World-famous martinis, books, books, and more books

Manny, Musso and Frank's bartender, pouring one of their famous martinis.

I walked back from Musso and Frank's ladies room yesterday and whispered in my husband's ear, "There are only two stalls in there."
"Yeah, and?" he replied.
"That means there's a 50% chance that I just used the same stall as Dorothy Parker."
His raucous laugh made more than a few patrons look around.

S.Z. Sakall, also known as Cuddles.
Doesn't he resemble Manny?
Manny sounds a little like him, too.

It was a nostalgic kind of day. We had been in the bar where we drank Musso and Frank's signature martinis, and now we were having lunch. Manny the bartender, has been stirring up the iconic cocktails since 1984.

I had heard people rave about the restaurant's martinis, so for once, I didn't call for Bombay Sapphire, my favorite gin. I wanted to have the whole Musso and Frank's experience, to have a cocktail the way they've been making them for years, just like the ones they made for Fitzgerald, Chandler, Parker, Hemingway, and all the other writers who have drunk, fought, recovered from hangovers, and oh, yeah, written there.

We climbed onto barstools, and I was disconcerted by my reflection in the bar mirror. I forgot that old-fashioned bars have huge mirrors running the length of them. Manny the bartender approached, and I told we wanted his famous martinis.

He searched our faces, and said, "You know our martinis are made with gin, right?"

I felt wounded. Didn't I look like a martini drinker?
"Is there any other kind?"was my reply. His smile brightened, and he bustled about making our drinks.

This is how your martini will arrive; the little
carafe is the rest of your drink. Kinda like
milkshakes at Bob's Big Boy.

The only martinis are gin martinis. That is an article of faith so strong with me that even people who know little about me know it. Nothing pisses me off faster than to order a martini and have the bartender ask, "Gin or vodka?"

You can put vodka in a martini glass, spike it with an olive or onion, and even splash a little vermouth in there, but that doesn't make it a martini. If you ask for a martini, you should get gin. If you want vodka, order a vodka martini. Gin drinkers were here first. Manny told us that he had to start asking, because people (probably young people) were ordering martinis and sending them back because they wanted vodka.

He poured Gordons gin into a glass cocktail shaker, added the vermouth and stirred. Manny said, "Some people say, hold the vermouth. I put a little in anyway." Of course, because otherwise, that's just gin in a glass. They stir martinis at Musso and Frank's because they think it waters down your drink to shake it.



The presentation is lovely: Manny lines up the glasses and carafes, then makes a big show of pouring equal amounts in each glass. He goes back and forth a few times, evening up the amounts, saying, "This way, there will be no arguments."

The Central Library's rotunda, with its stained glass globe chandelier
and murals depicting the opening of the West.

The rest he pours into the carafes, and later will come by to fill our glasses. Ah yes, a full-service bartender.
The drink can't be faulted: the olives come with toothpicks in them so you don't have to fish them out with your fingers (believe me, I will, and have). It is impeccably mixed, presented, and poured, and only costs $9.50. There's only one problem: it's still just Gordons gin.

My husband loved it, but he's not a dyed-in-the-wool gin drinker, like me. Let me put it this way: when you're drinking a martini, it's pure alcohol. So the gin matters. I don't order martinis in some places because they don't know how to make them, and even in places I do order them, I'll drink something else if I can't get Bombay or Hendricks gin.

So now I've had the Musso and Frank's experience: next time I'll call for Bombay, and then it will be a perfect martini.

The atrium joins the old and new wings of the library,
 with whimsical chandeliers.

The unremarkable lunch (the wedge salad made me yearn for the Lemon Leaf's) was the mid-part of our day, which began at the Central Library, and continued at bookstores. The library is amazing; I take my students there, and I had never seen the fabulous things I saw on this tour. Our guide was a sweet little lady named Selma, who was knowledgeable, and liked to give us little quizzes. She was amused by the rivalry between me and my husband when it came to answering questions. In the final tally, he was more observant than me, dammit.

Then it was off to Larry Edmunds, which specializes in books on film, television, and the stage, where I found a German Expressionist poster for the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and the owner bitched at us because we wandered upstairs, where his office is. (We didn't know, he forgot to put his rope up across the stairs.)

I wander though the amazing mess of Cosmopolitan,
the bookstore seen in the Ewan McGregor
film Beginners, feeling like Indiana Jones.

We really wanted to see Cosmopolitan, the bookstore shown in the movie Beginners, with Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer and some delectable French woman, shot in some of my favorite locations in Los Angeles, like the Biltmore hotel.

The owner is a slightly irascible old man, who, when he dies, will take this place with him. The prices are too high, and I felt like Indiana Jones maneuvering though the stacks and stacks of books that threaten to fall on you, but it was an adventure.

I found a hysterical book about real notes that English flatmates have written to one another, with the author's funny comments on the opposing page. That being said, the title, I Lick My Cheese, needs no explanation.

I also overpaid for a book of photographs by Doisneau, who captured ordinary Parisians on the street in the 1950s. We know him best from his black and white series of couples kissing, that got turned into posters.

In the end, I think I overpaid because I wanted the books, he had them, and now I can say I patronized him, much like I can now say I had lunch at Musso and Frank's, even though the food wasn't great. My husband was rather taken with the "charm" of this store, but when I think about it, the reason I didn't like it so much is that books should be treated better than this, in my opinion.

If you are a book lover, you'd be appalled by the way books are piled on every conceivable surface, crammed into every corner, and never dusted in this place. I couldn't see the owner at the cash wrap, because of the stacks on books on the counter. It was almost comical. Maybe my former identity as a bookstore manager was screaming inside me.

On the other hand, my husband kissed me in an aisle featured in the film, and whispered, "Ewan McGregor stood right here."

Yeah, that was worth the trip.