Max Silvestri watches rich people eat Mexican corn at Café Habana
It sticks to the teeth
I really enjoy watching very rich people eat corn. It's such a pleasing contrast. "Look at you! You are wearing a $2,000 hat and yet here you are a holding a rolling pin covered in seeds and eating it like you it's your job and you're trying to impress the boss." The joke is that really rich people don’t have bosses. They are the boss! Also, they consistently wear super-expensive hats. Did you know that? A lot of people don't realize that is how you spot a rich person. Just look for the huge hat, generally with the price tag still on it. Mayim Bialik from Blossom? One of the wealthiest characters ever to appear in literature, broadly defined.
Mayim BialikEven better for people-watching than regular corn is Mexican corn, an ear of grilled corn covered in crema, crumbled cheese, and spices. (I wonder if in Mexico they just call it "corn.") It's so sloppy! And the fact that a stick is involved doesn't make it any less of a dripping mess. You are still gnawing on a piping-hot barber pole covered in mayonnaise, Warren G. Buffett. The best I've had is at Café Habana (17 Prince St., 212-625-2001), a very popular restaurant in Nolita where people with very nice hats cram elbow-to-elbow to eat fish tacos and talk about the season's hottest new bracelets, or whatever. I don't know what they talk about! A lot of it seems to be in European, and I am not a fashionhead, so I can't know for sure. "This fall is all about press-ons!" Right? Am I close? One time I took a rented van to Pennsylvania to go to tubing and the cup holder in the van was filled with seven discarded black, white, and purple press-on nails. That was so gross. Would it have been less gross if there had been a full set? Maybe. The point is, that is the moment I decided to not go into fashion. One year ago. It was so close right until then. It really could have gone either way.
Last time I was at Café Habana, a friend and I were jammed next to two very fashionable men with big shopping bags and well-groomed stubbles. It might seem unfair of me to judge, as the two guys were both working through a bit of a language barrier to communicate, but they both seemed like idiots. That is too harsh, probably. How about "not-smarts?" The smaller of the two guys kept talking, for so long, about various career opportunities that had been presented to him on account of him being friends with "Marc Jacob's muse." Ugh. Please stop talking about muse like it is a real job. It makes me so mad! Maybe jealous? How do I become a muse? I watched both Valentino: The Last Emperor and The September Issue this week and I think the key is to be a princess, or Sienna Miller. I am well on my way to both of those, I think. This column is my gateway. At one point, the bigger guy ordered two pieces of Mexican corn for himself, because he is a big shot and likes things in his teeth, and he offered one to his tiny friend, who after politely declining delivered the sentence of the year. "I never eat and I always feel sick." Oh boy. I bet both those are true, but unrelated. "I never eat and I always feel sick." That is very fabulous. I mean it is very fabulous to be really skinny then die. Make it work! That's what you yell to the people at the hospital when they try to restart your heart, you tiny, stupid, wealthy person.
