Linda’s Tips and Travel Notes

Food and Dining Radio Show – 4.17.08

 

Linda Gassenheimer (LG)

Joseph Cooper (JC)

Fred Tasker (FT)

Michele Oka Doner (MOD)

Mitchell Wolfson (MW)

 

LG: Think late nights, clubs, food and celebrity outings…

South Beach may come to mind. But long before these images, Miami Beach was one of

America’s most glamorous cities. Our guest today grew up during that time. Their book is Miami Beach: Blueprint of an Eden. Welcome Michele Oka Doner and Mitchell Wolfson.

 

MW: I’m thrilled to be here.

 

MOD: Thank you.

 

LG: It’s lovely to see you. And in his usual seat is Fred Tasker. He writes the wine suggestions for my dinner in minutes column. So Fred, what are we drinking today?

 

FT: I’m going to talk with Mickey about great Italian wines. We have some stories to share from our travels in

Italy when we were young.

 

MW: I was innocent of everything. Fred was the ring leader!

 

LG: Let me start with Michelle Michele Oka Doner. Your father was the Mayor of Miami Beach in the 1940s?

 

MOD: No, my father was in the 50s, from around 1957-1964. Mickey’s father was Mayor in the ’40s.

 

LG: What was it like on the Beach then?

 

MOD: It was wonderful. Tarzan was on at that time. Since there were so many empty lots we just swung around.

 

LG: [laughing] Did you know each other then? You must have…

 

MO: No, he was another generation. He’s so much older than I am. [laughing] 7 years is a long time when you’re kids and of different genders.

 

LG: Let’s talk about the food. You told me food played an important part.

 

MOD: Both

North Beach Elementary School and the places we went on the weekend had fabulous food.

North Beach had a Chef called Miss Ruth. The parents were head of the cafeteria and the PTA. So Miss Ruth was part of the County. So it was run by the parents and, to give you an idea of how lavish it was, the day before thanksgiving vacation they did an entire thanksgiving dinner. Sometimes Miss Ruth baked her apple pie. The principal would have Miss Ruth come out and we would all clap.

 

LG: I can’t believe you remember all of these names.

 

MOD: It was fun. We really looked forward to school. The banana bread recipe is in the book. I couldn’t the apple pie recipe. The hotels had ice cream sodas and ice creams sundaes.

 

MW: Yes, the Junior Gigantic. Junior’s was a fantastic restaurant near the

Seville and the Junior Gigantic was about 2 feet high and it was an ice cream soda. If you really wanted to show your girlfriend you ordered one. It was legendary. The three great restaurants were

Park Avenue, just behind the ballet now. Some people I remember in the ’40s and 50s dressed for dinner. The White House Hotel, which is destroyed now, was legendary. The Fontainebleau Hotel was the greatest gourmet restaurant. There was one great Chinese Restaurant, Fu Man

Chu…

 

MOD: If you went often enough they painted your name on the back of the chair. The Goldmans owned it and I remember seeing him every time we went.

 

LG: Is this the same Goldman Family that owns restaurants today?

 

MOD: No. This was a long time ago.

 

JC: What about Joe’s Stone Crab?

 

MW: I use to go with my father who would be let right in. They would say, “come right in.” When he passed away I went with my brother, and they said to him, “come right in. your table is ready.” And when he passed, I came they said “come right in.” After about twenty times the owner of the restaurant said, “I should tell you that Joe’s takes care of the locals, and the locals take care of the staff. Everyone is fascinated by the fact that, when you shake hands, you have nothing in it.”  The next time I went I said, “all of the staff are members of the Wolfsonian and you can come whenever you want.” [laughing]

 

LG: [laughing]. Was your table ready?

 

M: Yes. [laughing]

 

LG: I was looking back to when I was writing my book Keys Cuisine I saw some things from when you invited me to eat with you in the Keys. Tell me about the inside of the Wolfson kitchen.

 

MW: My mother was a superb cook. That’s from that time. The house was famous for its Southern cuisine.

 

LG: There was a lime chiffon pie and it brought me back. You know my mother-in-law taught me that when I got married. It really brought back memories.

 

MW: These women were tricky because they always left a little something out that only they knew. It was a great house for food. My parents loved good food. My father ate grunts and avocado paired.

 

LG: There are celebrities in your book and wonderful photographs.

 

MOD: There is one of Anita Ekberg that is fabulous. She’s holding a champagne glass that doesn’t look anything like our champagne glasses today.  It’s a great shot.

 

FT: They would’ve needed a whole different glass for her.

 

MOD: Yes, they would’ve needed a whole bottle.

 

LG: On that note we’re going to take a break. We’re talking about the book Blueprint of an Eden by Michele Oka Doner and Mickey Wolfson. We’ll take a short break and be right back.

 

[break]

 

LG: We’re back. We’ve been talking with Michele Oka Doner and Mickey Wolfson about their book. The photographs are fabulous. How did you get them?

 

MOD: We both had albums because our parents lived such public lives. One of the photographs that encouraged me to see them published was the one of my mother with Chiang Kai Shek. My mother explained that George Storer was a big supporter of her husband and she came here to raise money for the Chinese Army.

 

LG: Who is that?

 

MW: The Cox television station was the major broadcaster. His television station was at

79^th Street

Causeway.

 

LG: It’s so wonderful to have this record. Well, it’s dinner in minutes time. Mickey, I know your family lived in the Keys.

 

MW: My family did. My parents met in 1924 when my mother was 17. Her family was from

Pensacola.

 

LG: My dinner in minutes is a snapper dish. Fish has been an important part of the Wolfson kitchen. Today I have a chili cumin crusted snapper. If you want the recipe, please visit my website www.dinnerinminutes.com. Fred, tell us your great wine stories!

 

FT: Mickey and I are friends from a long time back at the

Johns Hopkins School in

Bologna. My fond memory of that time is carrying the big glass jug into the wine shop and they’d fill it up for 40 cents. It was that wonderful Italian wine Lambrusco. It’s a modest wine but in those days we were more interested in quantity than quality.

 

MW: It was a very good wine, the dry Lambrusco. But in this country it’s rather sweet.

 

JC: Like Chianti?

 

FT: No, it’s quite modest and it’s sweet here. I ran across it in

Miami after Hurricane Andrew. The National Guard was here to help everyone and I went down to see what kind of wine they were drinking. They were living in huge air-conditioned tents and their refrigerator was full of Lambrusco. Mickey, I remember you got around

Italy when we were there. What did you like at that time?

 

MW: The Sangiovese, the Lambrusco of course, and not far from

Florence we had exposure to all sorts of Chianti. Montepulciano was unknown in that day. That has come on the market since we were there. The Montalcino was not current at all. What else did we drink? I drank Inferno because I loved the name. I still drink it!

 

FT: A real splurge would be a bottle of Suave. One of the great things about that school is that we would always find time to go up into the hill villages around

Bologna and have these six hour lunches and sit outside drinking good, modest wine.

 

LG: Was it expensive?

 

FT: No. I remember we had a maid and it cost us 48 cents an hour split three ways. The Euro, well there was no Euro, but the exchange rate was much better.

 

LG: Anything else?

 

JC: Careful Fred.

 

FT: That’s all I can say on the radio.

 

MW: I did want to say that our book is modeled off of a kind of pre-novel that was written by Jane Barker in 1722. In those days novels had a different form. But before novels had a structure they did what we did. Novels had a recipe and poetry with fragmented items in them. We wanted an epistolary memoir. The book is in the form of letters. I write a letter to Michelle and she responds with images.

 

LG: Michelle is a wonderful artist. Where can we see your work?

 

MOD: In

Dade County at the

Miami International Airport and in

New York in the MTA.

 

MW: It’s a dialogue. We try to reconnect. We wondered what we had left so it’s a book of rediscovery. It’s about two people who went off on different adventures to find what life was all about and then we came back and discovered and shared our experiences with our readers. It was a fascinating voyage of rediscovery.

 

LG: Are you back here now Mickey?

 

MW: Well, this is my home. This is where the Wolfsonian is.

 

LG: Tell us about the Wolfsonian.

 

MW: The Wolfsonian is a museum about ideas. It has historical context. It reflects time and geography. It’s located on the beach and it’s open the public. It’s good for people interested in design.

 

LG: Another fascinating and tasty week has gone by. Thank you to you both. Their book is Miami Beach: Blueprint of an Eden. It’s a pictorial history of

Miami Beach. Join us next week.