Ferrier

Autobiographical writing.  Just finished Margaret Drabble's The Pattern in the Carpet, & now I've started Mantel's Giving Up the Ghost. It was wise to take a break from Mantel for a bit - you need a good deal of emotional fortitude to enter her territory.  But it's good stuff. 
The other day, I heard a recording of the contralto Kathleen Ferrier on the radio.  Ferrier died in the 1940s, but was still very popular when I was growing up.  This is definitely a voice of my childhood. I especially like her folk song recordings. In the late sixties and seventies we were still singing these kinds of songs in music class.  We were familiar with ballads, folk songs & any number of sea shanties, & we belted them out with gusto: The Keel Row, Hearts of Oak, Men of Harlech, Loch Lomond, Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron, Barbara Allen, Will Ye No' Come Back Again?  Are schoolgirls today familiar with any of these?  Our music teacher, Mrs. Pennington, was very popular with the students.  A big, brassy, chainsmoking blonde, who liked to put on an American accent for laughs, she was a nice antidote to the general stuffiness of the teaching staff.  The headmistress despised her, for all the reasons we found her fun. At some point a drinking habit began to get the better of her, & intruded on the school day. Her voice began to grow slurred, her piano playing became wilder, and one day she broke down in tears in front of the class.  Pretty soon after that she was gone.

Even More Unlikely Than A Brooklyn Kitchen Drawer?

Dead Dog Sparks Yorkshire Raccoon Hunt (Guardian)

12th

A good, old school block party.  Nothing fancy.  The fire hydrant open.  Kids on bikes, kids on scooters, kids playing ball.  Some food, some dancing, the music cranked up nice & loud.  Despite the changes in the neighborhood, on 12th Street between Sixth & Seventh - unlike surrounding blocks- there's a real, neighborly, hanging out crowd, & a real cultural mix.  Walking this way on a late summer day, with a kind, mellow heat & a deep blue sky, it's a just about perfect New York.

Doris Grant Loaf

The first flat I had to myself, back in the early eighties, was the first floor (well, second in the U.S.) of a handsome terraced rowhouse in Jesmond, Newcastle.  It was pretty run-down, but had good light, high ceilings, and tons of space.  The floors sloped, the windows let in plenty of cold, northern air, & the kitchen was primitive, but I loved it. Its major flaw was a dodgy water heater, with no automatic shut-off. I tended the thing carefully, but the tenants who came after me, a bunch of hari krishnas whose chanting annoyed their neighbours no end, forgot about it one day and the beast blew its top.  Boom.  Good thing they were out at the time.
Akenside Terrace was the place where I first started to cook with any seriousness.  This was budget food, made from scratch.  Grains, nuts, dried fruit & all that kind of stuff came from a little hippy co-op a few streets away, fresh fruit & veg. from the ciy's street markets, & all kinds of cheap meat from the butchers.  Braised shin beef, pigeon in red wine, hotpots with inexpensive cuts of bacon.  One time a jugged hare, with juniper berries, & occasionally a rabbit.  I picked blackberries in Jesmond Dene, a nearby park, & made jam.  I baked my own bread.  I wasn't much of a bread baker, but even I could make a Doris Grant loaf.  I learned the recipe from Jane Grigson's English Food, and it appears in a number of other British recipe books.  Doris Grant was an early pioneer for food reform, particularly for good, healthy wholemeal bread.  This recipe, for which she is most famous, came out in the 1940's.  It's pretty much a no-knead affair, & you only have to let the dough rise once, for a fairly short time.  The result is delicious - not a light loaf, certainly, but dense & full of flavor.
I don't know why I stopped making Doris Grant loaves.  They're the easiest thing to bake.  Somehow, over time, I just forgot about them.  Recently however, enjoying the Neil Cooks Grigson blog, in which our hero cooks all the recipes in English Food, I came across the recipe again, & was reinspired.  This afternoon I had to hang around waiting for a UPS delivery, & with all the ingredients at hand, the time was right. Try it for yourself.

Chipotle Grill?

Yesterday Brownstoner indicated the likelihood of a Chipotle Mexican Grill opening on Seventh & Third (the old Miracle Grill spot).  More yawns on the avenue?

The Seasons Turn

Vandaag

Followed a Serious Eats lunch suggestion, & went to Vandaag, a Dutch/Danish (?) restaurant on Second Avenue. It's a big space, &, at late, late lunchtime, was entirely devoid of other customers...just staff & a few people involved w. the place. It's only been open a month, so I hope the emptiness was just a consequence of newness/odd timing.  A sleek, stylish looking spot to relax in  ... spacious, with low black leather seating  & cool, pale blue & white walls.  Bit pricey for dinner, especially by the time you throw in drinks, but the makings of a great lunch spot.  I was a Serious Eats sheep ... had the Hete Bliksem (bacon, apple, potatoes, syrup) & a glass of Nopaloma (grapefruit/lime/agave). You might feel like you're asking for an IKEA sofa as you give your order, but never fear, the food that arrives is very good indeed. ... no Swedish cafeteria meatballs here. Perhaps the Bliksem was more autumn than summer, but who cares?  What looks good about this menu is some thoughtful seasoning & balancing touches to a pretty heavy (but delicious!) roster of dishes... And the drinks look fun too. 

Fourth Avenue Station Window

Puppets

All About Fifth reports that Puppets, the unfortunately named jazz bar on Fifth, has hit hard times.  Good luck to them - I hope they hang in there.  That name though...

A.S.Byatt

Byatt on God, the novel, & Facebook. (The Guardian)

Supper

Today it was time to test out the new fish grilling equipment.  I bought trout from Beaverkill Hatchery (Union Square) and used a recipe from Bittman - Greek-Style Fish, with plenty of lemon, thyme & garlic.  His recipe involves cherry tomatoes as a side, but I'd just frozen the most recent bunch from the garden, so I cooked a mixture of corn, squash, leek & carrot.  Served with excellent little multigrain rolls from Hot Bread Kitchen (also Union Square, fifty cents a piece).  The guy from Beaverkill is a cheery fellow, & the trout he sells (fresh or smoked) is pink fleshed & sweet.  Really easy to cook the fish with the snowshoe-like implements.  They didn't get too hot to hold when grilling, & no trace of food stuck to them.
Here are the trout ready to grill.  Unfortunately, this picture gives no indication of their irridescent splendor.

Eataly

Yikes. 50,000 square feet of culinary decadence, courtesy of Batali, Bastianich et al.  Gothamist reports.

Still Alive at The Brooklyn Paper?

Smartmom reveals her "soon-to-be-announced mega-column" in The Brooklyn Paper. The community waits with bated breath...

Toilets & Condos

"Book Stigma"

The Grumbler's take on a NYT piece about the social stigma of reading books in public...

Grilling

Time to update the grilling equipment.  This should cut down on asparagus spears, tomatoes & the like rolling down into the flames.  I will also cook fish!  These items came from Whisk, the kitchen store on Bedford Avenue, & were pretty cheap.

Mantel, Woof

OK ... The Giant, O'Brien was too much to take.  Much as I love Mantel's work, and her attraction to dark subjects, this one was too grisly & doomed a tale to enjoy.  Set in the late eighteenth century, it is loosely based on the life of a Scottish surgeon, John Hudson, and an Irish giant, Charles O'Brien, and chronicles the events that lead to their meeting in London, where the giant has come to make his fortune through public display.  As you guess from the start that O'Brien's plans will come to nothing, and as the feverish pitch of Hudson's anatomical experimentation heightens, there's no room for hope here...it's just a case of waiting for the giant to fall into Hudson's hands.  The trajectory of the novel is sickening & relentless!
Perhaps I need a break from Mantel.  My next choice is The Whole Wide Beauty, by Emma Woof, and concerns the work and family relationships of one David Freeman, esteemed head of a poetry foundation in the north of England.  As the novelist's father, Robert Woof, was a well known literary scholar & head of the Wordsworth Trust, I imagine that there will be plenty of autobiographical details at play here.  A big part of the reason I want to read this book is that Robert Woof was my tutor during my second year at university.  I was a fairly callow student at that point, somewhat intimidated in his presence,  & I didn't gain as much from his tutorials as I might.  He was a charismatic figure around the department -very much the local star - but his performance readings of Wordsworth (period Cumbrian accent & all) evoked, I'm ashamed to admit,  immature sniggers from more than a few students.

Hitting the beach in formal wear ...
Improv Everywhere at Coney Island (Gothamist)

Bored on Seventh

The other day, whilst waiting for the bus at Union & Seventh, I thought about how little I frequented businesses between Union & Eighth street.  Most of the time, when I'm on Seventh, it's just to head south, from the subway at 9th, & there's very little inclination to go in the opposite direction, except to the venerable Video Gallery at 8th, or, on occasion, to the ever efficient Seventh Avenue Copy Shop.  The remaining stores of any practical use up to Union?  A dwindling number of laundromats, a number of newspaper stores, a barbershop, a pizzeria or two, J&R Electronics ...??  At Union, there's Blue Apron, & north of there some long-standing businesses - the taqueria, Ace Market, Leaf & Bean, Cousin John's (terrible coffee!), Santa Fe Grill , pool hall- & south of 8th a bunch of useful staples &/or interesting independents - bagels, delis, pharmacy, wine/liquor stores, hair salons, a true, old school (Donut) diner, pizza, Brookes vacuums, etc. - but the middle swath,  the land of non-essential goods, consists of little that could be missed. Oh, well, I suppose there are exceptions, a couple being  D'vine Taste & Lisa Polansky -  two old favourites hanging in there. I always have time for a hardware store too, even though Tarzian's has nothing on Fifth Avenue's Leopoldi's. I have to admit that Barnes & Noble is useful at times, mainly for reading magazines I'm too cheap to buy, but the book selection is mediocre  & I try my best to go there as little as possible.   All hail to Community Books for staying alive, & I probably should buy more books there, but I'm sad to say I'm not there that much. Most of the businesses in the central drag are small or large chainstores, real estate offices, eyeglass stores, uninspired bakery/coffee-shops or boutiques & restaurants of stunning expense & mediocrity.  It's a niche market for affluent residents in their thirties to sixties whose style & tastebuds are as unambitious as their dress sense, & perhaps that very demographic guarantees a bland retail environment, just like that of Brooklyn Heights.  As older neighborhood services vanish, and nothing of any character replaces them, the colour & vigor of the avenue drains away.  God knows, even the food is bad, surprising in these seriously foodie times.  There are plenty of places with menus, but little in the way of good dining, & a surprising dearth of fresh produce, or decent groceries of any kind, the only super/mini markets being rather sad affairs. Though it's actually at Ninth, & just a block beyond my defined walk of retail shame, I would also include Brooklyn Industries in the tally of crappy businesses.  In fact, I've been wondering for the past two or three years how this chain has stayed in business.  They clearly hopped on the bandwagon of Brooklyn Merchandise very smartly when they first opened, but with that theme rather tired by now, they don't seem to have much of a fashion focus, & their clothing is tired & unattractive.  Idly googling today, I found this story from Gothamist, hinting at troubles afoot for B.I. Can't say I'd miss them.

Store Signs, 1951 & 2010

Rain We Needed

Gazela mast, Pier 11

More Tomatoes

I remember buying some orange cherry tomatoes last year ... but this fabulous yellow variety?  Both kinds appeared via composting, & are growing in abundance.

Seventh & Third

Local bits & pieces

Well, well, well ... I was wondering about this.  No more Smartmom.  FIPS has a lively response.
 Brouhaha in Windsor Terrace, as a singalong is cancelled & entitled, spirited-child raising parents express their outrage (Daily News).

Next on the Book List

Car Mishap at Rite Aid

Creepy Woodside Mural

Santa Maria - Fifth Avenue

Eat, pray, cash in
The Guardian looks at well-heeled journeys of discovery.  Can't say the Roberts film is on my list of must-sees.  Oh & did you know that Julia is now embracing Hinduism?

Fludd

I've always loved clerical comedies. Hilary Mantel's 1989 novel, Fludd,  embraces the tradition of Trollope & Pym, but, in true Mantel fashion, she spikes the wit with a darker vein of existential speculation.  Father Angwin, parish priest in a damp & primitive northern mill town, is under pressure from higher authority to embrace "ecumenical spirit" & a "decade of unity". This will involve the adoption of Vernacular mass, the removal of religious statues from the church, & even "record hops" to enliven the social life of the altar boys.  When a curate, Father Fludd, arrives to assist Angwin, presumably at the bishop's behest, change does come, though in a form no-one in Fetherhoughton anticipates.
Mantel shows a mastery of form here, & the urbane Fludd is a delicious presence in the book.  Take these exchanges from an early scene, where Fludd, newly arrived, is closely observed by Angwin, and Miss Dempsey, the housekeeper:

"Crossing the hall, she paused outside the sitting room door.  She heard conversation in full spate.  She could tell that Father Angwin had been drinking whiskey. The curate spoke in his light, dry voice: "In considering the life of Christ, there is something that has often made me wonder; did the man who owned the Gadarene swine get compensation?"
Miss Dempsey tiptoed away."

"From time to time, also, the curate leant forward and busied himself building up the fire.  He was a handy type with the tongs, Father Angwin could tell.  His efforts were keeping the room remarkably warm; and yet when Agnes came in, lugging a bucket of coal, she checked herself in surprise and said, "You don't need this."
Presently Father Angwin got up, and opened the window a crack. 
"It makes a change, for this house," he said, "but it's as hot as Hell."
"Though far better ventilated," said Fludd, sipping his whisky."

This book delivers its frivolous kicks, but Mantel also questions the nature & value of faith, and the possibility of transformation.  Mantel is sharp eyed, but also endowed with a spirit of benevolence.  By the end of the novel, the changes Fludd has brought about have bathed the sooty North with a new light:

"It was one of those days, rare in the north of England, when a pale sun picks out every black twig of a winter tree; when a ground-frost forms a gilded haze over the pavements; and great buildings, the temples of commerce, shimmer as if their walls were made of air and smoke.  Then the city casts off its grim, arctic character, and its denizens their sourness and thrift; the grace of affability dawns on their meagre features, as if the pale sun had warmth in it, and power to kindle hearts."

Uphostery

Kostas

Kostas the barber, formerly at George's shop on 11th just north of Fifth, now has a chair in the beauty shop across the avenue, next to Cafe Regular.  He also has a folding chair, on which he sits for a good deal of the day, out on the sidewalk.  This morning he was to be seen inside the shop, fixing the broken leg of a chair.  In case you weren't aware of the move, let me direct you to the three signs announcing his presence, all within a few feet of each other. Seems like a deal.

Wednesday

Things continue to move slowly on 12th Street.  In the ever-present police vehicle, a cop scans the Post, or drifts into summer reverie.  The construction at 314, which started back in 2007, continues in fits and starts.  With a plethora of complaints, violations & stop orders,  & an unfortunate design aesthetic, the apartment building in question is a sorry affair.  It's a weird looking building, with skimpy windows, a  much too small & misaligned entrance, and a beach house style duplex atop the main brick edifice.  They sort of tried for a little dignity with some decorative brickwork, but it didn't do the job.  It currently has a partial stop order on it, for the removal of an illegal mezzanine, but this did not deter yesterday's addition of a bizarre balcony fence on the third floor.  As there is no balcony to speak of (the projection here looks to be about six inches  a foot at best), it seems pretty redundant.   Every so often, middle aged men drive up to the site, confer, shuffle across the street, gaze at the place, smoke a cigarette or two, and leave.  Today a DOB inspector showed up & now the place is closed.  Beware of dog?

Dumpsters

McGovern Weir

Street Life

The police are still hanging around, hanging around.  At the corner, a beat cop, or someone posted in one of those odd little traffic vehicles.  On the block, all day, in squad car or van, legs stretched out onto the sidewalk, drowsy in the heat. Just waiting, waiting, waiting.  The makeshift memorial has disappeared, as have the messages taped to the side wall of Sleepy's.  The OTB, a week closed, grows quiet.  At first, clusters of aging punters seemed drawn back to the building as if by instinct, or for the simple solace of their fellows, and stood with looks of disbelief at the closed doors.  Day by day, their numbers dwindle.

Beyond Black

"The weather affects the motorway as it affects the sea.  The traffic has its rising tides.  The road surface glistens with a pearly sheen, or heaves its black wet deeps.  They find themselves at distant service stations as dawn breaks, where yellow light spills out into an oily dimness and a line of huddled birds watch them from above.  On the M40 near High Wycombe, a kestrel glides on the updraught, swoops to pluck small squealing creatures from rough grass of the margins.  Magpies toddle among the roadkill."


"Something about a cardigan, she was saying.  A certain class of dead people was always talking about cardigans.  The button off it, the pearl button, see if it's dropped behind the dresser drawer, that little drawer, that top drawer.  I found a threepenny bit there once, back of the drawer, it gets down between the you-know, slips down the whatsit, it's wedged like - and so I took it, this threepence, and I bought me friend a cake with a walnut on top.  Yes, yes, said Al, they're lovely, those kind of cakes: but it's time to go, pet.  Lie down Kathleen.  You go and have a nice lie-down."


"Diana is the Queen of Hearts; every time the card turns up in a spread, this week and next, she will signify the princess, and the clients' grief will draw the card time and again from the depth of the pack.  Already the first sightings of her have been reported ...If you look hard you will see her face in fountains, in raindrops, in the puddles on service station forecourts.  Diana is a water sign, which means she's the psychic type.  She's just the type who lingers and drips, who waxes and wanes, breathes in and out her tides; who, by the slow accretion of tears, brings ceilings down and wears a path into stone."

If you like your fiction dark, and suffused with a mordant sense of humor, this book is a fine read.  Mantel depicts the lives of Al, a heavyset medium, and her sour paid assistant, Colette, as they work the circuit of spiritualist gatherings and pyschic fayres, in the theatres, hotels and civic centres that circle London - "the conurbations that clustered around the junctions of the M25, and the corridors of the M3 and M4."  Constantly on the move, Al and Colette travel through a physical landscape of grim, pockmarked mediocrity, and Al lives without relief from the noisy, leering chatter of the dead.   The country Mantel depicts here is both savage and demoralized, a place where you hear the faint echoes of Eliot's Waste Land drinkers, Amis's conscience free chavs, and Pat Barker's tough-as-nails survivors. The spirit world is a perfect reflection of the mortal one, and the characters that come over to visit are as petty & flawed in death as they were alive.  Mantel can be spot-on with dialogue, and the kinds of small narrative details that define class or setting, and the book is very, very funny.  She is also dealing with intense childhood traumas, however, and with a spiritual malaise that has infected the very earth of this modern circle of suburban hell.  This stuff is not for the faint-hearted, & even if you're not religious, the shadows that haunt this book will make you a little queasy.  I wish the novel had been shorter: it dragged towards the end & threw itself off balance, but still held my attention.  After reading this I want to try Mantel's autobiography, Giving Up the Ghost.

Dressing Up in Sunset Park

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York visits Governors Island & finds Civil War reenactors much like modern day Brooklyn hipsters, "except without the irony".

51st

Home Industry

Time to put away some summer fruit.  Over the weekend I bought ten pounds of plum tomatoes (organic, $1.51 a pound), & made three kinds of sauces to freeze  - one a straight-ish tomato sauce, one with olives & white wine, & one with eggplant & red pepper. I also froze ten pounds of New Jersey peaches (78c a pound) using a wet-pack light syrup method.  Later today I'll pick a load of basil & make pesto.  All of these freeze really well.

Hendrix in London

An article from The Guardian, about Hendrix's London years, & an exhibition at Handel House, where both musicians lived.

More Grilling - White & Purple Eggplants, Peppers

North Slope Brownstone

Eats, Served Cold

Lamb rubbed with garlic, rosemary, lavender & thyme.  Beans & roasted red peppers.  Garden salad.

Biskut Cap Ping Pong

Cooking Supper

So here's tonight's supper coming along.  I decided to make Bittman's Grilled Corn, Mexican Style, served with a mayo/lime/chile sauce.  I think it worked out.

Canal

Inside Cup & Saucer Luncheonette

You can't go wrong here.