Beppe
BEPPE
45 E. 22ND ST. (B'WAY & PARK AVE. S.)
212-982-8422
THE GREAT WASP POET Taylor Mali has lived in Gramercy Park for five years, so I asked him to show me a restaurant there, to show me his world. He doesn't mind being called the WASP Poet at all. "That is totally what I am! I didn't even know there was a stigma to it until I came to New York!" Like any person at peace with himself, he can go just about anywhere, and I knew that whatever he picked would be perfect.
He suggested Beppe, a Tuscan restaurant on 22nd St. between Broadway and Park Avenue S. "How punctual are you?" he emailed ahead of time. Taylor is from an old Connecticut family, and I'm a faculty brat from Rhode Island, so we both have that New England promptness. True, I may sleep until 8 p.m. and miss a day of appointments entirely, but once out of bed I arrive on the dot, early even.
Taylor and his girlfriend Dawn come to Beppe exactly once every two months. He's a big fan of picking dates long in the future and then deciding what will happen on that day. For example, as president of Poetry Slam Incorporated, he will debate former poet laureate Billy Collins on November 12, 2005. The subject is where poetry exists, on the page or the stage. Says Taylor, it will be "the final smack down, the ultimate summit, albeit of white guys."
The night I saw Taylor slam at Urbana, it seemed to me that he read the only true poem of the night, while the rest of the slammers were just working themselves up. I quoted an article I'd read recently, which said of slam poetry that great art does not come from indignation. Self-righteous indignation is the highest-scoring emotion in a slam, Taylor conceded, but some people feel it's a short cut to passion. Dawn, who, having been a waitress for eight years, has plenty to feel indignant about, feels that indignation is the first step to writing really good poetry. As for myself, I often am too grateful for sustained outrage. For instance, here I was, after a long hard life, at Beppe, watching the waiter arrive.
One of our appetizers was a marinated mushroom, chickpea and shrimp salad. Apparently Tuscan cuisine uses a lot of white beans.
"Is it nouvelle?" I asked Taylor.
"It's new, but it's not nouvelle," he patiently replied. Nouvelle, he believes, is more about presentation. I was really living it up, eating chef Cesare Casella's homemade prosciutto from the Toscano antipasti. There was also mortadella on the plate.
"I hate mortadellaget it away!" Taylor exclaimed, as Dawn quickly skewered it out of his line of vision.
Dawn wondered where you could get gumbo in Manhattan.
"Live Bait," Taylor answered. "It's a commuter bar with gumbo."
The waiter informed me that the salad was made from rhugette, a special type of lettuce grown upstate, and served with Vidalia onions in a red-wine vinaigrette. Dawn ordered the Tuscan fries, topped by rosemary and thyme. She tries cooking up frozen fries at home and throwing herbs on them, but it's just not the same.
Taylor ordered the sharpest entree, Crestepasta with white bean puree, which I would have ordered too if I'd known it existed. I asked him what he does when he goes to a restaurant with a bunch of poetry slammers, who tend to be broke.
"I simply pull out my plastic and tell everybody to chip in what they can afford, so nobody is embarrassed." I think that's classy, but one suspicious poet actually accused him of trying to make money by doing this.
We got some Gamberoni, an order of shrimp that was slightly charred and spiced perhaps the best shrimp I've ever had. Chef Casella, who has two kitchens upstairsone for his staff and one for his motheralso sent us an extra dessert, chocolate espresso mousse cake with chocolate espresso gelato. I stared at the last bite of the cake, wondering if I could have it. Was it proper? Also, there were lots of calamari and fries left over; was it tacky of us to order so very much?
I put the question to my host.
"The upscale way is to order less, finish everything and take a doggie bag home for someone on your staff."
Taylor explained. I suspected I was being played, but nicely and well. He pulled out a credit card on which he'd written a little note with a sharpie: "Stolen card? See ID!"
"I figured I'm the only one who can get away with it," he said, suavely tipping the maitre d' $10 on his way out. Classy again! o