Catalog of the Many Faces of Hotei

Since being ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest, I’m all too often compared to my dear Hotei. We share so many attributes - baldness, ample girth around the equator, a somewhat jolly demeanor, robes…. you get the drift.

He is often confused with the original Buddha in the West but is actually one of the Seven Gods of Luck in Japanese mythology. Hotei, the laughing buddha, always is depicted with a big happy smile.

Sometimes he is holding a gold ingot or carrying a satchel like Santa, and sometimes has children crawling all over him.

Catalog Item #1 Hotei with numerous ankle biters. Price - an infinite amount of patience

Catalog Item #2 Hotei hitting the Road.

He’s got his satchel on a branch and a fan to keep him cool.

Price - being able to let go

Catalog Item #3 - Hotei relaxing

Price - you have to know the sound of one hand

Catalog Item #4 - Hotei surfing dragon-style

Price - being here now

Catalog Item # 5 - Hotei au naturale

Price - embracing who you are.

Catalog Item #6 - Hotei’s brothers

Price - spend a weekend with your family

Catalog Item #7 - Live version

Available for weddings and funerals

Priceless

Robert

May 2023

Gardenia

 

In a garden blessed by nature's hand,

Where beauty blooms like dreams unplanned,

Resides a flower, delicate and fair,

A gardenia, beyond compare.

In moonlit grace, it gleams so bright,

A vision woven in petals white,

A fragrant symphony fills the air,

The scent of gardenias, sweet and rare.

The sight unfolds like a bridal gown,

Each bloom a treasure, a floral crown,

Velvet petals, ivory and pure,

Whispers of elegance to endure.

Their fragrance dances on zephyr's breeze,

Wafting gently through the whispering trees,

A symphony of perfumes, soft and serene,

Enchanting the senses, a heavenly scene.

With tender touch, I draw them near,

Their aroma intoxicates, crystal clear,

A heady blend of jasmine and spice,

A scent so captivating, it must suffice.

The gardenia's allure, like a siren's call,

Invokes memories, both big and small,

A nostalgic embrace, a blissful delight,

A fragrant journey, through day and night.

So, come and behold this floral treasure,

Let your senses revel in its measure,

For in gardenias, nature's art unfurls,

Georgia

Lilac Time

 

Their marriage was often quite acrimonious. Sunday mornings brought my poppa’s”s  expected complaints about the Saturday night polka card game. A few neighbors would meet in our house to play cards. Sunday morning, poppa’s loud rampage, “You shouldn’t have gone in with your cards; you caused me to lose the pot. I should have gotten the King. You went in and so I didn’t get that King!!!” My Poppa’s words were angry ones; hostile ones. “You shouldn’t play cards with me. You always spoil my game!!” Sunday card game battles  in our house; always vicious  and unpleasant. They often included Yiddish words. I think I learned every Jewish curse word from the rehashing of those Saturday night polka card games.

At last, Spring is here and  my parent’s weekend trip to their country cottage in Greenfield Park cancels the Saturday night card game and the Sunday rehashing. They both loved their small cottage surrounded by the verdant Catskill Mountains. This was the trip to open the water, tend the small garden and clean the house. The mice often make a mess of things in the house over the cold winter. Opening the house was hard work, but it was a labor of love; love of the house and love of the bucolic scene. It was refreshing for them to leave the cement sidewalks and crowded tenement apartment in East Bronx. Momma enjoyed starting the garden behind the cottage. She planted potatoes, peas, string beans and best of all, cucumbers. The cucumbers would ultimately become her famous sour pickles, swimming in large jugs of brine.

Waiting back home, cared for by my older sister and brother, I anticipated their arrival. I knew not to expect gifts or treats. For me the crowning glory of their arrival was the huge bouquet of lilacs they brought. Driving home, they would stop on the side of the road and with pruning shears cut the bushes and wrap the branches in wet paper towels  to keep them fresh. It was Springtime and we could now expect our humble crowded tenement to be blessed with the aroma of the exquisite bunch of purple lilacs. The sweet scent would infuse our home  with their fragrance.

Lilacs are the harbingers of Spring, symbolizing love and tranquility. Maybe  the lilacs will bring peace to momma’s and poppa’s Saturday night’s polka card game.

Ethyl Haber

Shirley Temple Curls

 

Sad times

Depression era

Lightened by Hollywood films

Films of a child star

Dimpled child star

Dimpled child star with bouncing curls.

Momma’s child

Mousey brown hair 

Hot curling iron or

Sugared water strips

Made Shirley temple curls.

Catskill hotel needed a child star

Saturday night Jewish show

Momma’s little girl in

Ruffled peach colored dress

Shirley Temple curls.

Sound of gunshot off stage

The father carries 

Little child on stage

Aundzer kind iz toyt

Curtain, applause,

Momma’s child bows 

Bouncing her Shirley Temple Curls.

Ethyl Haber

Gerhard Wessels

 

The catering business, especially in NYC, can be extremely stressful. Demanding clients, traffic nightmares, staff problems, unexpected hurdles, the list goes on and on. As a chef, it is so stressful in fact, that it can cause nightmares for years.  There is a current TV series called “The Bear” that is very popular right now in which there is an episode where a young black female chef is haunted by nightmares from her catering days. It’s the kind of show that triggers PTSD in chefs. I can certainly relate to that. 

Luckily, I had a kind of guardian angel that would show up often unannounced and magically pull me out of whatever mess I was in.

Gerhard was a strapping young German-American chef who lived above a deli on West 50th Street in Manhattan during the 1980’s. He was energetic, creative and had a wild sense of humor.  I hired him once to do an ice carving for a party and we just hit it off and became fast friends.  

The man was truly entertaining. He would have this 320 lb block of ice delivered to the street where this party was being held, whip out his ice carving tools (which included a chain saw), and just go for it. Before you knew it, a crowd would gather to watch this creation come to life. 

No matter what object or theme was requested, he would go out of his way to create it. As a case in point, The Explorers Club once requested an ice version of Mount Everest for a buffet we were doing for them. You should have seen him carving the details of that mountain out of six 320 lb blocks.  It was done so well that guests at the party were pointing to areas where their base camps were!! 

And his creativity was not limited to ice. A very close friend asked me to create a special cake for his father’s retirement. The man had spent his entire life as a printer. Gerhard created a replica of the original Gutenberg press out of chocolate marzipan!

He had this talent for just popping up unexpectedly in my life. I remember walking down 6th Avenue one night with a young British woman as my date. A taxi pulls up to us, a man jumps out of the cab with this large duffle bag. He proceeds to pull a chain saw out and starts running towards us. Of course, it was Gerhard and his crazy sense of humor. My date almost fainted. 

At one of the first events my catering company ever did at Studio 54, we ran into some problems. We were squeezed into this tiny temporary kitchen space under the main floor. The two helpers I had with me were not keeping up with the demand. We were serving hot and cold hours d’oeuvers for 500 and we were quickly falling behind.  Out of the blue, Gerhard shows up unannounced and comes up to me and says “Need some help?” and just turns the entire situation around. 

At another event at “The Limelight”, a dance/ night club that was a former church, we were setting up to do a big fundraiser for the Sydney Biddle Barrows, the “Mayflower Madame”, who desperately needed to cover her legal fees for her latest arrest. One of my chefs slipped and fell in the kitchen and sprained his ankle leaving me with a big hole in my staff.  As I walked outside to my van, trying to figure out what to do, Gerhard was walking by on that street and says, “Need some help?”

We fell out of contact for a year. He was spending more time caring for his parents upstate. Later I learned he met with a tragic end. As he was exiting off the “Quickway”, he didn’t realize the tractor trailer in front of him had come to a full stop and he went right into it and was decapitated. This, of course shocked both me and my staff, who had truly come to love him. I’ll always treasure his friendship and the unique way we constantly crossed paths and how lucky I was to have him in my life.

Robert 5.2022

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