July 5, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Local Life

Gene Gosfield made ‘Moon’ rise over Chestnut Hill
by LEN LEAR

Many long-time Chestnut Hill residents have fond memories of Gene and Phyllis Gosfield, who  owned and operated Under the Blue Moon for 21 years at 8040-42 Germantown Ave. Here they are seen in 1996 holding one of their signature dishes, soft shell crabs with a Thai sauce. Gene died of cancer last week at the age of 83. (Photo by Len Lear)

I hate clichés as much as stomach cramps, but I just can’t help myself in this case. When reflecting on the life of Gene Gosfield, the former owner (with wife, Phyllis) of Under the Blue Moon, a groundbreaking restaurant at 8040-42 Germantown Ave. from 1976 to 1997, I can’t help but say Gene was a true Chestnut Hill legend and that when they made Gene, they threw away the mold. (That’s two clichés.) Eugene H. Gosfield, 83, who threw the restaurant dice and hit the jackpot, died of cancer on Monday, June 25.

Customers beehived themselves into ‘Moon’ every night because of the great food but also because of the free show, compliments of Gosfield, who was part entertainer, part restaurateur, part comedian and all original. Gene would come up to each table in the restaurant and schmooze about the food, politics or the diners’ families, many of whom he knew personally. But always there was the joke, the witty remark. One time, after I mentioned needing help with a certain problem, Gene replied, “If you want to find a helping hand in this life, look at the end of your sleeve.”

Gene told me on September 20, 1997, one day before he closed the restaurant for good, “We’ve schmoozed and conspired with customers so they could have a good time. I’m beginning to accept the fact that after 21 years, I’m a damned good host.”

While other restaurants have “specials of the day,” Gene quipped that his restaurant had “specials of the decade.” He changed his menu only slightly more often than ski resorts are built on the equator. It wasn’t that his chef, Don Prentis, did not have lots of new recipes and new ideas. “It’s that the customers just won’t let me take these dishes off the menu,” Gene insisted. “Four years ago we tried to take the tuna off the menu, and two customers literally ordered me to put it back or else. People come in again and again and keep on ordering the soft-shell crabs, Thai-style; sesame pecan chicken, or Donald’s Chinese duck, so we have to keep serving them. What can I do? It’s a curse.”

Death is brutal, whether it’s a person or a tree
by BARBARA L. SHERF

This was the elm, looking regal and healthy in 2004.

A flurry of fine wood dust swirls outside my home office window in Flourtown. It falls from our approximately 100-year-old American Elm tree being put out of its misery. The sounds of chainsaws and chippers are virtually non-stop. The workers approach the job with a detached professionalism as a tear rolls down my cheek. I am forced into thinking about the continuous circle of life and death and rebirth.   

Toward the end of last fall, my husband and I grew concerned about the tree. Lab tests revealed bacterial leaf scorch, and we were told to keep an eye on it in the spring. Spring came and went, and the elm did not bloom. June 1 came and went, and it was clear that our elm was dying if not already dead. Through an Internet search I learn that fastidiosa bacterium is spread from diseased to healthy trees by leafhoppers. Once introduced in the plant, the bacterium grows within the xylem of the leaves, branches and roots. Leaf scorch results from moisture stress due to the plugging of vascular tissues in leaves, twigs and branches. There is no effective preventive treatment for bacterial leaf scorch.

Hill theater vet developing new plays with ‘PlayPenn’
by CLARK GROOME

Paul Meshejian is “looking for work that shows not only evidence of craft but evidence of artistry.”

Paul Meshejian has been a member of the Philadelphia theater community since he joined the resident company at People’s Light and Theatre in 1989. The Overbrook native, who has recently become a resident of Chestnut Hill, has acted and directed in many of the area’s best theaters.

During his time here he became aware that “as much production as we have in our community, and it’s a prolific community, we had no organization devoted to new work. Everybody produces new plays, but nobody was spending time developing new work.” His solution was to create PlayPenn, an annual conference whose purpose is “the development of new plays, the advancement of new voices in the theater both locally and nationally, and the cross-fertilization of writers, directors, dramaturges and actors.” In its third year, it has already made it mark.

Meshejian, 58, saw his first play, the Broadway production of Oliver, when he was 11. He really loved it. It wasn’t until he was at Parsons College in Iowa in the 1970s that he became more involved with what has turned out to be his life’s work. He was working at a summer theater there, hanging lights and painting sets as an intern, when the festival director told him he could be paid for what he was doing. Liking that, he got even more involved and eventually began directing and acting.

King Solomonov reigns in regal Marigold Kitchen
by LEN LEAR

Chef Michael Solomonov and his wife, Mary, of Mt. Airy, are seen at their wedding last year at a location near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

You have to love this riches-to-rags story. (Well, not exactly “rags,” but a reduced cache of riches.) Steven Cook, 33-year-old son of a rabbi, grew up in Pittsburgh, came to Philly to attend the University of Pennsylvania, graduated from the Wharton School and made some serious money as an investment banker in New York for six years.

But in addition to making money, Steven had a creativity itch that just had to be scratched (and with a last name like Cook, he was probably pre-destined to wind up in a professional kitchen), so he began taking night school courses at the French Culinary Institute in New York in 2001. If he had just learned to make a few great dishes for Saturday night dinner parties, you wouldn’t be reading about it in this newspaper.

But apparently Cook had even more of a flair for reduced red wine sauces than for reduced rate mortgages or compound interest, and he wound up kicking to the curb a career that promised to produce lots of “Benjamins” in exchange for one with lots of beans and butter.

Forget Paris Hilton; the iPhone story is moo-velous
by JIMMY J. PACK JR.

Mayor John Street may not be able to run again for mayor, but he can still give a political speech to a small but select group of engaged citizens near several dumpsters. (Photos by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

Around this time of the year, when the summer is full of beach-goers tending to sun burns, children selling lemonade to sweaty walkers and their panting dogs, and a virtually empty Chestnut Hill is left to fend for itself on weekends when residents head down to the shore, any sane person can officially declare allergy season over.

And I think it’s over for everyone but me. In the middle of the night, last Thursday, I was awakened by an asthma attack, a fever and the urge to vomit.