The
sort which grew in New York, on lower Sixth Avenue and in the region of
Jefferson Market and on the soft exposures south of Washington Square,
were none the less acceptable because they were of the commonest Italian
variety.
The Marches spent a good deal of time and money in a grocery of that
nationality, where they found all the patriotic comestibles and potables,
and renewed their faded Italian with the friendly family in charge.
Italian table d'hotes formed the adventure of the week, on the day when
Mrs. March let her domestics go out, and went herself to dine abroad with
her husband and children; and they became adepts in the restaurants where
they were served, and which they varied almost from dinner to dinner. The
perfect decorum of these places, and their immunity from offence in any,
emboldened the Marches to experiment in Spanish restaurants, where red
pepper and beans insisted in every dinner, and where once they chanced
upon a night of 'olla podrida', with such appeals to March's memory of a
boyish ambition to taste the dish that he became poetic and then pensive
over its cabbage and carrots, peas and bacon. For a rare combination of
international motives they prized most the table d'hote of a French lady,
who had taken a Spanish husband in a second marriage, and had a Cuban
negro for her cook, with a cross-eyed Alsation for waiter, and a slim
young South-American for cashier.
Pages:
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737