[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I'm Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City where we still live.

[00:28] Meg: And where we are podcasting about New York City in the 80's, I do ripped from the headlines.

[00:34] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:37] Meg: Jessica, lay it on. So, Jessica, don't kill me, but

[00:44] Jessica: Well that is such I don't know if I'm excited or enraged.

[00:50] Meg: Well, you'll find out in a couple of seconds.

[00:53] Jessica: Okay.

[00:53] Meg: Billy and I watched After Hours without me. Without you. I will watch it again, though. But this is the most exciting piece of information. Billy rates all of the movies that he watches, and you know he's watching a movie a day. Five stars out of five.

[01:14] Jessica: Out of five? Really?

[01:14] Meg: That is how much he loved After Hours.

[01:19] Jessica: Well, it's good to know that the youngsters also are enjoying what we know to be solid gold.

[01:30] Meg: It stands up. I'm just saying.

[01:32] Jessica: Oh, that's so great. What did he love most about it?

[01:35] Meg: You know, he just laughed. He just kept laughing. And it's so weird. And he likes really weird stuff. Yeah.

[01:43] Jessica: Great. I love that. That is great news.

[01:46] Meg: I know.

[01:47] Jessica: It does soften the blow of your having cheated on me.

[01:50] Meg: I apologize. But again, I will watch it with you if you would like me to. And we also heard from one of our listeners, Fred.

[01:58] Jessica: Hi, Fred.

[01:59] Meg: And Fred wanted to share with me that he went to Sammy's Roumanian Steakhouse before it closed. And this is from Fred.

[02:07] Jessica: Okay.

[02:08] Meg: It stank of garlic and was always loud, usually festive, often a little alien, but easy to get caught up in. It was a very quick way to unwittingly blow a couple hundred of dollars. I met a girl from there. We dated for almost a year, and nearly every day we dated, she reminded me that we had no future since I was, and still am a WASP. And she was, and presumably still is Jewish. Her mom loved me and invited me to Passover. Her dad just looked at me and shook his head a lot. The food was sometimes great, but usually not, christ the vodka. Sammy's had the weird feeling of a large, boisterous family gathering and I was a distant cousin that said I never felt out of place once I accepted Sammy's for what it was, and I hope they bring it back, stained drop ceilings and all.

[03:02] Jessica: Is that great? That is absolutely marvellous. I love it. Yeah, I think it's one of the best descriptions I've heard of it.

[03:12] Meg: And it is exciting because they keep saying that they're going to bring it back. I hope that would do that. Yeah. I mean, that's what if you go on the Internet, they say maybe, well.

[03:22] Jessica: They should open it up in a wing next to the cardiac center at Weill Cornell. It would be perfect, like a canteen. And then they just wheel you straight into surgery.

[03:37] Meg: Well, if they do open up, obviously we have to be there.

[03:40] Jessica: Well, done.

[03:43] Meg: Ready for your engagement question?

[03:45] Jessica: Is there a trigger warning today?

[03:48] Meg: No, I don't think so.

[03:49] Jessica: Okay. Yes, I'm ready for my engagement.

[03:51] Meg: What was your favorite book that you read in high school?

[03:56] Jessica: In high school?

[03:56] Meg: Yeah, like a book that we had to read in English class.

[03:59] Jessica: That is so hard because it's just a blur. The only thing I can remember reading, actually, you like this. It was we had a Faulkner class. What was his name?

[04:11] Meg: I took that class.

[04:14] Jessica: Yes, you were in the class. What was his name?

[04:16] Meg: Mr.

[04:17] Jessica: He used to be Mr.

[04:20] Meg: Mr. White? Am I making that up?

[04:21] Jessica: Voight. Voight? Was it Voight?

[04:23] Meg: I think so.

[04:24] Jessica: Okay. Yes. Vote, vote, vote. V-O-G-T see Together we can rule the world.

[04:32] Meg: I loved that class.

[04:34] Jessica: And I remember, I suppose, that it had the biggest impression on me because I remember it so vividly. And I remember that he really had our number as the little private school girls that we were. Because I remember vividly there was a section in I don't know, As I Lay Dying or one of the Yoknapatawpha County books, and one of the characters says that they needed to go "a fur piece". And he stopped the class and said, does anyone know what "a fur piece" is? And everyone's hand goes up, and someone, possibly me, was like, you know, like a mink stole or something. And he says no. And every hand went down at the same time. He's like, no, it's dialect for a long way. And we were all like so I can tell you that I remember that class.

[05:38] Meg: I love that. When I was thinking of what my favorite book was, I was thinking Pride and Prejudice. Certainly a Jane Austen. I was surprised when I would meet people who didn't read Jane Austen in high school, because I think maybe that's, like, special for all girl schools. Am I crazy?

[05:55] Jessica: Do you remember the scene from Metropolitan about that?

[05:58] Meg: No. Is there one?

[06:00] Jessica: Yeah. The main character, Audrey, female character. Audrey is talking to the main character I forgot his name the redhead boy who's sort of the outsider. And she says, have you read Jane Austen? He says, oh, I don't read books. I only read criticism. She is going on and on about how wonderful it is and how great Pride and Prejudice is, and he can only comment on the very male, very academic slam of it. Like, it's not serious literature. And Audrey is kind of like, all right.

[06:38] Meg: Well, yes. Today's story is actually kind of a part two to a story that you talked about a couple of weeks ago. My sources are Let Me Take You Down by Jack Jones The Gothamist, it's a podcast called Crime Culture, which is highly recommended. These ladies are amazing and Wikipedia.

[07:04] Jessica: Okay.

[07:05] Meg: John Lennon had to be up pretty early on Monday, December 8, 1980. Annie Leibowitz was coming over to shoot the cover photo for Rolling Stone, and John needed to get a haircut at the barber shop close to his home at The Dakota on 72nd in Central Park West. Mark David Chapman also got up early on December 8. He had to make final preparations for his big day. He was staying at the Sheridan Hotel in Times Square, which was $83 a night. He had been staying at the YMCA on the Upper West Side, but had decided to splurge for this one night. On the top of his hotel dresser he arranged his special things in a semicircle, his passport, an 8-track tape of the music of Todd Rundgren, his pocket Bible open to The Gospel According to John. A letter from a former YMCA supervisor at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, where five years earlier he had worked with refugees from the Vietnam War. Two photographs of himself surrounded by laughing Vietnamese children. And at the center of the arrangement of personal effects, he had placed a small Wizard of Oz poster of Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion. Quote "I woke up knowing somehow that when I left that room, that was the last time I would see the room again. I truly felt it in my bones. I don't know how. I had never seen John Lennon up to that point. I only knew that he was in The Dakota, but I somehow knew that it was it. This was the day. So I laid out on the dresser at the hotel room just a tableau of everything that was important in my life. So it would say, look, this is me. I practiced what it was going to look like when the police officers came into the room."

[08:58] Jessica: Wow, that is chilling.

[09:02] Meg: Then Chapman heads for The Dakota, buying a copy of The Catcher in the Rye on the way. He didn't have one with him. Very strange. He writes inside the cover this is my statement, and signs it Holden Caulfield. When he arrives outside the building, he makes small talk with Paul Goresh, a photographer who is friendly with Lennon and is looking to snap a few pics of John as he comes and goes. Chapman tells Paul that he is from Hawaii and is waiting for John, hoping to get him to autograph his copy of Double Fantasy, John and Yoko's album that had come out in November. Somehow he misses John returning from his haircut. Annie Leibowitz arrives at the apartment at 11:00 a.m. and at first wants to photograph John and Yoko naked. Yoko was not a huge fan of the idea, but the single polaroid Annie takes of Yoko clothed, lying on her back, and a naked John embracing her in a fetal position is magic. All three are very happy with it. Quote "You've captured our relationship exactly." At 12:40 Dave Sholin from RKO Radio and his crew arrive at The Dakota to interview John about the album. John speaks candidly about the lost revolutionary focus of the 1960s and his advocacy for world peace and feminism. Quote "Maybe in the 60s we were naive and like children. And later everyone went back to their rooms and said we didn't get a wonderful world of flowers and peace. The world is a nasty, horrible place because it didn't give us everything we cried for, right? Crying for it wasn't enough." At the end of the interview, he said, I consider that my work won't be finished until I'm dead and buried, and I hope that's a long, long time. Downstairs on the street, five year old Sean Lennon, Yoko and John's son returns home from their estate in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, with his nanny, Helen Seaman. Mark David Chapman reaches in front of Helen to shake Sean's hand and tells him he's a beautiful boy, quoting Lennon's song and Sean and Helen head upstairs. At 4:30 once the interview wraps up, John and Yoko and the RKO radio crew head out. Dave Sholin offers to give John and Yoko a ride to Record Plant Studio in Hell's Kitchen, where they plan to work on a new single, Walking on Thin Ice. As they exit the building, Chapman approaches John and shows him his Double Fantasy album. John asks him if he wants him to sign it. Chapman nods. Paul Goresh snaps a few pictures of the two men. Quote "I was taking a picture of John and I was trying to squeeze Chapman out of the photo. He was such a nuisance all that day that I was trying to get him out of the picture". John and Yoko have a great session with producer Jack Douglas. Some of the lyrics they record that night include quote "I may cry someday, but the tears will dry whichever way and when our hearts return to ashes, it will just be a story. It'll just be a story." At 10:50, John and Yoko head back home, hoping to say good night to Sean before he falls asleep. After exiting their limo, John makes eye contact with Chapman as he passes him. Chapman pulls out a .38 Special revolver, crouches and fires five hollow point bullets at John's back and shoulder, puncturing his left lung and left subclavian artery. John collapses in the front vestibule of The Dakota. Yoko screams, "John's been shot." Building worker Jay Hastings calls 911. Chapman sits on the curb and opens up The Catcher in the Rye. Officer Steve Spiro arrives in minutes and takes John in his squad car to Roosevelt Hospital on 59th street between Columbus and Amsterdam. John is officially pronounced dead at 11:20 in the ER after losing 80% of his blood. In the meantime, Chapman is arrested without incident. In his statement to police 3 hours later, he said, quote "I'm sure a large part of me is Holden Caulfield. The small part of me is the devil." I just thought it was interesting to just sort of plot the day..

[13:39] Jessica: No, it's fascinating day, and the plotting of the day makes it very grizzly, just because you see how very very well thought out, but at the same time because obviously this is an external act. This is the killing of another person. But the way that you started the description of it all, it was all about Mark David Chapman. For Mark David Chapman, it had nothing like it was tangentially about the person whose life and family's lives he ruined. And I really want to know what that Wizard of Oz situation is about.

[14:19] Meg: Well, there were some similarities to our Tompkins Square Park killer. He had a huge sense of grandiosity. He was obsessive about things. It wasn't just Catcher in the Rye and John Lennon. He was obsessive about Around the World in 80 days. He got obsessive about the movie Ordinary People. He was just obsessive. And once he got on something, he just couldn't let go of it. So it wasn't about John Lennon, it wasn't about Catcher in the Rye. He got obsessive about religion, and he thought he had little people. Followers.

[14:59] Jessica: Wait, what do you mean by that?

[15:02] Meg: He said he had followers. People who followed him mean, like, as a cult leader, right. But they didn't exist. And he called them, his little people. So again, there's this, like, sense of.

[15:16] Jessica: Did he see his little people?

[15:18] Meg: He heard his little people.

[15:20] Jessica: Okay, so he's schizophrenic.

[15:22] Meg: Right.

[15:23] Jessica: I'm not a doctor, licensed MD, but it seems pretty much some clear cut schizophrenic behavior.

[15:30] Meg: Right.

[15:32] Jessica: But when you said little people, I was like the residents of the Land of Oz, because I thought that's what you were a year ago. What are they called? Munchkins. Munchkins. Sorry.

[15:48] Meg: Bit of a tangent or not.

[15:50] Jessica: No. Look. Little people. Wizard of Oz. Munchkins. I think that's a pretty direct route to, you know, his crazy town.

[15:59] Meg: And did you know that he did not plead not guilty by reason of insanity? He insisted on pleading guilty because he didn't want people to think he was crazy.

[16:11] Jessica: That ship sailed.

[16:13] Meg: So as a result, he might have been out by now, so we can't.

[16:18] Jessica: Put him in the walks amongst us.

[16:20] Meg: No, he's never I don't think he's he's been denied parole eleven times. He's up again in August of this year.

[16:27] Jessica: I don't think you can kill John Lennon and ever get out. Could you imagine what would happen?

[16:32] Meg: But the fact that he's in a jail instead of in a mental hospital.

[16:35] Jessica: Is what, you think a mental hospital is going to actually do him any good?

[16:39] Meg: It seems like a more appropriate place.

[16:41] Jessica: I hear you. And this is I know when suddenly we get angry letters because I'm like, who cares? Put them in the hole. Yeah. Hard to have sympathy.

[16:51] Meg: Oh, please I have absolutely no sympathy. Especially there's all this sort of, like, he thought that his masculinity was being threatened. There's all kinds of stuff that's just incredibly unattractive about this guy that just made me go, you know, fuck you, and trying to be important and all of that. But I do think it's interesting that because of the gravity of what he did, because of the person that he killed I mean, people have, of course, written about his mental health issues, but no one really cared about his mental health issues. They were like, that's sort of beside the point. And the prosecutor, in fact, said that he did it to become famous. That's not true. Obviously, he had something going on.

[17:38] Jessica: That doesn't track. The whole thing about the insanity defense is my understanding is if you're so cuckoo crazy that that is a legit plea, your legal defense is going to pretty much insist, like, this is the way to go. This is what's going to happen now. And if you're a nut ball, your ability to make those decisions is pretty what..

[18:09] Meg: Well, exactly. That's what happened.

[18:10] Jessica: But for him to say consciously, I do not want to get off by reason of insanity, I think, good, fine. Then stay in the clink.

[18:22] Meg: No, I mean, I don't think anyone is shedding a tear. I just think it's interesting that people.

[18:27] Jessica: Didn't care about his mental state.

[18:30] Meg: Or interested. They weren't interested in his mental state.

[18:33] Jessica: Well, think about this. Three years earlier, was Son of Sam another card carrying kook. Yes, it was very clear that he was deranged.

[18:51] Meg: Actually, that is in question.

[18:54] Jessica: Well, at the time can we just go with, like, from the perspective at the time, three years earlier, Son of Sam was out killing people and used the insanity defense.

[19:06] Meg: Right. Very intentional.

[19:07] Jessica: Right. And so I think it's interesting that when this one, only three years later, was a murderer most foul and specifically said, no, that's kind of interesting. Like what what was, what was I just imagined like there was something culturally significant to him about separating himself from it's. Not just the idea of being crazy. Like there was a very famous the dog told me to do it in recent years. Maybe that had some resonance. Who knows?

[19:45] Meg: He gave a bunch of different reasons. One of them was he wanted to promote The Catcher in the Rye.

[19:50] Jessica: There are other ways to do book promotion. I'm not really sure. As a publishing insider, I would have to say not top of the list.

[20:01] Meg: But the fact that he said, I don't want to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. And the judge was like, well, you're sane enough to not plead if you're.

[20:14] Jessica: Fighting its own tail. Yes. If you're this, then you're this, then you're that. Ergo an equals B equals C. But not quite in this scenario. If you're if you're sane enough to say that you're crazy, then you must be sane. If you're crazy enough to say that you're sane, are you sane or are you crazy.

[20:31] Meg: Exactly.

[20:31] Jessica: I got it. I know that was really..

[20:32] Meg: No, thank you. I was not going to get there.

[20:37] Jessica: Well, Mark David Chapman, universally reviled for good reason

[20:42] Meg: And never getting out.

[20:44] Jessica: And never get out.

[20:45] Meg: I hope I will not have an update in August 2022.

[20:48] Jessica: Could you imagine? I don't know what would happen in this city if he was.

[20:53] Meg: But you know what? Yoko Ono has tp every couple of years, when he comes up for parole, she has to go or write in. She has to be faced with speaking to a parole board about the fact that this man should stay in jail, which I think is incredibly unfair.

[21:09] Jessica: It's horrible.

[21:09] Meg: She never refers to him by name.

[21:11] Jessica: The killer.

[21:12] Meg: Yeah, she calls him the subject.

[21:14] Jessica: Good for her. Horrible, horrible, horrible. But that is very illuminating. And the blow by blow of the day is chilling. It's like, what did you do? Hello, Meg.

[21:33] Meg: Hello.

[21:33] Jessica: Hello, Laverne.

[21:36] Meg: What's she got for me?

[21:38] Jessica: Well, I'm hungry.

[21:39] Meg: Okay. Interesting.

[21:41] Jessica: And so just to torture myself, I thought I'd talk about food.

[21:45] Meg: All right.

[21:46] Jessica: Food in New York in the 80s, we talked about restaurants, but I thought we would talk about, well, what were they doing at those restaurants, and how did 80s cuisine change the landscape of how we eat here in the city? Okay, so here's my engagement question for you.

[22:09] Meg: Ready?

[22:10] Jessica: When in the 80s, if your parents said, let's go someplace for your birthday or whatever, what was your special occasion?

[22:19] Meg: Table d'Hôte, which is still there, the same menu and the same patrons on 92nd and Madison. I went there for my 16th birthday. I went there for my 21st birthday. I know. I think I went there for my 30th birthday.

[22:39] Jessica: It's a great place. It's also the size of this room that we're recording in. It's the tiniest place.

[22:45] Meg: Thanks to the pandemic. They have all this outdoor seating now, and it's much more comfortable.

[22:52] Jessica: Marvelous. Well, the place that I used to love doesn't exist anymore, and that made me think about, like, what are all of those 80s restaurants that are not around anymore? 

[23:05] Meg: What was the place that you?

[23:06] Jessica: Oh, it was Texarkana

[23:07] Meg: Oh, I love that place.

[23:08] Jessica: That place was fabulous. And it was before southwestern food became boring, like a commonplace thing.

[23:15] Meg: It doesn't bore me.

[23:17] Jessica: No, but, I mean, it wasn't a trend, right? Yet it was in and of itself, the trend excellent. And the space was fantastic. You remember it was quite large, and they had the balcony that ran around.

[23:30] Meg: Am I crazy? Yeah. No, I think I might be confusing it with a different place, where one side was Texas, and one side was Mexico.

[23:40] Jessica: Oh, that is something else.

[23:42] Meg: Is that El Rio Grande? That's what that is. Anyway, sorry.

[23:45] Jessica: Anyway, Texarkana was blackened, this chipotle that, before anyone was doing it. And I remember they would put on the table instead of regular, and this is how think about how much food has changed in the 80s, the idea of putting down a basket of bread and having it be anything other than French bread was unheard of. So even like focacia was like magical, spongy substance. And at Texarkana, they did little mini cornbreads sticks with jalapenos in them because you're.

[24:23] Meg: Making me hungry, too.

[24:25] Jessica: And they were oh, my God, they were so good. So that was my thing. So I was thinking about, like, okay, why did you food and what were the trends and how did it change and how was it that the way that we ate in New York in the 80s changed the way that we just relate to eating out generally?

[24:46] Meg: It's one of my favorite things to do in the city, actually, is to go out to eat. I love it.

[24:51] Jessica: Well, I could not agree with you more.

[24:53] Meg: Some people don't like it. Isn't that interesting?

[24:55] Jessica: Why would they say they don't like it? What's the complaint?

[24:58] Meg: I don't know. I guess homebodies or something.

[25:01] Jessica: But I love the way people who like to say it, home, those pigs.

[25:07] Meg: But to me, I'm just like, that's what I want to do in New York. But it's also kind of what I want to do wherever I go. I love going out and just seeing what the scene is.

[25:18] Jessica: That's not surprising considering that you are an actor and being out and eating out is theater. Interesting. I know. See how I did that? I turned that around, but that's it. So as I was mulling this over and I started to think about what are some of the iconic restaurants of the 80s here in the city? And the first thing that popped into my head is a fictional restaurant, Dorsia from American Psycho, where he can't ever get a reservation, right? And funny enough, there's actually a restaurant now on 19th street that is called that.

[25:56] Meg: That is very funny.

[25:58] Jessica: Yes. But the idea of the elusive place that is the see and be seen, he couldn't get in, but he held his his colleagues slash friends in such contempt because they couldn't. And I was like, it was so the thing, right? Anyway, so I was thinking about what were these iconic places and what did they serve? So I did a little bit of research, okay. And I was like, well, what the hell were we eating? Because what I remember was pesto. That was like the birth of pesto beyond a traditional Italian restaurant. And it was pasta primavera. Do you remember? You couldn't go anyplace without having, basically spaghetti with some random chopped up vegetables stuffed in it with a little cream sauce. It's like, TADA. It's marvelous. No, that's just some peas that you stuck in there. And I'm sure it was wonderful when Wolfgang Puck first did it.

[27:01] Meg: There you go.

[27:01] Jessica: So here are some of the foods that were not popular prior to the 80s and the restaurants in New York were part of what made this big. And I'm saying the restaurants in New York. Because at the same time in California, The French Laundry became a big thing and started to introduce the whole farm to table fresh vegetables out of the garden owned by the restaurant thing. But this is New York. It was competitive eating.

[27:30] Meg: Yes.

[27:31] Jessica: So, French onion soup. This is from www.mirror80.com, a blog that says, reflecting on recent retro style and unlike so many things that we've been talking about that refer to the 80s as ancient history. I love this person who has this blog to call it recent retro Style. And one of the things that this blogger says that's really kind of wonderful is that in the 80s, there was the obsessive diet trends and the I can eat this, I can't eat that. I eat this. My face falls off. I eat that. I'm bloated for days. And that means that I'm ill.

[28:11] Meg: So that started in the 80s?

[28:13] Jessica: No, it didn't exist. Okay, so eating was less of a trial to one's nerves, and eating with other people was less of a trial to one's nerves.

[28:23] Meg: Was anyone a vegetarian in New York?

[28:25] Jessica: Hippies. Dirty, dirty hippies. Although hilariously in law school. So it was early 90s, like 1993, my study partner and I decided that we were going to get healthy. We're these like, boozing, smoking, ridiculous, cheese eating, whatever people. And we're like, we're going to get healthy. So our way of getting healthy was to go to an organic vegan restaurant. But they didn't call it vegan. But I remember vividly, we were so excited. We're like, we're going to get our health on. And we were served basically a raw yam. And we were both like, what the fuck is this nonsense? So Neil, if you're listening, remember the yam? Yeah. So that was the end of healthy eating for us. But vegans, vegetarians, that was for people who weren't really part of a food scene. That was more of like a a cultural, a counterculture. 80s food. First the food. See, I would like you to react to these according to your fondness and or memory. Any stories these bring up, let it fly. French onion soup.

[29:46] Meg: Well, I actually eat everything except for liver and French onion soup.

[29:53] Jessica: Why no onion soup?

[29:55] Meg: And actually I do eat liver in the form of pate. But French onion soup I had a reaction to French onion soup once. I had hives all over my body. But as it turned out, I don't think it was the French onion soup. I think it was my mother stressing me out. I'm not kidding, because I was still sucking my thumb long after one should be sucking one's thumb.

[30:20] Jessica: Me too.

[30:21] Meg: And we took a long car ride, and she sat next to me in the back seat, and she kept pulling my hand out of my mouth. And it was my comfort. And I broke out in hives all over my body because I could not suck my thumb. And we all sort of decided it was because I had French onion soup. It wasn't the soup.

[30:43] Jessica: It wasn't the soup.

[30:44] Meg: It was my mother.

[30:45] Jessica: Oh, no. All right, well, that's a shanda. I'm very sorry, lobster bisque.

[30:53] Meg: Oh, yum. Yeah, yum. I had that. I had lobster bisque at The Water Club for my graduation lunch.

[31:03] Jessica: From Nightingale.

[31:04] Meg: From Nightingale. I remember it was like the best soup I had ever had in my life.

[31:09] Jessica: Is really, like, the reason to eat soup.

[31:11] Meg: Oh, my Lord.

[31:12] Jessica: As previously mentioned, pasta primavera and pasta salad. Pasta salad. Remember, that wasn't a thing until the 80s then suddenly it was like, why is there a vinaigrette on this pasta? And salami, what happened here? And some cheese sticks or throws, like gouda. Anyway, angel hair pasta.

[31:33] Meg: Oh, I love angel hair pasta. With pesto.

[31:36] Jessica: Funny enough, our dear friend Alejandra, her daughter my Goddaughter, Emma was here, and.

[31:43] Meg: She' going to Nightingale.

[31:46] Jessica: I guess she was here. It must have been like, two years ago. And I was just scraping around in the pantry for something to serve them, and I had some angel hair pasta. This child has been living in Rome her entire life. I served her angel hair pasta. She's like, this is magical. What is this?

[32:06] Meg: She is such a lovely person.

[32:08] Jessica: I know. And I was like, what do you mean, what is this? You live in Rome. It's pasta. She's like, no, I've never had it. It's so fluffy. It's so amazing. I was like, Is this an American made up nonsense that's happening? I don't know. So here it is on the list of 80s items. So, Emma, guess what? You're going to have more angel hair. Blackened meat

[32:33] Meg: Thank you.

[32:33] Jessica: Paul Prudhomme, the rise of Cajun cooking.

[32:36] Meg: Yes. Yum. Sorry.

[32:39] Jessica: Chicken marsala, sushi.

[32:42] Meg: That's what I was thinking the second you said what was a trend in the 80s? Sushi was a trend in the 80s

[32:49] Jessica: Remember how it was like, really like, oh, my God, you're going to put that in your mouth?

[32:54] Meg: It's so exotic. Quiche, of course.

[32:58] Jessica: Goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes.

[33:01] Meg: Yes.

[33:02] Jessica: The overuse of the sun dried tomato. And remember how people didn't understand that you should soak it first? So you had these little chewy bits of what tasted like dried up pasta sauce, like from dirty dishes that were just stuck. Foam. I think that was a 90s, yeah.

[33:23] Meg: I don't feel like I met a foam until I don't.

[33:26] Jessica: Chocolate mousse and berry tarts.

[33:28] Meg: Totally remember chocolate mousse.

[33:30] Jessica: And remember every dessert was a chocolate decadence. Death by chocolate death. Chocolate. Chocolate. Anyway, so that got me thinking and of course, made me very hungry. And then I was thinking about, well, what were the restaurants and which were the restaurants that brought certain foods to the forefront.

[33:47] Meg: So I wonder if I went to any of them. I don't think I did.

[33:51] Jessica: I'm sure you did.

[33:52] Meg: No, we didn't really go out to dinner that much as a family, really? Not that I remember. Maybe I'm wrong.

[33:58] Jessica: I'm sure you're wrong.

[34:02] Meg: Yes, maam.

[34:02] Jessica: Kidding. There was Texarkana. There was Arcadia. Did you ever go there?

[34:08] Meg: I don't know.

[34:09] Jessica: Did you ever get taken to 21 Club?

[34:11] Meg: I did.

[34:13] Jessica: What was your 21 Club experience? [34:15] Meg: That was in college. My roommate Sarah, housemate, Sarah Clasi, had her 21st birthday here in New York City, and she brought a bunch of us into the city. We all stayed at The Carlyle hotel, which was fancy, and we went to 21 Club for dinner.

[34:33] Jessica: During my post second divorce era, I got taken on a date to 21 Club, and it still felt louche. It was a very alcoholic night. Maybe that's where I'm really coming from. But back to American Psycho. And Texarkana was in that movie, as was Nell's.

[34:53] Meg: Right? Nell's now, is Nell still around?

[34:56] Jessica: No.

[34:57] Meg: Oh, that's too bad. Right now it's The Darby. Okay.

[35:01] Jessica: 246 west 14th street. I used to go to Nell's.

[35:05] Meg: You know what I was confusing Nell's with Elaine's.

[35:07] Jessica: Oh, Elaine's.

[35:09] Meg: And that is now something else. But it's still a restaurant.

[35:14] Jessica: It's called The Writing Room.

[35:15] Meg: That's what it is. Like an homage to you and I have been there. Yes, we have had dinner there.

[35:20] Jessica: We had martinis there as an homage, didn't we?

[35:24] Meg: I did not.

[35:26] Jessica: Well, I had martini. I don't know what you did. I had a martini. But yeah, Nell's on 14th street was a club as well as a dinner thing. And it was so 80s. Like, everyone was wearing their tuxedo jackets with the shirt with, like, a wing collar shirt, but then like, a bolo tie or some buttoned up to the top. Right? Exactly. And Nick and I would go and we were, by far, as teenagers, the youngest people there, trying so hard to look incredibly cool and what's exhausting and exactly. And until I did the research, I didn't know that there was even a restaurant there. I was just in such a rigor of trying to be cool.

[36:05] Meg: There's Maxwell's Plum. I had lobster there.

[36:08] Jessica: You did?

[36:09] Meg: Yeah. I went on a first date there. His name was Neil, and he wanted to impress me. And he said, I want to order you lobster. And I said, okay. By the way, that would not have been what I would have ordered, but he wanted to order the most expensive thing on the menu. And it was, I got to say, amazing.

[36:29] Jessica: Was it something other than just a boiled lobster?

[36:32] Meg: You know, I don't think I had ever really experienced lobster before.

[36:36] Jessica: Really?

[36:37] Meg: And of course, it's all about the butter, but yeah, no complaining.

[36:41] Jessica: Isn't everything about butter in life, really, at the end of the day. Speaking of, I finally made Marcella Hazan or Hazen I don't know how you pronounce her name. H-A-Z-A-N. She's a famous pasta sauce recipe, which is essentially half an onion just in, San Marzano tomatoes until they collapse. And a stick of butter.

[37:03] Meg: Seriously?

[37:04] Jessica: That's all that's it.

[37:05] Meg: That's so exciting.

[37:06] Jessica: It's the best thing you've ever had

[37:10] Meg: Kind of onion did it have?

[37:11] Jessica: Just a big white onion. A big ol white onion. Just stick it in. So good. Highly recommend. Oh, my God.

[37:20] Meg: Very excited.

[37:20] Jessica: Yeah. Don't you love like a three ingredient recipe?

[37:23] Meg: Yeah.

[37:23] Jessica: That's amazing.

[37:24] Meg: So anyway, what was the famous sushi place? I feel like that was right across the street from The Public.

[37:32] Jessica: I remember going for Japanese food in the 70s with my dad in the East 50s, which is where all of the Japanese businessmen restaurants were. And sushi wasn't even really a thing then. You would sit in a tatami room and and because it was a real tatami room, there wasn't a well for your feet. It was actual cross legged.

[37:56] Meg: That's exciting.

[37:57] Jessica: It was all cooked food. There was some like a sukiyaki or something that we ordered and the thing that you're supposed to dip it in was just a beaten egg. And I remember being extraordinarily scarred by that. But the food was delicious. And that is still the place where you can get Japanese businessman lunch. My point being that in the 70s, with what we were raised on in our respective households, food was relatively plain, depending on where you were living. It was relatively processed. And the idea of fetishizing food did not exist. And especially because in the 70s, with the recession, with everything being so grim, frankly, entertaining at home was the rule of thumb. It was always the way. And that's where why everyone who got married at that time through the 90s got a fondue pot.

[38:57] Meg: Right?

[38:57] Jessica: Fondue, exactly.

[38:59] Meg: Bring back fondue.

[39:00] Jessica: Bring back fondue. So home entertaining, I guess, with the go go 80s. One of the big signs of not being in a recession and not having any troubles was eat out. Every single day. Eat out.

[39:17] Meg: Love it.

[39:18] Jessica: And that carried over to be reflected in the 90s when Carrie Bradshaw showed up on the scene and was very vocal about the fact that she kept her sweaters in the stove.

[39:31] Meg: Don't cook.

[39:33] Jessica: That's a sign of coming down.

[39:36] Meg: A friend of my dad's lived at The Sherry-Netherland and had a kitchen that she just converted into a closet. Because really, what's the point?

[39:48] Jessica: Wouldn't that be wonderful?

[39:50] Meg: I like to cook.

[39:52] Jessica: Look, I like to cook.

[39:53] Meg: And you are such a good cook.

[39:55] Jessica: COVID has really soured me on cooking. If I eat my own cooking one more time, I'm going to jump directly out the window.

[40:03] Meg: All right, you know what? We are going to go out to dinner. You and I have not been out to dinner in a while.

[40:09] Jessica: I know.

[40:10] Meg: Let's put it on the books.

[40:11] Jessica: A month?

[40:12] Meg: It's been a while. We've been very busy.

[40:15] Jessica: Two months?

[40:16] Meg: Yeah.

[40:17] Jessica: Good Lord, Meg.

[40:18] Meg: Well, we went to Island for reunion. That doesn't really count, though.

[40:23] Jessica: Although we were out, I suppose.

[40:25] Meg: Find an 80s restaurant.

[40:28] Jessica: We should go to an 80s restaurant and then report back.

[40:30] Meg: Yes, let's do that.

[40:32] Jessica: All right. We have to find something that is still around. Yes. And it had to have been founded in the 80s.

[40:38] Meg: Okay. That is our plan.

[40:39] Jessica: All right, so we'll get back but just for the record, for those of you who want to experiment in your own kitchens, if you need a taste of the 80s, get some pesto. Get a jar of pesto, get a log of the now ubiquitous goat cheese, and get some angel hair and throw them all in a pot together. And lo and behold, presto your back.

[41:06] Meg: Nobu

[41:07] Jessica: Nobu

[41:08] Meg: Just looked it up. Obviously, Nobu was the sushi place in the 80s across the street from The Public. And I remember you could never get a reservation. I have not been to Nobu, by the way.

[41:25] Jessica: Well, you're missing everything, obviously. Clearly.

[41:29] Meg: And we should go to The Odeon, or we can do some more research. But that's such an 80s place.

[41:35] Jessica: No, it would bring me so much joy to go have steak frites at The Odeon.

[41:39] Meg: Katie had a birthday party there. Do you remember?

[41:43] Jessica: I barely remember who you are.

[41:44] Meg: Okay.

[41:47] Jessica: I thought that was very cool. I'm sure I enjoyed it enormously at the time. Hi, Katie. So we didn't have an obvious crossover today, but we've manufactured one. Yes. I found out what John Lennon's favorite restaurant was. Tell us his local haunt. Cafe La Fortuna, which was right around the corner from The Dakota on West 71st street.

[42:17] Meg: That is so interesting. So he goes to the barber shop that's right around the corner from him. His favorite restaurant is right around the corner from him.

[42:24] Jessica: Well, in other words, he was a real New Yorker who wouldn't dare go past the seven block radius around his building.

[42:31] Meg: Building unless he's going to record something.

[42:33] Jessica: Well, and I'm sure he was in a car to go there. Actually, we know that he was. So, yeah, if you're going to huff it in New York, remember, you live in a village. It's a seven block radius around your building. Yeah. So Cafe La Fortuna, which was a great place and is now closed.

[42:52] Meg: Bummer bummer. Well, let's do a little research and find the 80s places that are still open.

[42:58] Jessica: Well, you know, we're going to start interviewing people, aren't we? So maybe we can do that at the restaurant. So we'll go to an 80s restaurant and be like, hello, old person like us. You look like you've been here before. Was it in 1983?

[43:15] Meg: Exactly.

[43:15] Jessica: Well, I think that's a cool plan, yo.

[43:18] Meg: Great. Let's do it.

[43:19] Jessica: All right.

[43:20] Meg: And also, listeners, if you have a chance to write a glowing review of our podcast, we would love you to do it.

[43:30] Jessica: How much do I love that? As you're saying, please write a glowing review. The dog started snoring down there.

[43:35] Meg: Thanks, Alfie.

[43:35] Jessica: I'm lord. That's an editorializing we do not need.

[43:40] Meg: But on Apple podcast. If you review things on Apple podcast, it helps so much.

[43:47] Jessica: Our dear friend of the podcast, Bronwyn, was trying to write a review and texted me to tell me that she had flubbed it up. But she did give us five stars.

[43:58] Meg: Yay. Take it.

[44:00] Jessica: Thank Bronwyn.

[44:02] Meg: Jessica. We've been doing this for three months.

[44:09] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[44:09] Meg: It's like a season.

[44:10] Jessica: Oh, my God, we're so industrious.

[44:14] Meg: I know.

[44:14] Jessica: I love it. Me, too.

[44:16] Meg: I love visiting with you. I love doing the research. I love learning so much about New York.

[44:21] Jessica: I love being grossed out constantly by weird gory, sinews and tendons. It's lovely. I love doing it, too.

[44:32] Meg: But it's the beginning of the summer, so I'm thinking maybe we should take a week off. Little break.

[44:37] Jessica: I think that sounds amazing, actually.

[44:41] Meg: Yeah.

[44:42] Jessica: Reinvent recharge. Yes. We need to get our mojo honed. All right, so what are we doing? We're going on vacation.

[44:53] Meg: Yeah.

[44:54] Jessica: So we won't have a podcast next week, but the week after, we're back, and we have to have something really spectacular.

[45:04] Meg: It's going to be amazing.

[45:05] Jessica: Okay. Let's get super weird. Okay. Okay.