lunch with alice and abby (lyn)

When I first moved to New York in 1985, I knew no one, but I had a job.  I was hired as a Product Manager on Caress soap for Lever Brothers.  The person I was replacing, Allen, had vacated the position to return to the advertising side of the business.

I soon learned that Allen had dated just about every eligible girl in Manhattan, at least that was his reputation.  So soon after arriving, he called me.  His excuse?  “I thought you’d find it helpful if we got together and I can tell you what you need to know about the bar soap category.”  I had no idea New York people could be so friendly.

We got together at a bar, and talked about soaps for a quarter of a second, if that.  Allen is a great guy; we are still in touch.  And though I had no interest in dating him, I fell in love with his many female friends.  That summer, I was in a house with Allen in Westhampton, and through him, met Carol, then Abby, then Alice.  We all shared many great times together.  Among them:  skiing in Vermont with Carol and Abby; skiing in Vail with Alice and Abby;   playing in London and Paris with Carol when she lived there;  and hanging around New York with all three.

For no good reason, I lost touch with all of them over the years, but in March of 2009, we all got together for lunch.  It was so much fun, that we decided to make it a monthly thing.  We set a date that very day.  Even picked a place, I think.  But then, someone had to cancel, and despite a few emails, we never did get together.

So a couple of weeks ago, I decided it’s time.  I sent out an email, and unlike last time, picking a date when everyone was free (Abby and Carol live in Westchester) was relatively easy. 

Yesterday Carol told us that she couldn’t come, due to a sickness in her family.  We missed her, but decided to go ahead and meet anyway.

Abby picked a relatively new place called Eataly in the Flat Iron district.  It’s a sprawling marketplace that boasts of everything Italian food-related.  There is a fish market.  An espresso bar.  Places to buy artistic Italian cookware.  And open-eating areas segregated by type.  Pasta.  Meat.  Etc.  We choose to eat in the vegetable-themed area, primarily because it is the only place where we can find an available table.

Even though I haven’t seen Alice and Abby in 18 months, it feels comfortable and familiar, as always.  We start the lunch with crusty bread, presented in brown wrapping paper.   We all order the vegetable soup (no cream and delicious) along with sides of acorn squash, some kind of Japanese eggplant, and bruschetta with (I think) broccoli rabe, fennel, and something else on it.  (Imagine tracking all this; I won’t be).

The meal is perfect except for two things.  Because the restaurants are divided by type-of-food, if you want coffee with your meal, you have to leave the table, travel over to the crowded espresso bar area, wait in line there, and purchase coffee to bring back to the vegetable area.  (Abby kindly does this and brings us all back Macchiatos, my new favorite coffee).  And two, because Eataly is such a popular place, the long line waiting to sit down makes us feel guilty lingering too long.

Our near-perfect lunch ends too quickly.  We leave with promises of doing this again soon.