Palma, NYC

It’s a chilly January night in New York with a snow/ice storm hovering around the edge of the weekend. We have come to the city for a stimulant to revive our spirits lulled and dulled with routine and familiar landscape. New York always does the trick, even in winter when almost everyone is wearing black puffs and the sky is slate gray and asphalt-scented air drifts up from subway grates.

In the library, we happened upon the work of Anna Atkins, who back in Victorian England was the first to print each page of her book: Photographs of British Algae, in cyanotype, a camera-less photographic process that became known as the blueprint. Atkins quietly brought focus and passion to the study of botany, presenting her findings with sensitive artistry and unwavering persistence. And it seems that only recently, many years after her death, is she recognized as a pioneer.

I’m guessing that being known didn’t mean much to her. The joy was in the work, in the process of effort and discovery, in the creation of something beautiful and worthy.

Which brings me to Palma, a restaurant on quirky little Cornelia Street. We didn’t meet Palma herself, the owner of this dreamy place, but like Anna Atkins, the joy she takes in her creation is palpable. Coming in from the chill and darkness, we stumble into a beautiful room with bouquets of roses, carnations, Queen Anne’s lace, and full-throated daisies in shades of peach and coral clustered in old bottles and vases of glass and tin.

The decor is a mix of campestral Italy and abandoned factory with battered metal chairs, thick oak tables, rustic baskets, and flickering votives everywhere. Plates are heavy and white, like the napkins, and the menu is folded into a vintage valentine. We order a homemade pasta flavored with truffles and mushrooms and infused with an earthy goodness that warms body and soul.

Palma has fashioned a world here: a sustaining mix of color, texture, fragrance, taste, and light. I think of Gilbran’s quote: “Work is love made visible.” It can come from anyone and did on this trip: the considerate plumber who worked for the hotel and fixed the leaky faucet; the cab driver from Queens who laughed and told stories in a thick accent of his three daughters; the cheerful porter who greeted everyone with a smile and a little bottle of water at the revolving door of the hotel.

There is a typewritten message inside Palma’s menu that reads: “May the love you give to the universe make this world a more beautiful place.” A rose in a bottle. A smile at the door. A bowl of scrumptious pasta. We opened our eyes.