Pre-Opera Supper

Thursday 19 April
For lunch our nephew Robert took us out to the burger joint (called "The Burger Joint") hidden behind a curtain in the lobby of the Parker Meridien hotel. We each had a cheeseburger with everything, though Barbara is usually a purist and likes her hamburgers unadorned except for ketchup and grilled onions. Her verdict: great burger, great fries, but next time hold the lettuce and tomato at the very least. Holt's verdict: "gwomrrrrmarrammyummmmm."
After this meat-fest but before Turandot, Laurie supplied just what we needed: an elegant little supper at her apartment. Iron Horse champagne, crisp crackers, taramasalata, little tomatoes, spinach salad, two kinds of triple crème cheese (six crèmes in all), prosciutto, olives, almonds baked in olive oil with salt, a little cold roasted chicken, and strange sweet individually wrapped Mexican anise crisps for dessert.
Then we all went off to the Metropolitan Opera to watch a guy fall in love with a girl who tortures his other girlfriend until she kills herself, all singing their heads off (literally, in the case of the Prince of Persia). That's life in opera.