NYC packed itself with hobbits the day before Christmas, most of them assembling beneath the 80-foot Norway Spruce at Rockefeller Center, a specimen which came from Sandy-damaged New Jersey. We took a breather outside the crowd, admiring the interaction of fairytale wildlife with Manhattan.
We got snug in a cafe called the Blue Bottle deep within the complex’s core.
The place was not getting enough patronage, if you ask me, for a store that specializes in Yirgachette, and encased its scrumptious rosemary-flecked shortbread in biodegradable coffee filters.
Throughout about a three-hour period we consumed soup and pastrami, salad and coffee, shortbread and biscotti and chestnuts. And we wound up at the New York Public Library, especially majestic at Christmastime. Inside, an exhibit called Lunch Hour NYC, which taught us all about oyster pushcarts, Kerouac’s favorite diner Hector’s, the history of bagels, how food cost pennies way back when, and displayed an actual bank of automat slots. We took home a recipe from Horn & Hardart (actually dog-eared, in other words slightly gnawed upon by Oliver).
A very merry Christmas, from our howl to yours.
Jean Zimmerman 
Oh, yes. Horn and Hardart’s! But have you read Mark Kurlansky’s THE BIG OYSTER: HISTORY ON THE HALF SHELL? I bet you have! (i haven’t, but I’ve just ordered his SALT: A WORLD HISTORY, and I recall gifting a copy of his COD, years ago when it was new.)
We enjoyed Christmas Eve with your parents, and we wish you a happy time today, as well as a fine New Year. Ann