I'm looking back at the year from a twelfth-floor suite across from Carnegie Hall, on the quiet side of 57th Street. I've got a bellyful of ridiculously overpriced beer, cheeseburgers and Cuban chicken from the Brooklyn Diner, and have just returned from a nice digestive stroll through the Christmas market in Central Park, where I made the mistake of buying (among other things) a traveler of hot apple cider from a couple of frozen Vietnamese women who ladled the steaming gunk from a highly suspect and disgustingly grimy pot being kept warm over a portable butane burner. I've skipped out on dinner at Le Bernardin, but I have a lunch tomorrow at Bar Americain... More >>>