Food for Thought

Luncheon in the private wine cellar at '21' yesterday at 1:15 pm. Photo: JH.

11/21. Cold, almost like winter. Warning: No dish here so now might be the time to go back to the homepage. This is about family and dealing and strengthening, restoring, and children.

At noontime I went down to “21” where we were hosting a luncheon for Silda Wall Spitzer and her organization Children for Children. There were twenty of us, three men – me, JH and Roger Webster -- in the restaurant’s wine cellar dining room, and the purpose was to introduce Silda and Children for Children to other women working in areas having to do with children and children’s issues. I had something in mind when I thought of this little meeting, but I’ll have to get back to that.

We’d originally scheduled the luncheon for last Spring, and as it happened it turned out to be the day that Governor Spitzer made his fatal announcement. Naturally this became a news item which still has some legs. Aside from my regrets about the whole situation with this couple and their family, I was sorry to put off our luncheon for other reasons.


	Maggie Jones, Payal Chaudhyri, and Silda Wall Spitzer

However, all these months later, the Spitzer family is together and riding the waves we call life. And Silda is still very much involved in this organization which she started twelve years ago in her living room with her three daughters and some friends, and which now reaches across the country and into schoolrooms and playgrounds.

The concept of Children For Children is very simple. So simple to almost be ordinary – which it is – yet extraordinary. It was founded to foster community involvement and social responsibility in young people. Young – five (even four), eight, eleven, thirteen. The earlier the better, they found because the children learned to think well of themselves earlier, to excel in school and be predisposed to serving others. That last sentence is pure Zen. And so is Children for Children.

When I first thought of doing this luncheon last Spring it was because I had a very strong feeling then that we were already in a financial crisis that would seriously worsen and affect the world, and especially the children. Crisis is a mode and its outcome depends entirely on the stability of the society. Teaching young children, helping them learn the responsibility for themselves and for others is a fortifying lesson in life for any of us, and easiest to learn early.

We invited a variety of women yesterday whose interests are related to the concept such as Diana Quasha who is president of Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, Yvonne Brown who runs the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos who is a prime mover in New Yorkers for Children, Jilly Stevens of City Harvest, Eleanora Kennedy who works for the Human Trafficking project of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. These were all women who are involved and affecting the welfare of the community. They’re keeping it moving.

A thank you note to Silda from a student member of CFC.

I realize that this isn’t the stuff of a glittering social column. I also realize that we have entered a phase in our history which is going to be defined by our ability to cope with extreme reversals of fortune, speaking economically. Children by their very existence are the most vulnerable (and little animals also) to the reversals of adults. They bear the brunt of our errors and they often do it without guidance, counsel or care. They pay the price. Aside from the cruelty, it bodes ill for our society, for the rest of us.

One of the upshots of being a social reporter in New York for the past fifteen years has been the opportunity to see how many individuals, many many individuals take the bull by the horns so to speak, and go out and fix or change things. Look at Evelyn Lauder with Breast Cancer Research. They’ve had real, transforming results. The woman decided to do it and she did it. There are a lot of these women in New York right now. A lot of them. Maybe not an army but enough to gather an army. And I believe a lot of them are going to be running a lot of the city’s franchises with or without public assistance and or government in the very near future. Because it’s going to be required.

So we had this luncheon. Silda told the group about Children For Children. She then turned it over to her associate Maggie Jones who runs the organization. Maggie is a very pretty, young woman born and bred in Atlanta. She has such a mild manner and girlish enthusiasm that you’re surprised when you hear her articulate their work and the results they get: she becomes a woman of authority.

• Silda Wall Spitzer
• Maggie Jones
• Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos
• Jilly Stevens
• Gillian Miniter
• Eleanora Kennedy
• Paxton Quigley
• Sandra Navidi
• Cynthia Lufkin
• Tara Rockefeller

• Diana Quasha
• Yvonne Brown
• Kathleen Lacey
• Lauren Watkins
• Alexandra Lebenthal
• Julie Sawitz
• Payal Chaudhri
• Roger Webster
• Jeff Hirsch
• DPC

Then there was an open discussion. It turned out to be an opportunity for a number of these women to meet each other and hear about their work. Some of them already knew each other. Others did not. The current financial crisis came into the conversation because organizations are already beginning to see the contraction in supply and contributions. While the demand and need for food is expanding, the supply gathered by City Harvest is contracting. The same is true in the Neighborhood houses.

All this took place is the most charming, most luxurious circumstances, in the restaurant’s special private diningroom – which is climate controlled incidentally so it’s important to dress warmly. We started with the “21” crabcake which is Father Neptune’s fabulous cupcake. I’ve never had a crabcake quite like it. The second course was blackened sea bass with vegetables and risotto. With wines. Just before we broke, the restaurant’s Sommelier gave us a little lesson in the wines we were drinking, pointing out how there are certain wines that are very reasonable because of their geographical relationship to the better wines. We had two of them yesterday and although I can’t remember either, the chardonnay was excellent and the red was too.

http://www.childrenforchildren.org/

Sandra Navidi and DPC

Pax Quigley, Eleanora Kennedy, and Kathleen Lacey

Lauren Watkins, Tara Rockefeller, and Cynthia Lufkin

Jilly Stevens and Marcia Vickers

Gillian Miniter and Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos

Yvonne Brown, Alexandra Lebenthal, and Diana Quasha

Meanwhile, back to the night before last. The National Book Awards evening at the Cipriani Wall Street was an evening of talk. But what might ordinarily drive an audience to manic distraction had the opposite effect here. No speech went unlistened to. You could hear a pin drop, no matter the speaker. That was because the speaker had something of interest to say. Martin Garbus in introducing the now legendary Barney Rosset (of Grove Press who brought Tropic of Cancer and Lady Chatterley’s Lover into print in America), gave us a sense of America’s passionate literary history. The now octogenarian Mr. Rosset gave us a sense of What It Takes to Move Men’s Minds. Courage, integrity and things along those lines passed through the ether. There was a clear understanding of that in the room, no matter the natural disposition of the audience members.

Kiran Desai spoke about Maxine Hong Kingston who was receiving the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. It wasn’t a mere introduction, it was a piece on Maxine Hong Kingston. Ms. Kingston’s acceptance speech was also literary. All about thinking, about seeing, about hearing, about being there.

Eric Bogosian as emcee was interesting to because I remember first seeing him twenty-five years ago in Los Angeles, maybe at the Roxy, maybe the Dorothy Chandler. His monologue was shocking in some quarters and almost violently irreverent in others. And funny, because irony is his wit. Twenty-five years later, now long a seasoned pro, now in black tie and shorter hair with grey running through his curls and wireframe glasses looking almost professorial, he says it like it is and with just enough impatience for you to know he’s not just being funny but means it.

Because it was an evening of writers, basically an evening of artists and their support group, the evening was the entertainment, and a great one it was. The presence of all these types, with all this talent, under one people’s palace roof was a kick and sometimes a thrill.