ANOTHER jolly romp to the US of A, this time
to promote our Two Fat Ladies book, which we hope will be a grand success and make our fortunes, but which may well sink without trace. They have been show- ing the programme since last September and by now we are known to a startling degree.
On arrival at Newark, near New York, we were met by a glorious black stretch limo the size of a whale. Inside it seemed to have a drawing-room with television and bar, which we fell on as it was 8.40 p.m. by our time, though only 3.40 p.m. by theirs. Behind the smoked-glass windows, I felt like a gangster's moll. To Manhattan and the Omni Berkshire hotel on 52nd Street with Cartier on the corner and St Patrick's Cathedral but a step away on Fifth Avenue, nice and handy for both. I do like a good jeweller nearby.
We were left to our own devices for the evening, which we tried to prolong to resist jet lag. Unpacked, bathed and met in a very nice bar (the only place you could smoke), we made great friends with a lovely Irish barman who took us under his wing from that moment on and plied us with wonder- ful cocktails in those proper cocktail glass- es. Our beloved director, Patricia Llewellyn, had a marvellous pink cocktail called a Cosmopolitan, as did our host, which produced a perfectly splendid effect of happiness and rose-coloured spectacles of both sorts.
Clarissa, of course, stuck to lemonade called Sprite and tried to control us while I indulged in an enormous vodka martini or two. Their drinks are giants to the sort of thing you get in an English hotel, ten.fluid ounces each. The bar seemed a place where people met every evening, full of friendly people who kept telling us how much they loved us. Heady stuff. If I remember rightly, we had an excellent dinner, with a Japanese box for starters, full of little sushi titbits; it looked like a miniature playpen. Then off to bed, jet lag banished.
We rose at 6 a.m. to be ready for a rehearsal for a six-minute live segment on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, a national morning show. I had to demonstrate pork Stroganoff. 10 a.m.: interview and photos for the New York Daily News for a big fea- ture story, then a visit to Fairway supermar- ket on 132nd Street, which was an eye- opener. Nothing like our sterile supermar- kets, this was like a proper food market, piled high with superb fresh vegetables from New Jersey (none of your cling- wrapped, prewashed nonsense), glistening fresh fish, large tanks of live lobster, crab etc., mountains of fresh prawns (shrimp), every form of charcuterie, vats of olives and capers, spices, amazing fruits — a veritable Aladdin's cave.
With all this produce, I can't imagine why most American cooking is junk and tasteless; nothing is seasoned and mostly everything is bland. Breakfast is good but always includes potatoes and scrambled eggs which aren't; they are like strips of hard omelette, whereas the real omelettes are rather good. The coffee is awful and weak, unless you demand espresso; as for tea, forget it — a jug of fairly hot water and a teabag is what you get. 2-3.30 p.m.: lunch with Craig Wilson for USA Today at a Brazilian restaurant, Plataforma, where, apart from a vast first-course salad bar which included various forms of pasta, beans, fish and crab dishes, we were served enormous quantities of every sort of meat cut from large skewers brought round by a succession of waiters.
4-5 p.m.: interviews with Cable TV, Cover Story and Self magazine; all the same questions, so we changed the answers. 7.30 p.m.: another huge dinner, this time at Cite, a restaurant much acclaimed by our hosts, who said you could get anything there. It seemed to us rather a limited menu: some good clams and oysters, steak, of course, the size of a frisbee, and very good chips. I had a tasteless crab cake. They all eat seafood with tomato ketchup — curious.
Next morning, rise at 5 a.m. for rehearsal on Good Morning America, breakfast at a diner, performance at 9.30 a.m., then an interview and photo-session at the Harley Davidson shop on Lexington Avenue daft. An ad sales lunch in a gloriously vul- gar Russian restaurant, wild decor but not very Russian food except for some bad bli- nis and caviar.
And on and on it went in the same vein, including a book-signing at Barnes & Noble, Rockefeller Center, where there was a queue round the block and we were clapped by a group of the Hasidim: such a surprise and most heart-warming when you consider our recipes.
Lunch at Virgil's Real BBQ, all ribs and pulled pork, with Seth Margolis for the New York Times. We had a free afternoon on Saturday. Patricia and Clarissa went shopping, I went to bed and then to the late Mass in St Patrick's Cathedral: a fine affair but they forgot the Credo, which was rather odd; then we went off to the famous Japanese Nobu restaurant where we were feted like mad and had a most exquisite repast. Had a long conversation with the makers of Jurassic Park, who were able to enlighten me as to the plot of the film. David Bowie was behind us, almost unrecognisable in his simplicity.
Sunday found us in Philadelphia appearing on QCV, which is a television show for selling goods. Our food, which had been cooked by a stylist, was unrecog- nisable, but we sold 3,000 books in ten minutes, which can't be bad. First-class lunch with Doug Donaldson at the Striped Bass, a splendid building which ed to be a bank. Perfect clams and bass, brilliant service and a great welcome rom the owner. Another chat show in t ,e evening, then promos and photos on Monday morning, which included having to do a `rap' number, a Washington Post interview over lunch, then mercifully we returned to the hotel, packed and were stretch-limoed to the airport and back to dear old Blighty.
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