As I was standing in the doorway of the kitchen chatting with Rich Reeve, the chef, the owner, Dennis Cooper appeared behind me. A genial fellow, he said, without malice, "I guess you were right." Now far be it from me to disagree with someone who is acknowledging my prognostication skills, but I had no idea what he was referring to, and said so. "You said, 'But will it work in Kingston?' I guess not," he said, and with that he left the kitchen.

The restaurant in question is 23 Broadway. And for the record, what I actually wrote in a profile of the restaurant for the March 2005 issue, was: "Is tapas too weird to survive in downtown Kingston?" By the time you read this, 23 Broadway will have already shut its doors. Thankfully I will have one more chance to eat dinner there before the end of the month of June, when it closes for good.

The night Lee Anne and I heard the restaurant would be closing, we almost cried in Rich's arms. While I can't say I was overly surprised—the emptiness of a large space like a restaurant dining room designed to accommodate chattering pods of people is eerie and off-putting on a Friday night, and a trend in recent months at 23—learning of the closing was devastating, like a good friend telling you they had taken a job in Australia. (Rich wasn't crying, he was trying to decide whether he should find another job immediately or take some time off.) Before we left, we got Rich to sign a menu for us, which we are having framed. I kid you not.

Why all the fuss about a restaurant? Why all the fuss about this restaurant? The Hudson Valley is full of restaurants; they open and close all the time. I mean, for all its charms, 23 probably wasn't the best restaurant in the region. I've had more memorable meals in the past year at other restaurants, in fact. And its wine list was awkward, not quite matching the tapas-themed menu and not quite sure where else it should go.

I haven't mentioned the food yet. Perhaps you've been enduring all the maudlin reflections while waiting for the descriptions of the meals, the food porn. As I wrote in my profile, the food was stunning. And part of why I was so stunned by the food was that it was unexpected, that I never imagined the food in a storefront restaurant on the Rondout in Kingston—an area known for its restaurants but not very many good ones—could be so consistently risk-taking, high-quality, and fun.

The food is what made us come back the first few times. And while we'll miss the food—and we'll follow Rich wherever he goes next—we're going to miss the thought of our favorite restaurant's not existing most. Even on nights when we didn't go, it was comforting to know that 23 was there. I could picture Bianca behind the bar, pouring wine, her husky laugh resounding; Daniella parading plates of tapas across the soft-lit space; Rich craning his neck under the glass partition to see what was happening in the dining room. It was our favorite restaurant. Maybe not the best, but it was ours, and that made all the difference.

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This month, we debut a new column by Woodstock resident Larry Beinhart, Beinhart's Body Politic, which can be found on page 33. A seasoned political observer, Larry will be writing on current events. He is best known for his prescient novel American Hero, on which the film Wag the Dog is based. Last fall, he published Fog Facts: Looking for Truth in the Land of Spin, a critique of the media's inability to deliver quality reportage, especially about the Bush administration.

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Chronogram's own Julie Novak is in Chicago, on tour with the Sparkle Kids Action Network. In addition to being a graphic designer, Julie is also quite a talented musician, and she's traveling across the Midwest with two other local musicians, Mike Wilcock and Dave End, and writer and book artist Jacinta Bunnell, in a 1987 Mercedes converted to Biodiesel. The report from the Sparkle Kids is that they have already driven 1,200 miles on just $30 in fuel (and a lot of recycled fry oil). Shine on, you crazy Sparkle Kids.

—Brian K. Mahoney

On CNN's "Reliable Sources" on June 18, Gloria Borger, a CBS News contributor and US News & World Report contributing editor, acknowledged that the media "are suckers" because of their coverage of President Bush's surprise trip to Iraq on June 13.

"I think we are suckers. Particularly if you're the one who gets to go on the [press] pool...and gets to travel with the president on a secret trip to Baghdad. We do like these secret trips. Believe it or not, we kind of like to be surprised, but I think if you're a bureau chief in Washington, you may be asking, 'Gee, why didn't we have more information?' And when you ask that question, the answer you always get from the White House is, 'Because this has to be shrouded in secrecy because this is a matter of presidential security. So we can't tell you more about this in advance.' So you know you're being used, but in a way you kind of like it because it's good pictures."
Source: MediaMatters.org