Here's what Francine likes about restaurants:
"I like walking in and knowing people there."
"I like to be greeted. I like to have a good table -- up front."
Diet she's got in spades, but you won't find much else in Francine Levinson's refrigerator.
(Kyoko Hamada)
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In other words, dining is primarily a social event, best enjoyed at places where she is known. The food doesn't matter, "as long as I can get something decent."
THIS FAMILY MAY NOT COOK TOGETHER, but the two daughters who live in town always go out with their parents for Sunday brunch or dinner, and often Saturdays, too. Still, they never seem to run out of conversation. It's a rare day that Francine hasn't talked to all three of her children by 8:30 a.m., even Monica, who's on Pacific time in Los Angeles. Then she'll go on to talk to each of them another two or three times in the day. Add in calls to her brother and sister and friends, and she says her cell phone activity adds up to, "We all talk all day."
Thus it is no surprise that Francine never eats alone. "I always meet someone," though she loves going to Starbucks by herself to read the newspaper. She also never cancels a lunch or dinner date. "I could be exhausted, but the minute I walk into a restaurant . . ."
Francine calculates that she saves time by not cooking and not shopping -- she goes to supermarkets "very seldom," and if she goes to Costco occasionally, it's only for cleaning supplies. But even leaving aside the question of expense, dining out takes up an enormous chunk of time. Francine estimates that she spends two hours a day in restaurants. That's if there is no significant travel time or wait for a table, nor a disappearing waiter-with-the-check.
Restaurants are her parlor and conference room, her gathering place with family and friends, her surrogate home. But the meals that engage her real enthusiasm are the holidays, the get-togethers at their families' homes. All 40-plus of Mel and Francine's relatives share Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Christmas. Suzanne has now undertaken to host Mother's Day and the Fourth of July. Stephanie is angling for Thanksgiving, which used to be Francine's until she and Mel moved from their house to an apartment seven years ago.
That's the biggest holiday: Francine savors the details as she tells them. Thanksgiving starts with a family tennis tournament, complete with a trophy. "We take over all the tennis courts at Woodmont Country Club . . . We have A levels and bad players, young and old . . ." There is a brunch afterward, at the club. It's an all-day celebration. "Then we all go home and get dressed and meet for dinner."
For more than three decades Francine hosted those Thanksgiving dinners. In the middle of her description, she stops. For a moment.
Something's on her mind.
As if it has occurred to her for the first time, she says -- in response to a question nobody's asked -- "I've never made a turkey in my whole life."
Phyllis Richman was The Post's food critic from 1976 to 2000.
