Governors Island

Savory Ham & Cheese Bread

I got this from the Times.  I didn't have the gruyere the Times recipe specified , so substituted a very sharp English cheddar.  This was really quick & easy to make, & tasted delicious.  I served it with a romaine & tomato salad, as a light supper.  I'm not that good at the cakes/loaves kind of baking, but this seems foolproof, & might become a standard.

Cup and Saucer

Coming up Eldridge Street, I saw this vision of diner loveliness.  Oh, but I didn't have time to go & eat there!  I'll be back within the next few days.  What a perfect diner name - Cup & Saucer -  and what a no nonsense exterior. That sign gladdens the heart!  From what I gather, the inside decor is of the same vintage, & the kitchen turns out classic, no nonsense diner grub.  Absolutely worth heading over to Canal for.  Cup & Saucer, Cup & Saucer, Cup & Saucer ...

8th & 13th

Chinatown Red

Eating Out

Over the last month or so, I've eaten at three places that were new to me.  Beer Table (Seventh & 14th) has been around a couple of years, and has garnered high praise for its 'carefully curated' beer selection & small, choice, menu.  I'm not a beer expert, so I guess the selections were over my head, but the prices seemed absurd ($32 for a bottle of beer) & the description of one brew as redolent of "ripe banana" was not enticing.  The prix fixe was OK, but a bit on the heavy, wintery side.  My starter - roast beets with smoked sardines & sour cream - was quite tasty, but perhaps better suited to December than to July . My entree - caramelized bacon - was mostly fat (chewy fat at that), the accompanying roast potatoes were soggy rather than crisp, and the dish just continued the food for sub-zero temperatures theme.  After a butterscotch pudding with apricot & seasalt (& I did like the crunchy grains of salt studding the dish) I was ready to brave a snowdrift or two. In all fairness, there were watermelon options on the menu, & I should have opted for at least one of them to lighten the meal.  If you're a serious beer fan, and have money to burn, this could be the place for you.  I'm not, and I don't, and it isn't.
Thistle Hill Tavern, on Seventh & 15th, is not exactly tavern like in atmosphere, consisting of a bright, unremarkable dining room, with bar on the back wall.  Not much ambience here, with service, and a menu that is best defined as adequate.  Thistle Hill's locavore culinary schtick is unsurprising, but it does seem to hit the p.c. jackpot in its online blurb, fitting in "locally sourced", "seasonal", "sustainable", "small batch", "artisanal" & "biodynamic" within the space of two sentences!  All admirable stuff, of course, but without an ounce of conviction in presentation to the customer, & a pretty ho-hum product.  Just toeing the current food line. I had a pretty decent milk-braised pork belly entree, but the portion was skimpy.   Not much else to say really.  It's a passable Slope restaurant, so it fits in well with plenty of other places in the neighborhood.  If you want to go a decent South Slope place along similar food lines, but with a nicer vibe & a better executed menu, I'd suggest Lot 2 on Sixth & 29th, as a much better choice.
Out of Park Slope & over to Prospect Heights. Kaz an Nou, on Bergen Street, is a treasure of a place, with a Caribbean influenced French menu, and an owner/chef/waiter, Sebastien Aubert,  who knows how to run a joint.  This is a warm, slow paced, comfortable restaurant.  Aubert expends enormous amounts of pride, charm & energy in describing his dishes & generally tending to the needs of his diners & the results show. The place is a haven of contentment.  To judge by the weekday night I was there, he's doing well: the place fills quickly early on in the evening, & diners linger over their meals.  With a BYOB policy & a fairly priced menu, why not? This is a spot you'll recommend to others, and where you'll want to establish yourself as a regular.   We had curried snails & cod fritters for starters, & fish stew & lamb lasagne entrees.  For dessert we split a mango mousse, chocolate cake with creme anglaise, & creme brulee.  We left happy, and were not overwhelmed by a hefty bill. This is the kind of place every neighborhood needs.

Back to Despana

I hadn't been back here for a very long time.  There's more space for eating now, with three large marble tables in a side room.  It's a beautifully designed store, and it's the kind of place that makes you want to up your game, food wise.  Really good cheese & sausage, & all kinds of interesting oils, sauces, olives etc.  And of course tapas.  I came away with pinxto brandada (salt cod), pinxto boquerones (marinated white anchovies) & a slice of tarta de Santiago, a Galician almond cake.  Bliss.

Rudy's Pastry Shop, Ridgewood

Bravo Shoe Repair

These guys do a fantastic job.  Prices are very reasonable, & they work quickly. 9th at Sixth.       

                

C Town Looking Grand

Stuffed Poblanos

On the List

I've been familiar with the 4th Ave. IND station for over twenty years, but until this week, I had no idea that it was on the National Register of Historic Places.  It was built in the 1930's, & got its spot on the list fairly recently, in 2005.  To be honest, I found the place fairly depressing for a number of years, but over time - the thousands of early mornings standing on the platform - I've grown to find it extraordinarily beautiful.  Being at an above ground station is a fine way to start the day, & the light up there is really something. 

"Burn, hang, or beat" the effigy...

Protests against Lindsey Graham for his support of Kagan's Supreme Court nomination.  Ugly stuff.  Via The Dish.

Almost Mediterranean

Ratatouille Nicoise

A whole year has rolled around & it's time to make ratatouille again. Most recipes include a combination of aubergine,courgette, onion, garlic, tomato, basil, & oil, though some purists maintain that aubergines should not be included. Both Elizabeth David & Jane Grigson (trusty old-school guides)  include ground coriander in their recipes, while Alice Waters (whose opinions I always respect) opts for dried chile flakes instead. Some people like a thinner, soupier version, and others like a pretty dry dish. Sometimes the recipe is made with grilled vegetables. I'm going with the David version, which you can find in her 1960 work, French Provincial Cooking.  

Late July Supper

New potato salad with sardines
Green salad w. lettuce, cucumber, red onion & mint
Stewed plums with ginger, served with cream

The very ripe yellow plums were cooked at a low heat with a little brown sugar & a small piece of root ginger.  They needed no added liquid, & I didn't bother removing the stones until after they were cooked - just cut them loosely into two before heating.

Chelsea Flower Show, 1952

On such a miserably hot day, why not look at some archive footage of the Chelsea Flower Show, & discover the source of British patience? If you feel like it, you can also look at the shows of 1936 (nifty clothing) and 1966 (colour!), but I'm quite happy with this one, with a brand new queen.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/video/2010/may/24/chelsea-flower-show-1952?intcmp=239

Seasonal Decorations on Eleventh

Books

Recently purchased:
Beyond Black - Hilary Mantel (Picador)
Don't Look Now - selected stories of Daphne Du Maurier (New York Review of Books )
I'd meant to read Beyond Black when it first came out, well before Wolf Hall, but didn't get around to it.  The Du Maurier stories, darker & more ambiguous than her better known novels, should be perfect for idle summer days.

Be Prepared

At this time of year, I like to roast a bunch of seasonal vegetables, and use them in different dishes later in the week.  It means one spell of kitchen heat - not fun at this time of year - but makes subsequent days of cooking very casual.  Yesterday I roasted fennel (in a kind of basic gratin) until brown & caramelized, mixed peppers, & tomatoes.  I had the fennel yesterday, & will use the tomatoes tomorrow, in a quick pasta sauce.  Today I used the peppers with butter beans & bacon, along with with plenty of garlic & sage.  This took about 15 minutes max.

Fedora's

Through Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, I discovered Walkers in the City, a beautifully written New York blog.  The latest entry is a tribute to 90 year old Fedora Dorato, whose landmark West 4th restaurant is closing this weekend.

Early Morning, Fourth Avenue

The Grumbler

This week Jeremiah Moss of Jeremiah's Vanishing New York announced the debut of his new "more curmudgeonly & critical" blog, The Grumbler.

Back Yard Before (Please) Rain- 8:30 p.m.

Bryant Park - 7:15 a.m.

Two Tomatoes

Here are the two extremes of my tomato crop.  The Montreal Tasty, weighing in at 14 5/8 ounces, is the only fruit on its spindly vine, which seems to have exhausted itself in the production of this massive, ungainly creation.  The Czech's Excellent Yellow, at exactly one ounce, is modest, well shaped, and appealing in colour.  I'm a bit apprehensive about slicing into the Tasty, but I suspect the Yellow will be a burst of summer sweetness.

Prospect Park Geese

OTBKB reports that there will be a vigil tonight for the recently slaughtered Prospect Park geese.  Oh please. This is about as ridiculously Slope-ish as you can get.  I agree with  A Year in the Park: the damn things needed culling, & indeed it is a shame there was no free roaming, locally sourced, artisanally prepared goose eating opportunity offered to the people of the borough.

Food Thoughts

Trying to decide on supper for hot weather, & continuing in the grilling outside mode.  I think it will be home grown fennel grilled with olive oil, sea salt & lemon juice, & a simple tuna salad with greens & tomatoes(also from the garden).  Grilled peaches & vanilla ice cream for dessert.

EV Grieve on Brian Rose's photographs of the LES in 1980.  They include this great shot of  Second Street at Houston:

Late Sunlight

Ferris Street

What's for Supper?

Lamb ragu with fava beans, grilled yellow squash
Apricot compote and fromage blanc

Down by the Water

Garden Tomatoes

When I was growing up, we grew most of our own fruit and vegetables, but for some reason we bought tomatoes from Agnes, in the village.  To get them we went through a dark, flagstone pathed passage, into the blinding light of a garden teeming with red fruit.  Today, the smell of a tomato takes me back to that place.  Because I was young, I didn't get to untease the mystery that surrounded Agnes, a sad, thirty something woman who lived with her father, but I know that there was a village wide sentiment of sympathy for her lot.  Tyrannical parental rule seemed to be at the heart of things, and perhaps this veered into an incestuous relationship.  At any rate it was something unmentionable to a child. In an era before Oprah, therapy, and phone calls to the authorities, I doubt that anyone talked about it much, or lifted a finger to help her.  We were of our time, and English to boot.  We all felt sorry for her, but were careful to mind our own business.

Friday Night Lights

Friday Night Lights, now in its fourth season, continues to be the best drama on network television.  Last night's episode centered on Becky, a sophomore facing difficult decisions concerning her pregnancy.  As with all the FNL work (except perhaps, the sensationalist plotlines of the second season) the script and acting here was superb.  Characters in this show are contemplative, without seeming pretentious or overwritten,  and articulate their relationship to family and hometown in a manner quite unlike that of any other show you'll see on television right now.  They're really rooted in Dillon, Texas.  I love everything about this show: the fine camera work, the elegaic light falling on highway, ballfield & scrubby pasture; its success in capturing that sweet confused ache of loyalty and small town claustrophobia; the peerless ensemble acting, & the sense of a dense, real community.  The show has garnered serious critical acclaim, but languished in terms of viewer numbers.  For the last two years it has survived on a cable/network partnership, and next season will be its last.  I'm happy with that.  Five years of such high quality work (I'm assuming Season Five will match the others) will be a fine achievement.
Last night's show has attracted quite a bit of critical comment.  Today's NY Times found its treatment of Becky's abortion to be "remarkable" and "particularly resonant", but found its"quasi-Marxist" point of view onesided, with "the opposing view ...depicted as obtuse and out of touch".  The Atlantic Monthly, on the other hand, lauded the wriers' "nuanced" and "apolitical work", and found the episode to be "devoid of political grandstanding or posturing".  Both pieces are worth reading, but I'm with the Atlantic on this one.

"From Motown to Growtown"

From The Guardian, green activity in Detroit.

Slightly Unappealing Figure On Garfield

Esposito Truck - Banana Baby

The Outer Boroughs on Film

This Anthology Film Archives program looks well worth checking out.  From July 9th-11th.

We need him to pull through!

Onegoodmove posts a Hitchens fest montage, with sequel.  The world would be far duller without him around.

Evening Sun

Supper

Hot weather cooking. Grilled asparagus, topped with a couple of pheasant eggs.  Glass of wine. 15 minute meal, with most of the heat outside.
Do I overdo the eggs business?  No!