How Fortunate We Are

R.W. Apple, Jr. eating lunch with the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Only in New York, Kids, Only in New York:

Shortly after I talked with Mr. [chief animal trainer Sacha] Houcke, I came across a copy of “Center Ring Circus Cuisine,” a cookbook published in 1979, which shows that European circus traditions were alive in the Ringling show of that era. It contains a Wiener schnitzel recipe from a Czech aerialist, one for sauerbraten from a German wardrobe mistress, one for toad-in-the-hole from an English chimpanzee trainer and one for moussaka from a Bulgarian teeterboard specialist.

Ever the feinschmecker, Mr. Houcke buys Starbucks beans from Colombia and grinds them himself in his quarters. He drinks one big cup each morning.

When he came to America five years ago, he recalled, he gorged on steaks the size of which he had never seen before. “I was a fiend,” he said, for places like Blade’s Prime Chophouse in Fort Worth – “you don’t even have to press hard on your knife to cut the beef there” – and Sonny Williams’ Steak Room in Little Rock, Ark., and the Golden Ox in Kansas City, Mo. – “a place that you’ve absolutely got to get to.”

Now Mr. Houcke looks for cozy, quiet places with good food, searching on the Internet or following friends’ tips. “Noise spoils my dinner,” he said. Often he eats with musicians from the circus band, and when he comes across a good place, he goes back. One great favorite is the Park Bistro, where he ordered snails followed by skate in a port wine sauce the day we ate together, then sampled my hanger steak.