Happy Ritual Spring Holiday!

I'm a sucker for spring flowers and holiday decor, as some of you may have gathered. Since spring break often means travel, I've collected spring photos from a number of different cities.

This year it was Amsterdam and London. In Amsterdam, we came across an alluring sign that read Urban Cacao, and found colorful chocolate eggs (above) that look like they've been spun by an ecstatic cult of yarn artists. Actually they are the playful work of Dutch chocolatier Hans Mekking.

Here's another one of his avant garde Easter egg works:

In London, it was all bunnies, chocolates and pastel treats at Fortnum and Mason, though since my family is partial to hot cross buns, we were all eyes for these specimens:

Back in New York,  the great Upper East Side bakery William Greenberg Desserts is Passover Central for those in search of unleavened kosher desserts. Greenberg carries an array of sponge cakes, special Passover lemon tarts and many varieties of macaroons. The demand for these items is so pressing they're placed under wraps in big metal carts that block the bakery's storefront windows, and pre-boxed to keep up with demand.

I did, however get this shot of freshly baked and bagged macaroons.

In true New York fashion, you can get both Passover and Easter desserts at Greenberg, and many tips on how to serve sponge cake, as I did. 

After such a long, bitter winter, I long to see more spring crocuses, daffodils and tulips. This London flower display was an early harbinger of spring in March:

Whatever spring ritual you are celebrating this month with family and friends, I hope it's festive, delicious and fun. 

Restaurant Gino Lives on in Cupcakeland

The other day I stopped in at the Upper East Side Sprinkles, 780 Lexington Avenue. There, on the north wall of the shop were the famous leaping zebras of the shop's previous tenant, the late, lamented Gino restaurant. Gino was the classic red sauce joint where Gay Talese and Ralph Lauren were regulars, where Woody Allen filmed a scene from Mighty Aphrodite, and where for 65 years generations of Upper East Siders came for their "secret sauce" and spaghetti, osso buco and lasagna.

Actually the original wallpaper was reported to have been taken by Gino co-owner Michael Miele when the restaurant closed in June 2010, to be installed in a successor that never came to life. But it must not have been hard to find a replacement; Scalamandre, the decorative fabric, wallcovering and trim store, still features the wallpaper pattern of leaping zebras (in different colors!) pursued by arrows. The pattern, a nostalgic touchstone for those in the know, was paraded out before a new audience in 2001, when it was featured in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums.

I took in the irony of the situation: Here were the remains of an extinct restaurant exotic, glimpsed at the moment the media was gleefully announcing the demise of its usurper--over-extended cupcake makers. The Wall Street Journal headline: "Forget Gold, the Cupcake Market is Crashing."The helpful Sprinkles server told me that customers still come in and get misty-eyed over the wallpaper, telling her exactly where in the space Gino's phone booth was located, where they always sat, and how much they missed the old place.

Perhaps one day the juice cleanse salon or organic soft serve place that replaces Sprinkles will keep the perpetually airborne zebras aloft and a new generation of customers will wax nostalgic about those great old-fashioned cupcakes they used to get here.

The reports of the cupcake boom's demise may be slightly premature, though: A new branch of Baked by Melissa just opened right across the street from Sprinkles, at 784 Lexington.

Have Refrigerated Meat, Will Travel: In Wake of Hurricane Sandy, Jake Dickson Wanders the Upper East Side

Inside his roving truck, Dickson and his meat remain chill, despite the disaster.

It's been surreal, sitting out Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath of death, destruction and displacement from the leafy confines of the Upper East Side. Just a few miles away, homeless people are wading through sewage or picking through rubble trying to salvage a few mementos, while up here, irate commuters stuck in traffic or waiting for the reduced-schedule Madison Avenue bus is about as bad as it gets. An incident early yesterday morning, though, brought the disaster closer to home.

On my power walk to the gym, I spotted a familiar face smiling at me on the corner of 84th and Lex. I waved and said hello, and a split-second later, put together face with name. It took a moment because the bearded visage was totally out of geographical context. What was downtown artisanal butcher, Jake Dickson, the guy behind Dickson's Farmstand Meats, doing on the Upper East Side, drinking coffee and loitering on a corner with his wife Jen and fluffy white Italian Spinone, Olive?

Of course, I realized, the Chelsea Market vendor must be among the tens of thousands of displaced downtowners, like the Greenwich Village friend who arrived yesterday afternoon to camp out in my apartment.

I'd be the first in line to buy if only some of these slabs were carved.

In Dickson's case, though, much more than a carton of spoiled milk is at stake. In preparation for Thanksgiving, he purchased a record seven-and-a-half animals, and says that when the power went out at his popular meat and sandwich shop he had to do triage. "We've had to prioritize, and sadly, abandon about 2,700 pounds of boneless beef, pork and lamb," he told me, about $15,000 worth of hanging carcass. To add to his losses, his car is likely totaled from the water damage it sustained.

 Leaving behind cheaper cuts like chuck, bottom round and trim, he packed up all of the cuts he dry ages, such as beef and pork loins and beef ribs. He salvaged his most valuable ribeyes andNew York strips as well as the "value-added" products he makes such as his bacon and pancetta. The latter take anywhere from three to five weeks to cure and represent thousands of hours of labor. The downside to a refrigerated truck full of valuable fresh and cured meat? "I'm staying with my in-laws and running the truck every few hours to keep it cold," says Dickson.

Roaming the streets of the UES all day and night looking for a new parking space is not Dickson's biggest problem though. Even more pressing is the need to reopen as soon as possible, since another round of already-slaughtered animals is hanging upstate, waiting for that empty refrigerated truck to come and pick it up. Since he only works with small local farmers, the orders for those animals were placed weeks ago, and time delays risk further losses and unhappy customers.

And as with every business shut down by the super-storm, the ripple effect can be measured in human livelihoods. "I have seventeen employees dying to get back to work," says Dickson. "Neither of our stores (he also runs a recently opened shop at the TriBeCa haute Food Hall All Good Things on Church Street) sustained any physical damage. We've cleaned up and can be ready to open within three hours of power coming back on."

Until then, you might see a white truck bearing black letters reading "Dickson's Farmstand Meats" inching along in post-hurricane gridlock. You'll know it's Jake Dickson, keeping his product chilled until the lights come on again downtown. 

Francois Payard Can Dish it up Cold, Too

Who says muggy, ugly weather can't have it's silver lining? Yesterday it was these cute little ice cream sandwiches in the French manner from irrepressible patissier Francois Payard. They are to the soggy chocolate wafer-wrapped specimens of old what the short rib and foie gras burger is to the Big Mac: artisanal sorbets and glaces sandwiched between springy, candy-colored macaron shells. My favorite:the passion fruit (far right), which has a refreshing astringency, though the pistachio-raspberry version gets the silver.

Guests lapped these frozen bonbons up in the bright new outpost of  FBP bakery at Columbus Circle (1775 Broadway at 58th St.), along with champagne and FP's newest brain-freeze wave: haute soft serve ice cream, the vanilla enlivened by three different types of vanilla beans, and the chocolate made with Valrhona. For now, this treat is only available on the Upper West Side (there are also FBP locations in Soho and Battery Park City, and an FP chocolate bar in the Plaza Hotel Food Hall).

The best news, at least to this wary new arrival on the Upper East Side, is the October opening of FP Patisserie, a resurrection of sorts for his former flagship patisserie in ladies-who-lunch territory, on Lexington Avenue between 74th and 75th Streets. It will include Payard's full array of cakes, desserts and chocolates, a dine-in bar for everything from coffee and tea to beer and wine, plus a lunch and brunch menu. "Everyone is going big, but I'm going small," says the master baker, of the 40-seat venue, which has been a hit concept for him in Las Vegas. For once, we can be happy that what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas.