Department Store Restaurants

Just the other day I was reminiscing with a friend about the department store restaurants that were ubiquitous in our youth. Almost every department store had at least one restaurant and some had a lunch counter as well. These were sit-down restaurants with real china, cloth napkins, and as a kid I always felt very grown up when my mom or grandmother took me out for lunch after a morning of shopping. Growing up on Long Island we would go to Garden City where there was a strip of road populated with Saks, Lord and Taylor, and Bonwit Teller. Bonwit’s was where I always got my hair cut into a pixie, and got a balloon that was a mouse head inside another clear balloon with colored stripes.

Lord and Taylor now has Sarabeth’s but when I was little (five or six) they had the Bird Cage.  It was billed as a tearoom, and I adored going there for the little sandwiches. My mom must have always ordered coffee, because what I remember clearly are the tiny milk bottles filled with cream that she would let me drink, no doubt starting me on the road to ruin. I think all the restaurants had these, and they were such a treat! It’s hard to even imagine, but in those days we got dressed up just to go shopping, and I always wore a dress. There was no such thing as jeans for little girls back then.

In downtown Hempstead, where we lived, was Abraham and Strauss, and they too had a restaurant. My favorite memory is their creamed carrots, something you rarely, if ever see now, but I adored them, and always had them when we went there for lunch. They were served in a small, china side dish, and I would savor every bite. My dad didn’t like cooked carrots, so even though the chances of having any creamed vegetable at home was slim, the chance of having carrots was non-existent, so these were extra special!

As we grew up things changed, and many of those restaurants closed, or changed format, becoming less formal, and genteel. But there was still Bloomingdale’s. We were pretty excited when Bloomingdale’s came to Long Island in the 1970’s the building was modern, the clothes more trendy and less classic— a boon to my teen-aged sisters and me! Their restaurant, Ondine, was so hip, the theme Scandinavian, with gravlax and other very sophisticated food. For my sisters and me the restaurant became legend for “the Bloomingdale’s talk” my mom had with each of us as we got ready to go off to college. She’d take us shopping for sheets for our dorm rooms, then to Ondine for lunch, and in turn we each got a brief but emphatic speech advising us about using birth control, and not coming home pregnant. An all-around fun time for everyone…

Now, most people shop in the department stores that anchor malls, which are filled with food courts, that are in turn filled with generally crappy food, and not a cloth napkin, or real dish in sight. Do you have any recollections of those days of department store meals?

Here is my version of those lovely, sweet and creamy Abraham and Strauss creamed carrots:

• Peel and slice about one pound of carrots
• Put 12-16 ounces of water in a small pot, add teaspoon each of kosher salt and sugar to the water, and bring to a boil
• Add carrots and simmer for six minutes, or until carrots are tender
• While carrots are cooking melt two TBL of butter in a wide saucepan, once bubbles have subsided add two TBL of flour and stir well to create a roux, let this cook on low heat for about one minute
• Once carrots are cooked, use a slotted spoon to add them to the cream sauce, saving their cooking liquid, it’s fine if the carrots aren’t perfectly drained, as you’ll use that liquid to thin the sauce
• After adding carrots stir gently but well, adding cooking liquid as needed to reach desired sauce consistency
• Add salt and pepper to taste