週日晚餐 一家日餐廳瘋狂的夜晚
The writer Charlotte Druckman and the photographer Melanie Dunea spend Sunday evenings at New York City dining establishments to find out what’s new with the people behind them.
作家夏洛特·德魯克曼(Charlotte Druckman)和攝影師梅勒妮·杜尼亞(Melanie Dunea)週日夜晚在紐約市的一些名牌餐館尋找美食新動向。You’d think the final night of a restaurant’s existence would be a sad one. This was not the case at Family Recipe on Sunday evening. “It’s a little crazy,” said the chef and owner Akiko Thurnauer, who excused herself from kitchen duty to enjoy the company of friends and loyal customers who stopped by to bid farewell to her culinary hideout on Eldridge Street. Final orders of fried chicken wings, duck-filled pot stickers and steamed buns and crunchy, golden-brown potatoes were greedily gobbled, last-supper style. Sake glasses and wooden boxes were raised, bottles of rosé — marked half-off for the occasion — drained.
你可能認爲一個餐館的最後一晚應該是悲哀的。但是家族祕伝(Family Recipe)餐館週日晚上的情況並非如此。“有點瘋狂，”大廚、老闆明子·特諾(Akiko Thurnauer)說。她放下在廚房的責任，去享受朋友和忠誠顧客的陪伴，他們前來向這個隱藏在埃爾德里奇街的餐館告別。最後一次點炸雞翅、鴨肉鍋貼、包子和金黃色的鬆脆土豆，吃起來狼吞虎嚥，頗有最後晚餐的感覺。裝清酒的玻璃杯和木箱被舉起，一瓶瓶玫瑰葡萄酒被喝光——爲了這個場合，葡萄酒打五折。“Sunday is kind of a weird night here,” Thurnauer noted. “Sometimes it’s really busy, sometimes really quiet, and sometimes you see amazing people,” she added, noting that celebrities were more inclined to drop by at the end of the weekend when they could keep a low profile.
“在這裏，週日是個古怪的夜晚，”特諾說，“有時很忙，有時很安靜，有時你能看到不可思議的人。”她說名人們更喜歡在週末結束時來這裏，因爲那時候不太會引人注意。
Trained as a graphic designer, the Tokyo native arrived in New York 18 years ago and enrolled in an E.S.L. program at Hunter College while working as a bartender. She constantly threw dinner parties and dreamed of doing the same for a larger audience. In 2004, she decided to get some professional training and landed a job at Nobu. After that and a couple of other food-related stints, she finally opened Family Recipe in September of 2011. And it’s been a learning curve ever since.
明子是東京人，曾接受平面設計培訓，18年前來到紐約，在亨特學院上非母語英語教學課程，同時做酒保。她不時承辦宴會派對，夢想着能招待更多人。2004年，她決定接受職業培訓，在Nobu餐館找到了一份工作。之後她又短期做過幾份與食品有關的工作，最終於2011年9月開設了家族祕伝餐館。從那以後，這個餐館一直在學習中成長。First, she realized her food was too avant-garde for the Lower East Side. “The neighborhood wants comfort food,” she said, explaining that she toned down her more eclectic menu for local tastes. Then Thurnauer learned another lesson: that reality is very different from the fantasy of owning a restaurant. She found that juggling motherhood (she has 6-year-old twin girls), managing a business and working the line took her away from the joy of cooking, something she hopes to get back now that the restaurant is closed. She’s keeping her lease and will use the space for her catering operation. From time to time, she may entertain the idea of a pop-up supper. Stay tuned.
首先，她發現自己的食物對下東區來說太前衛了。“這個社區想要舒服熟悉的食物，”她說。她解釋說爲了適應當地人的口味，她把菜單調整得更折中。然後特納得到了另一個教訓：你會對擁有一家餐館抱有幻想，但現實卻非常不同。她發現在做母親（她有兩個6歲的雙胞胎女兒）、經營生意和工作之間周旋讓她失去了烹飪的樂趣，她希望關閉餐館後能找回它的樂趣。她還會繼續租這個店，用它來進行酒席承辦業務。她或許會時不時地供應臨時性晚餐。請繼續關注。
