Finger on the Shutter

By: Jill Finger

Apr 26 2018

Category: Uncategorized

1 Comment

On Tuesday afternoon, Bonnie and I took the Amtrak from Rhinecliff into Penn Station. From there, we took a cab to 54th Street to meet up with Bonnie’s daughter Katie. Katie is an event planner for the Foundation Fighting Blindness and she had a fundraiser event scheduled at Feinstein’s 54 Below, a lovely venue downstairs (hence the name Below) with seating for 150.  There were only to be about 80 at this event and Bonnie and I were tasked with selling raffle tickets. At 6pm, as the guests were met at the door with their choice of red or white wine, the servers started circulating through the crowd with trays of appetizers. Our raffle table wasn’t terribly busy, so we chatted with other guests and enjoyed the party too. At 7pm we were seated and dinner, which we had previously ordered was served. The picture above is Katie’s dinner–a braised short rib with mole poblano, sweet potato, brussels sprouts, and buttermilk battered onion rings. (I swiped a menu to bring home)My dinner was seared Arctic char, with black pepper and lemon spaetzle, baby artichokes, and roasted tomatoes.Bonnie ordered the vegetarian option–Vegan red quinoa pilaf with roasted sweet potatoes, sauteed chard, and hen of the woods mushrooms.

I’m showing all the dinners because the meals were fantastic. A high bar had been set by the appetizers and the meals surpassed it.

Katie gave a lovely welcoming speech and introduced the entertainment for the evening–Alan Menken. I must confess I had never heard of him until Bonnie had asked me to go with her, so I had to look him up.  He is a film score composer mostly known for Disney films which include Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas. For these four movies, he has won a total of 8 Academy Awards. He has also, along with co-writers, written the scores for Little Shop of Horrors, Newsies, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules and more. Mr. Menken had also written music for Broadway, some for Disney adaptations, but also Little Shop of Horrors, A Christmas Carol, and Sister Act, among others.

For an hour and a quarter, Mr. Menken played the piano and sang a large selection of his works from movies and plays, and narrated some of back stories that went along with the songs.  It was fascinating, entertaining and altogether enjoyable.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a picture of Mr. Menken as he was spotlit on the stage and the pictures I took came out terrible. So, you have to be imagine the music, but enjoy the food pictures. This was a case of it definitely tasting as good as it looked.

Thank you to Bonnie for asking me to go and a big thank you to Katie, who has a cool job, and was able to share it with us.