Field Trip: Birthday Bashes

Illustration: Paul Matvienko-Sikar

Didn’t we who were born in the dead of winter do you a favor? For when do you need a reason to celebrate more than during these short gray days? As a boy, adults who thought they knew better exchanged amused glances when I declared that I would bake my own cake. I can still see the proud gleam in my grandmother's eye when the chocolate cake, which she supervised but did not measure, stir, pour or bake, emerged from the oven, and I also remember my own sense of satisfaction at spreading the shiny chocolate frosting. Everyone knows the birthday cake rule that the honoree gets to choose their favorite for their celebration. To this day, I equate birthdays with chocolate cake, and again this year, I had chocolate cake on my birthday.

As a young man, my January birthday often coincided with the beginning of the semester. One year in grad school, I spent the entire day navigating the kafkaesque gauntlet of university registration. Earlier, in college in Pennsylvania, the winter snowfall was no surprise but the party that greeted me in the dorm was. I opened the door to a suite full of people, music, decorations, food and contraband wine. I still remember that night. It was the night that sealed my firm conviction not only that we all need cheer, but that we need it especially during the wintertime.

New York City winters have never proven so inhospitable that we can't gather, and a birthday is a great excuse. Early on, a favorite spot was Stingy Lulu's, a fabulous place from an East Village that no longer exists, that was an acid casualty's interpretation of an interstate truck stop. Drag queens served chicken fried steak and boozed-up milkshakes and teetered on Spring-o-lators and crooned Happy Birthday with whatever faculties they had at the moment. Across town in the West Village, similarly campy birthdays were celebrated at Cowgirl Hall of Fame, where pitchers of blue margaritas along with Frito Pies correctly served right from the bag brought nostalgic tears to my Western-bred eyes.

As time progressed -- the very definition of a birthday, come to think of it -- we started celebrating more expansively. One special year, we trekked through a brutal cold snap to because waiting at the end of the journey was Blossom Dearie  At the time, this legendary jazz vocalist was in residence in a revered cabaret room off of Times Square. I had been following her residency there since those aforementioned college days, when, poring over my subscription to the Village Voice, something about her listing in the music pages struck me. I equated Sunday evening cabaret with city sophistication, and with wit and style and heart Ms. Dearie justified my faith. She signed CDs for us all, and posed for a birthday photo with me. It is framed in silver and sits in a place of honor, right where it belongs with friends and family.

We usually celebrate on Saturday night. My favorite red checkered tablecloth joint is the quintessential experience of Greenwich Village on this most special night of the week. Everything from its vibe to its location tweaks my affection for beat era New York, and this regulars-only restaurant has often been the official point of arrival for Birthday Weekend. I liked to arrive early, having walked those beat streets that seemed in my romantic imagination to shine with history. The wait staff knew to have a martini waiting for me at a table that had been held for us in this crowded, cozy spot. We ate perfectly executed bruschetta and grilled portobellos and buffala mozzarella and risotto al limone and pasta puttanesca and swordfish livornese and uncorked wine and topped it all off with cannoli and cappuccino and Limoncello and birthday presents.

Eventually, as the result of either a windfall or a brainstorm (or both), we relocated the celebration to another key location in the New York City mythos: Keen's Chophouse. My brother started coming into town for the celebration and a new ritual emerged, as he and I would spend the day at a museum before trekking to Keen's lower midtown neighborhood. No matter how cold the walk, turning the corner to see that sedate, historic facade evokes that rare feeling that all is right with the world. There's a cozy sense of belonging that seems to be the special territory of a good steakhouse, and nowhere have I encountered that so reliably and distinctively executed as at Keens.

History permeates these rooms. The legend begins with the pipes that line the ceiling. In the old country, smoking a clay pipe was a common practice, but the pipes were too fragile for a smoker to carry theirs around. So inns developed the practice of storing their customers' pipes. An entire profession grew out of the practice, as pipe wardens catalogued and stored the pipes while pipe boys fetched the pipes as each owner established himself at table and then returned them to storage as that same owner was wheeled out, overfed and drunk. At Keens, prior to its conversion to a "chophouse" (1885), the pipe warden's charges are reported to have numbered as high as ninety thousand.

Some of those pipes belonged to such legendary names from the gaslight era as David Belasco and Teddy Roosevelt. Another such was Lillie Langtry, who took Keens to court over the gentlemen-only rules and won (1905). She was the first woman allowed on the premises and legend says she swept in wearing a feather boa and proceeded to order one of the behemoth mutton chops. Both Roosevelt and Langtry remain represented at Keens. The Langtry room is fitted with gaslight era antiques, and the namesake of the Bull Moose room is said to have been shot by Teddy himself. One year for my birthday we were seated in the Bull Moose Room, where the most famous resident oversaw our time together with such facility that one of my friends captured it on a Keen's notepad (see above).

This year, John and I had my usual birthday dinner at the venerable Keen’s, but due to scheduling I also met friends at favorites old and new. We've also had great times in our new adopted city, and look forward to more when we return in a month. But if the possibility of moving to the west coast turns into the reality of it, these New York City institutions will be difficult to leave. As an inveterate collector of mementos, I have not just memories but the cocktail napkins, swizzle sticks, menus, chits, and cards that crystallize them. Isn't that what a birthday is about -- taking stock of where you've been, deciding where you want to be, and then going there? Thank you, good times, good places and good people, for being there. It seems you always have been.