Veal Parm at The Palm
Bozzi and Ganzi. They're names sound almost as cartoonish as the caricatures that decorate the walls of the original Palm Restaurant on 2nd Avenue. The two Italian immigrants intended to bring the cuisine of their native Parma to New York City in 1926. The comic strip continues with some clerk in the licensing bureau screwing up the name and Americanizing it like what happened to so many European family names while passing through Ellis Island and La Parma became transformed into The Palm. The Northern Italian food was well received but when someone requested steak and the ever accommodating Bozzi and Ganzi bought some aged meat from a nearby butcher, The Palm became one of the first great New York steakhouses. Still owned by the grandsons of Bozzi and Ganzi, I decided, difficult as it was to pass up their amazing steaks and chops, to pay homage to the Italian roots and order the veal parmigiana. The Palm was my Dad's favorite steak place but, as a kid, I always preferred my steak to resemble my favorite food: pizza. The Palm didn't disappoint. The veal parm a la Palm was fork tender under a topping of slightly blackened grilled mozzarella which somehow enveloped the elephant ear sized veal. As a nod to my Dad, I started out with a "colossal" crab cocktail. The veal parmigiana went perfectly with a half bottle of Valpolicella and was not disturbed by my decidedly un-Italian choice of side dish-the hash browns, which were comparable to my favorite version served at Joe's Stone Crab in Miami. Funny how things work out sometimes.
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Everyone wants to read your thoughts, gg, but just as many will find it thoughtful you serve them in a way that they're edible, and can be swallowed painlessly, even gratefully.
[space] [return] [return] forms a paragraph; your post above could be 'cut' to form three or four of them -without diluting your message at all, and yet making your text so much easier to read.
All helping it seem that you're pleased to serve an amuse-gueule to your readers and not a brick.
