It's been a while, so perhaps you'll grant me a brief respite. As is the tradition here, the Bleat never goes away even when I want a break. I've always something to put up, even if it's obviously material that doesn't warrant its own site. At the end there's a link to a page you might not have found in your obsessive, relentness interrogation of the depths of this site.

You are relentlessly and obsessively going through every page, aren't you?

We'll start the week with the least appealing item in the hopper, so you know it'll only get better!

An old magazine for the restaurant industry:

It features the famous chefs of the day, as you might expect.

A stout lot they are, too.

This exhaustive account of the restaurant says:

Even as it the approached the end of its reign, the Café Martin advertised itself as “the leading French restaurant in America.” One of the dishes on the menu below from February 1910  is called “celery-fed duckling,” reflecting an ill-fated attempt by Long Island farmers to replicate the unique taste of the wild Canvasback duck.

The restaurant was au courant when it came to the opera and theater, as evidenced by the notice stating it would be open all night after the Metropolitan Ball at nearby Madison Square Garden.

The site also has a menu from the era, with items such as "Boar Chop."

Our next expert of the gustatory arts:

Here’s Prosper in his element.  He owes his job, perhaps, to competition.

Charley Delmonico was reluctant to send staff out to do private catering—only chef Antonio Sivori did this service. Sherry put himself forward to serve the desires of those who fancied home-based parties and receptions. Sherry’s success in the home hospitality business forced Delmonico’s to develop a party chef division, under the command of chef Prosper Grevillot.

Prosper, the Party Chef.

Our final chef:

Says this site: "The kitchen at the Plaza was over an acre, filled with giant cookers and thousands of copper pots. The first chef at the Plaza was Eugene Laperruque, who had been the chef to the Rothschilds and later the executive chef at Delmonico’s."

Since we've heard twice about the famous restaurant . . . well:

We can only imagine the number of portly men in suits who have been eased out of that doorway into a waiting cab.

And now, something you might not have known existed: Sunday Caspars!