Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...with Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello

There’s not enough good Korean food in Miami for Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello’s taste. There are some places, she tells me, but they’re mostly sushi joints that also serve Korean food. None of them are as good as Gabose, which is near my parents’ house in Lauderhill, nearly an hour and a half from where she lives in Coral Gables. Normally I would never ask someone to make a trek like that, but Marci tells me it’s a pleasure--she only gets to eat there once every four to six months, and she loves how much it really feels like Korea.

A Korean adoptee, Marci was raised in upstate New York but lived in Korea on and off for a year after graduating high school early. Her experiences became the background of her award-winning poetry collection Hour of the Ox, about an immigrant family’s struggle with displacement and wanderlust. The collection was honored with the Association of Writers & Writing Programs’ 2015 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, which led to Hour of the Ox’s publication with University of Pittsburgh Press. Marci has also been a Kundiman Asian American Poetry Fellow and a two-time prizewinner from the Academy of American Poets. She occasionally teaches as an adjunct faculty member in the creative writing department at Florida International University. Last year, her poetry was published in The New York Times.

For someone who has numerous accolades as a poet--a descriptor that still often brings to mind the “tortured artist” persona--Marci is a sunny ball of giggles and positive energy when we meet. We hug and make our way to the table, immediately deciding that soju, the distilled Korean beverage that’s 20-24 percent alcohol by volume, is in our sights. But not too much, because we both have to drive home. Next, Marci opens the menu and wants to know what flavors I like, what meats I like. Am I interested in trying blood sausage? Indeed, I am. Soon dae, as it’s called, is made with intestines, noodles, rice, and pork blood, among other flavorings. We also select Ojingo Bokum, a stir-fried squid and vegetable dish, and Jajangmyeon, a noodle dish made with a bean sauce that’s black in color. The latter is good for the winter, Marci tells me, because it’s so thick and hearty.

The food arrives and Marci folds her chopstick wrapper into a tiny paper shelf where she will rest them when she’s not eating. We dive in and everything is extraordinary, especially the blood sausage, which is my favorite. Marci discusses where her work is going next. She is working on poetry translations and a collection of lyric essays but is also taking time off from teaching this coming semester to focus on writing more of her own poetry. She has enough poems for a book right now, she tells me, but they’re not quite a collection yet. “I’m a slow writer,” she laughs. But sometimes slow is good: soon four hours have passed and we’re still laughing, chitchatting, drinking soju.

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Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...with Samantha Hunter

Samantha Hunter is carrying a giant box on her shoulder. It’s filled with the fruits of her most recent undertaking, which are not actually fruits, but wines. And not wines made entirely from fruits, but dandelions. Based on a historical tradition, Samantha seeks to update botanical wines like dandelion wine (traditionally just fermented dandelion roots) for a new audience by combining it with red and white grape varietals from upstate New York and California. She hopes her company, Born Dandy, will eventually be an urban botanical winery based in Brooklyn with a 100-seat restaurant and tasting bar, sustainable rooftop vertical farming (of dandelions, botanicals, produce for the restaurant, and more), space to incubate other brands, a wine cellar, and more. It’s ambitious, Samantha says, but she likes to dream big. Today is one more step toward this idea: a tasting. We meet outside Vine Box in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to do a tasting with the store’s owner, a knowledgeable man Samantha has known for a few years now. He tasted the first batch and gave her constructive criticism on how to move forward, she says. Today he is tasting another batch of what is right now seven different dandelion wine varietals: Dandelion Red, Dandelion White, Dandelion Rose, Dandelion Sparkling, Dandelion Honey Mead, Chamomile, and Dandelion Coffee. The latter is made with roasted dandelions, so it tastes like coffee but actually isn’t made with any. Samantha’s hope is that it could take the place of mimosas or bellinis at brunch because of its taste properties. Each wine is sampled, their tasting notes on each label. Feedback is important at this stage because it will help her move forward with production in the future. She’s pleased with the outcome--the store owner offers to sell four of seven wines in the future and packs up the box. We drive to the Lower East Side and stop for a drink at Wassail, a cider bar. Beginning Born Dandy has affected the way Samantha drinks wine, especially the way she pauses to smell everything more than she used to, she says. The food and beverage space is not unfamiliar to her, however--she directed food and beverage operations for the W Hotel Times Square and W Hotel St. Petersburg (Russia), in addition to opening 19 Starwood Hotels around the world and partnering with chefs like Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Alain Ducasse. She also has a degree from the Culinary Institute of America. Working in hospitality for over 20 years, she now owns her own consulting firm, Hospitality Sprout, which includes projects with the Rainbow Room and Untitled Art Fair, among others. We finish our drinks, then head over to the shop Taste Collection not far away. There’s a party tonight held by Diego Leon of the blog Dandy in the Bronx. Samantha is looking to meet dandy dressers from all over New York in hopes of collaborating in the future. Diego is interested. They shake hands and smile: one more step to Born Dandy being on its way.

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Window Shopping VI

This year, the windows at Bergdorf Goodman were themed "To New York with Love," dedicated to celebrating beloved New York institutions like The New York Botanical Garden, The American Museum of Natural History, The Museum of the Moving Image, The New York Philharmonic, and more. The Natural History window was covered, but COVERED in zillions of tiny rhinestones; the New York Botanical Garden window featured tons of felt and embroidery, and the New York Philharmonic window grew brighter and brighter as more neon instruments glowed red every second. And, as ever, elegant mannequins in gorgeous gowns and red lips perched in all of them. I had my favorite windows, of course, so I documented them for you below.

Happy holidays and a lovely new year to you all! May your season be merry and your future bright.

Love,

Miss M

Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...with Steve Silberman

Steve Silberman has the unusual distinction of having chosen for nearly two years a partner who is a photographer (that is to say, me) despite not really wanting to be photographed all that much. This week he was kind enough to put these feelings aside, however, and permit me to document some of our time together. “It’s for your art,” he says.

“This is a strange experience of narcissism and self-consciousness,” he tells me, laughing. My lens is pointed at him as we walk into Tal Bagels on the Upper East Side, his bagel joint of choice in the neighborhood. Steve was born and raised in Brooklyn, Sheepshead Bay/Gravesend to be exact, before the borough gained notoriety for overusing the word “artisanal.” “Everybody wants a piece of Brooklyn today but nobody wants to give anything back,” he says. “When I had nothing left to give, I left.” He moved to Manhattan five years ago. Since 2015, he’s been involved with the charity ORT America, an organization which helps provide educational opportunities to students around the world. For ORT, Steve is the Next Gen NYC Board Chair, or the chair of their New York young professionals division. He and his board spent 2017 raising money at a school in Israel, for at-risk and underprivileged youth, that focuses on sustainability and STEM education.

Steve orders a flat everything bagel with cream cheese for himself and asks what I want (a whole wheat flat bagel with melted swiss cheese, please). Mid-bagel Steve’s best friend of 16 years, Josh, calls. They saw the new Star Wars mere moments before Steve and I met up and now briefly discuss its pros and cons. I wait patiently and eat my bagel. “Listen, Josh, I have to go because I’m doing my Miss Manhattan Hangs Out and my girlfriend is photographing me because I’m on the phone in my natural state,” he says. It’s true, Steve has often joked that he talks for a living, and he has done it in every aspect of the business world, from marketing to public relations to sales. But soon Steve finishes his bagel instead of talking and we depart.

Our next stop is the dog park at Carl Schurz Park. It is quite possibly one of Steve’s favorite places in the city (he brought me here on our second date) because the man loves dogs. All dogs. But especially the largest, fluffiest ones you’ve got, like Goldendoodles, Golden Retrievers (his all-time fave) and Bernese Mountain Dogs. By some stroke of magic, we happen to see all of these breeds in the park that day (along with a very friendly Weimaraner), from the small dog park to the large one. They almost flock to him, coming up to say hello and sniff, practically smiling at him. He is a dog whisperer of sorts, able to calm even the yappiest yappers into relaxation. But I am not entirely surprised. I have always believed that animals know where the kind hearts are.

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