 1994, “John Muir’s Menu”: http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/lif…
This is legit amazing.
I haven’t read Muir, but now I want to. Come to think of it, Mallory is the best thing to happen to my general knowledge of western cannon everything since undergrad gen ed course requirements.
This is just the best. And a perfect companion piece to Dirtbag Teddy Roosevelt. Thank you.
This is just the best. And a perfect companion piece to Dirtbag Teddy Roosevelt. Thank you.
That mushroom at Upland tho. Let’s have that again.
There's a fair amount on Louie Strentzel Muir, actually. http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/peo…
Despite the fact that the forestry lab here is located on Gifford Pinchot Drive (and that I looked him up when I discovered that), I still immediately envisioned Bronson Pinchot.
(And Gifford Pinchot and I share a birthday!)
Great stuff. Ah, and if Muir could only come back to life and see what is being done in his name.