I asked Santa to loan me a tall good-looking elf who loves food and older women.

          A few months after my guy Steven died in August 2012, I invited close friends and collectors of his photographs to a memorial celebration. He’d had a secret life I didn’t know on Facebook with friends from his life in Aspen. With help from those Facebook pals, I put together a slide show of his work and his life – starting with a photo of his mother pregnant with Steven that he kept on a shelf next to our bed.  Friends spoke about their memories. The kitchen of Atlantic Grill on West 64th outdid itself with passed hors d’oeuvre. I mention that because after 26 years trading plates with the InsatiableCritic, Steven had become as demanding a gourmand as I.

Steven Richter came into my life in 1986. So did camping and his son Nico.

          I remember thinking how thrilled Steven would be to see the people who came, to hear their tributes and memories, to taste the sushi and to sip a margarita.  He’d gone without booze for a long time and his liver had betrayed him after all, so a margarita or two wouldn’t mean a thing.  But there’s the catch. If you’re dead you don’t get to share the memories or revel in the affection or even call out the confabulations. 

Future ahead: This photo was in Steven's memorial slide show too. 

          I decided I would organize my own celebration while I was still around to attend, to brave the roasts, to giggle at the exposure of my frailties and to make sure the grilled cheese canapés were rich and drippy.

Designer Diane Velletri’s silhouhette for the van I bought Citymeals makes the invitation.

          I felt my 80th birthday creeping up. A suitable moment.  A friend, the graphic designer Diane Velletri. designed the invitation. I’d just entered a de-cluttering mode in my life, posting my fabulous vintage handbag collection on Etsy, trying to sell my hoards of vintage jewelry. Instead of rubies, bangles, rare first editions or toilet water from the gift closet, guests were asked to make to consider delivering meals to the city’s frail aged shutins in my name. 

I’d like to say they turned the Empire State Bldg crown green for me but they didn’t.

          I knew exactly where the party should be: Stella 34 Trattoria in Macy’s. I’d fallen for Stella fast. I loved sitting at a tall window with its skyscraper views, watching the Empire State building light up at night. I loved the high ceilings, the luxurious space, the pastas baked in the oven, so many vegetable options. I especially got a kick out of friends’ disbelief when I said “Meet me for dinner at Macy’s.” Macy’s? Yes, Macy’s.

Nick Valenti with Marcia Stein as she reveals ideas I gave that she tossed in the garbage.

          Our longtime Citymeals board member, restaurant magnate Nick Valenti, who came of age at Restaurant Associates and now drives Patina Group, has produced Citymeals events in the garden at Rockefeller Center since 1985, raising more than $20 million to deliver meals to our aging, frail homebound neighbors. Macy’s would be notoriously frantic and hungry in the week before Christmas, but he was willing to close Stella last Monday for my celebration and to spotlight Citymeals..

          Stella’s manager Matthew Gardiner seemed assigned to make me happy. I’d already raved about chef Jarett Appell’s rich-as-Croesus baked pastas, the roster of vegetables, the oven-baked chicken and dressed-up desserts by Stefanie Morgado.  All I had to do was ask…and it would on the menu.

From left, Jacques Torres, Katharine and Daniel Boulud, Mme Chocolat, Hasty Torres.

          Jacques and Hasty Torres provided chocolate bon bons and Citarella gave lemon tea cakes for the gift bags. Greenberg’s bakery created a  shortbread cookie with my silhouette in a hat on it.

After shooting the party, wine importer Gerry Dawes asked for a picture with me.

          Indeed, Stella’s two-bite rounds of gooey mozzarella on brioche with a dab of anchovy aioli were he ultimate grilled cheese excess. I had two myself in the first five minutes. Guests devoured the cauliflower pizza. Tim Zagat bragged that a cook had made one fresh just for him when the supply ran out.

My favorite tortiglioni with fontina, peas and ham has  seasonal Jerusalem artichokes.

          The thrilling lasagna was just as thrilling in vegetrian mode. I loved my favorite creamy tortigilioni pasta too much as I always do. I could only taste the oven-roasted chicken but found a burst of appetite to put away two dabs of creamy polenta.   

Forty candles twice is more cheerful and blow-outable than 80. Photo: Alan Barnett.

          I didn’t like the sound of E-I-G-H-T-Y…so I asked if I could have two cakes with iced numerals saying “40.” For the past few small pot-luck birthdays at friends’ homes, Penny and Peter Glazer have brought me the iconic Strip House 24 layer cake. On Monday Steve Hanson sent two. “Just a few years ago I was 40 and disco-dancing every night and all men were 28,” I recalled, blowing out two sets of candles.

Kathleen Turner has been a longtime Citymeals activist. Photo: Gerry Dawes.

          Kathleen Turner agreed to emcee the roasts and toasts. Everyone acknowledged the whim I had one morning in 1981 when I read a NY Times story that government funds were only adequate to deliver weekday meals to the city’s frail, ailing homebound elderly,  And many might go hungry on weekends and holidays. I could not bear to live my life of delicious excess while invisible neighbors were hungry. It was that weekend James Beard Barbara Kafka and I made round-robin calls to food world friends and the $35,000 we raised went for a Christmas meal for 6,000 New Yorkers who would not have had one.

Kathleen is a commanding emcee. If glares could shorten speeches. Photo: Alan Barnett

          “You must not take a dime out of this money for a stamp or a phone call,” I told the Commissioner for the Department of Aging that Monday morning. It was my reaction to reports that fund raisers had occasionally spent more than they raised.

Here’s my family: Niece Pamela Bryson front left, Craig (behind) and niece Dana Stoddard, (Mary’s daughter)Colleen O’Keefe, Nephew Adam Sachs, Mia Fiorello wife of Nephew Gabe Greene (Jim’s son) in red tie, Stacey Sachs next to Jim’s wife Mary Greene. Brother Jim in Chicago Blackhawks jersey. Cousin Glenn Rosin and wife Sandy from Detroit. I’m sad to see that Steven’s son Nico and wife Anne aren’t captured here.

          That modest telethon was the seed of Citymeals. My request that no administrative expense be subtracted from funds we raised, was the foundation of the promise we have kept that: every dollar given to Citymeals goes only for meals. Now there are 18,000 shutins on our feeding roster and we deliver more than two million meals a year. To celebrate my two 40th birthdays on Monday, friends gave $56,000 for meals to be delivered this week in my honor.

Listening to roasts: Craig and Dana. 2nd row: Nina Zagat, Stacey and Adam Sachs, Sculptor Ron Mehlman in hat behind, Howard Schuster in blue tie left, waiting to go on. Photo: Alan Barnett

          I get my share – more than my share of credit -- for the growth and tenacity of Citymeals. My friends have heard those stories. What made them laugh Monday evening were the roasts: ideas I suggested that were rejected by my partner of almost 30 years, our executive director Marcia Stein, or so she said. “The Great American Pajama Party.” The Silver Underwear tree to celebrate our 25th year in Rockefeller Center. “A month of a Thousand Restaurants” cooking for Citymeals. A click on the Citymeals website to hear an actor reading passages from my memoir Insatiable. I don’t remember suggesting that. But well, I could have.

Both Ellen Grimes and her husband Bob Grimes are thrilled by his roast of me.

          And Bob Grimes reading of my emails. It sounded like he had collected every email I ever sent apologizing for some rudeness.  Well, at least I apologize.  “Oh my dear, dear, dearest Bob. Don’t ever call me Gael in a restaurant, Even if Daniel comes over to give me a hug and it’s obvious he knows that it’s me.  I am Brenda. You must call me Brenda. Is that too much to ask?  Maybe I was too forceful. I guess I was wrong. Please forgive me.”

On right, Citymeals Board Member Alliyah Baylor (MakeMyCake Bakery) with Sylvia Woods’ granddaughter Tren’Ness Woods-Black and her husband Scott. Photo: Alan Barnett

          My friend, the artist Elizabeth Thompson claimed to have located Elvis Presley’s diary from his early days, and she read the pertinent entries from the time I was covering his two concerts at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. How he discovered me in his hotel suite between shows. It seems he was feeling weak after our sport together and I suggested he let me call room service and order a fried egg sandwich. That suggests I might already have been destined for a career in food. For him, it was the first of a long addiction to fried egg sandwiches.

Artist Elizabeth Thompson read from Elvis’s diary of our soulful meeting in Detroit.

          It was an astonishing evening. So many people who said they would be there, came. Friends I’d not seen for a while. Friends I’d not seen for years. Antoine Bouterin. My cousin Glenn from Detroit.  Many people wore something red, as I’d requested. André Soltner rushed by me to say hello to his most loyal customers from the first days of Lutéce.

Not bad looking for an older man, alas Santa had no imagination about infidelity.

          I sat on Santa’s lap and asked if he had a tall, good looking 50 or 60ish elf who loved food and travel and older women with nothing to do till next Christmas and he said he did not. Actually, I looked more closely and realized Santa was awfully attractive. “You don’t happen to be single?” I asked.  He looked alarmed. I didn’t really mind if he happened to be married but alas. No imagination.

Stella was so full of memories but I couldn’t be with everyone. Photo: Alan Barnett

          One regret was not having more time to catch up with people I love. I didn’t get to eat everything I wanted to eat either. Though with two shares of sublime polenta, two flavors of pizzas, the divine lasagna, a share of tortiglione, the grilled cheese twice (or was it three times?) and tangerine sorbetto, I could not have eaten any more.  But I would have I’m sure if I’d not been distracted listening to roasts.

I saw friends I hadn’t seen for many months. Will I see them again soon? Photo: Alan Barnett

          The worst gaff was forgetting to put my niece Dana Stoddard (a talented jewelry designer and inspired yoga teacher) on the speaker’s list. She’d written a touching tribute and rehearsed it. She read it at dinner two evenings later:

          “Over the years I’ve realized that she (Aunt Gael) was and remains my true teacher of how one truly lives one’s passion. For she IS passion. In her writing, in her traveling, in her collecting, in her living, in her loving, in her giving. 

There’s Dana next to me poised to speak but I forgot to put her on the list. Photo: Barnett

          “'What really makes Gael happy?’ I asked Uncle Steven once,” Dana read, “and he answered, ’She most loves being Gael Greene.’

My niece Dana is a woman of many passions; a yoga instructor, jewelry designer.        

“Most of us sadly never live as we were born to live, living our Dharma, as we say in the Yoga world. Most of us struggle to know what that is. Gael has always known what she love and knows what she wants and how to get it.  She has the courage, the discipline, the tenacity to step out and ask for it…not taking no for an answer.”

 

Am I still getting what I want? Have I lost the tenacity? I wonder. Photo: Steven Richter

          I’m wondering if that’s true. My life has narrowed since Steven died. I still have great companions to eat with. I am out six evenings a week. As the prolific authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg noted in their toast, I’m still writing BITE every week, and I seem to have picked up 175,000 followers on Twitter, whatever that means. What dare I demand now? I have no family in New York except the friends I count as my family. There is no special person to travel with.  In fact, like so many of the New Yorkers we help feed, I am alone and I worry about slipping on the ice.