UrbanEye

By JULIE BLOOM

Down-Home Cooking


The menu at Northern Spy Food Company "reads like a roster of favorite snacks and midnight feasts, albeit executed with a precision honed in high-end kitchens," writes Ligaya Mishan. The East Village restaurant, which opened in November, is run by the chef Nathan Foot, who "has done time in fine dining, but seems to have a soft spot for down-home cooking." Look for comfy dishes like pickled eggs and corned beef hash. Polenta "engorged with crème fraîche substitutes for grits, its country cousin, as a bed for baked eggs. It's a voluptuary's dish." There is also exotic risotto, sandwiches stuffed with salty country ham and a kale salad with cubes of roasted squash for all the non-meat eaters. "The dining room is charming, referencing a country store without the glaze of irony."

Theater of War
For a long time it seemed like films made about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan just weren't clicking with critics or audiences. But with "The Hurt Locker" tied at the top of the pack of Oscar nominations with "Avatar" and a win at Sundance for the Afghanistan documentary "Restrepo," movies are finally catching up to the stage, which has fared better in tackling the past eight years of conflict. There was "Stuff Happens," "Black Watch" and now "Time Stands Still," which stars Laura Linney as a photojournalist recuperating from severe injuries suffered while she was covering the war in Iraq and Brian d'Arcy James as her partner who suffered a breakdown there. The "thoughtful drama by Donald Margulies," writes Charles Isherwood, which also stars Alicia Silverstone and Eric Bogosian, "explores the relationship between two couples at a crucial juncture in their lives, when the desire to move forward clashes with the instinct to stay comfortably - or even uncomfortably - in place." The "flawless Manhattan Theater Club production" is directed by Daniel Sullivan, "with the leads giving performances of "complementary sensitivity and richness."

See a Nominee
In keeping with the golden statue theme, "Ajami," an Israeli film, one of five Oscar nominees for best foreign-language film, opens today in New York. The movie, takes its name from a rough neighborhood in Jaffa, a mostly Arab city just south of Tel Aviv. "This particular urban conflict zone may be unfamiliar to most American viewers, but it bears a definite kinship to mean streets we know very well, at least from movies and television," writes A.O. Scott. "We could almost be in the Los Angeles of 'Colors' or 'Boyz N the Hood,' the Baltimore of 'The Wire' or the Rio de Janeiro of 'City of God.' " The movie, written and directed by Scandar Copti, an Israeli Arab, and Yaron Shani, who is Jewish, "is acutely insightful about the social divisions within Israel, but it examines them without scolding or sentimentality. There is no finger-pointing here, and no group hugging either. Instead there is an acute sense of just how deep and wide the schisms are, not just between Jews and Arabs, but also between Christians and Muslims, rich and poor, farmers and city dwellers, men and women, young and old and so on."

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