caught (lyn)

Julie and I are seeing a screening of Mike Leigh’s new movie, Another Year.  When she suggests dinner I say, “Yes, of course,” and then agonize over where to eat.  Three criteria must be met:  inexpensive, healthy, and near the screening room.  I do a Google search of cheap eats in midtown and come up with the perfect sounding place, Macaron Café, described as, “your explicit shop to indulge in French culinary tradition with impeccable service and love.”  This little café lives up to its reputation. 

It’s a teeny tiny place.  Our small table is so small that we need two if we want our food to fit.  Julie and I both have a Venezia salad (arugula, artichokes, bresaola, tomatoes, fennel, pine nuts, red marinated peppers, and parmesan cheese).  The dressing is some kind of mustardy thing.  It is truly one of the best salads I’ve ever had.  I have an impeccably made cappuccino for dessert, along with the little café’s signature macaron cookies-one in pumpkin and one in raspberry.  At $20, it qualifies as a cheap eat, but the sophisticated food belies the category.

I get home from the movie late and see the big police trailer still parked in front of my apartment.  This morning at 5:40 I was awakened by the rotating green light that sits atop this large vehicle and blinks in my bedroom window.  I knock on the trailer door and a young policeman answers.  I ask him if he could please not turn on the rotating blinking light this evening.  He tells me not to worry.  “We’re moving out in a couple of hours.  We caught the guy.”  I can’t believe it.  In a city of 8.4 million, New York’s finest are able to find the upper eastside robber.  I lose a pair of glasses in my own apartment and they are never found again.  I am in awe.