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By Root 527 0

Desaix—who was killed that evening—to do as he pleased, but that he, Napoleon, was going to eat. Desaix’s charge saved the day.

The dish is easy and is even better made in advance and reheated.

CHICKEN MARENGO

1 onion, thinly sliced

Olive oil

1 chicken, cut into pieces

½ cup dry white wine

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 bay leaf

1 sprig parsley, plus more for garnish

¾ cup pitted black olives

½ teaspoon thyme

2 cups Italian plum tomatoes,

fresh or canned

Salt

Pepper

Small white onions

Mushrooms, sliced

Juice of 1 lemon

1 cup chicken broth

Cognac or Madeira

Sauté the onion in the olive oil. Remove the onion and brown the pieces of chicken in the oil. Add the wine, garlic, bay leaf, parsley, chicken broth, thyme, tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Cover and simmer for an hour. Meanwhile, separately sauté the small white onions and sliced mushrooms in olive oil with the lemon juice. Remove the now-tender chicken. Strain and reduce the sauce by about half. Place the olives in a deep casserole and arrange the chicken, mushrooms, and onions on top. Sprinkle with some cognac or Madeira. Add the sauce. Heat in a 350 degree F oven until thoroughly warm. Garnish with parsley. Serves four. It can be refrigerated for a day before reheating.

STEINBERG

On this day in 1914, the artist and cartoonist Saul Steinberg, who has been compared to Daumier, Picasso, and Samuel Beckett, was born in a small town near Bucharest in Romania. His father owned a factory that made boxes, and two of his uncles were sign painters. Trained in Milan as an architect, he never practiced. He might have become a writer, he once said, if he had been born into “a good language.”

Immigrating to the United States, Steinberg became a citizen and a naval officer on the same day and served during World War II. He always maintained a jaundiced view of the state of gastronomy in his adopted country, however. In America, he observed, you don’t ask someone to point out a good restaurant—they don’t understand what a good restaurant is. The food in America was governed by the tastes of children—spaghetti and hamburgers. The only good meal nationwide, he felt, was breakfast, with its ham, bacon, eggs, home fries, thick pancakes, and waffles. The nicest waitresses were in the Midwest. When he traveled, Steinberg usually ate breakfast three times a day.

He was also fond of diners, with their evocation of railroad luxury and style. The booths were comfortable, he liked the jukeboxes, and the service was informal and fast. He compared them—he was always imaginative—to French brasseries, even the Brasserie Lipp, though usually having inferior views.

SINGING

After lunch, nap, the Romans said; after dinner, walk. This does not seem to apply to after a dinner party. Poker is a possibility, or watching a film, or even dancing. There is also singing, right there at the table, provided the mood is right and there are a few people capable of carrying a tune. Irishmen like to sing, and at the writer Dennis Smith’s one night after dinner, he, Bill Kennedy, and Frank McCourt sang on and on. McCourt’s rendition of “The Rose of Tralee,” as it might be sung by John McCormack, the famed tenor, or one of his lessers, is memorable. He does not do it at the drop of a hat, but he can be persuaded.

Persuasion and coaxing finally made Salman Rushdie perform. He was still under the notorious fatwah at the time, and his movements were secret. He came unheralded to a dinner party, partially disguised by a big straw hat. The hostess, Barbara Thomas, who had gone to school in India as a girl, wanted him to join her in singing the Indian national anthem. Rushdie declined, he could not sing, he said, he did not know the words. She, meanwhile, was on her feet, beginning to sing and urging him to join her. After a few lines, he stood, too, and they finished the song spiritedly. It made him the hero of the party.

MARQUIS DE CUSSY

The Marquis de Cussy (1766–1837), a witty and famed gastronome who had been born