New York Winterlude 1, rev. ed.

fig. a: several large men's footprints, one giant shadow

Maybe it's the fact that Snowpocalypse 2010 has had me thinking of our friends to the south. Then again, maybe it's just that Sam Sifton's review of Motorino this week has left me in a tizzy--a pizza tizzy. Whatever, the case, I finally got around to revising a post that got started about a year ago, not long after a short, sweet mid-February New York Winterlude in early 2009.

It went something like this:

Day 1 began with us having to move our car out of our Midtown, 2nd Ave. parking spot by 8:00 am to avoid getting a nasty ticket. We weren't planning on using the car while we were in New York, but once we got in the car, we figured, "if we have to move it anyway, might as well get some use out of it, right?" So we went about as far crosstown as you could possibly go, to Jim Lahey's Sullivan Street Bakery on W. 47th near 11th Ave. A little crazy, I know, especially when you're on vacation, but Michelle had a hankering for croissants and I had designs on some of their famous flatbreads, so... Plus, we had plans to visit Lahey’s just-opened Co. later in the trip, so this was research.

They'd just opened when we arrived, and they were still very much in the process of setting up shop, but they had plenty of fresh croissants on hand and their counter display already looked pretty appealing.

fig. b: display case, Sullivan St. Bakery

So we grabbed a couple of croissants, and a couple of slices and headed back through the crosstown traffic and the mayhem in search of coffee.

fig. c: Michelle & Juan

We didn't find any of New York's "serious" coffee shops, but we did find Juan Valdez, and he was happy to serve us.

fig. d: sous les pavés, la forêt

Day 1 was all about Midtown and the Upper East Side. We were lucky enough to be staying with friends on E. 57th, and we had museums we wanted to visit, so we put our car in long-term parking and hit the pavement.

fig. e: Sullivan St. Bakery's potato pie

By the time we reached the Met, we were a little peckish again, so Michelle pulled out a slice of Sullivan Street's lovely potato pie that she'd wisely stashed in her backpack, and we refueled in Central Park. We love their basic marinara slice, but those guys definitely have a way with potatoes. Look how golden they are!

fig. f: one in a thousand

Our main reason for going to the Met was to check out their "Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard" exhibition, which displayed hundreds of artifacts from Evans' gargantuan personal collection of early 20th-century postcards (including this beauty depicting plums being dried into prunes in Campbell, CA) and made a very interesting argument about how this collection influenced his work. It was a phenomenal exhibit, but, I have to say, it attracted a strange crowd. It was a compact exhibition too, so it wasn't as though you could get away from all those weird people with their loud voices and their bad attitudes. It felt more like an antiques show than that contemplative museum experience I've heard so much about.

fig. g: To: Walker Evans; From: Diane Arbus

Even with all those difficult people, we still had a great time, and we particularly liked this postcard from Diane Arbus to Walker in particular, with its idiosyncratic script and its curious left field reference to Evans' talents in the kitchen (and his way with potatoes).

fig. h: fancy feet 1

Afterwards, we made the most of our donation and toured a fairly wide cross-section of the Met's collection, but we were particularly taken by the Medieval tapestries.

fig. i: fancy feet 2

By mid-afternoon, we had made our way up the street to the Neue Galerie. In part, so that we could immerse ourselves in its Mitteleuropean splendor.

fig. j: return to Café Sabarsky

But mostly, so that we could pay a repeat visit to our friends at Café Sabarsky. This was our first time having a full meal at Café Sabarsky, and I suspect it won't be our last. Goulash, sausage and rotkohl, beer, kaffee und kuchen--we were in Hapsburg Heaven.

The lowdown:

mains: weisswurst w/ potato salad and mustard; goulash soup w/ potatoes

desserts: sabarsky torte; milchrahmstrudel

fig. k: Schaller und Weber

So much so, in fact, that when we asked about our amazing weisswurst and found out it came from the legendary Schaller & Weber, we made that our very next stop. There we bought some more weisswurst and some frankfurters, and some of their famously spicy house mustard, and we admired their whimsical beer paraphernalia.

fig. l: Shad is here!

Speaking of repeat visits and old favorites, that night we had a hankering for seafood, so we went back to visit our friends at the Grand Central Oyster Bar. We love the atmosphere at the bar--the mix of regulars, tourists, and the seasoned staff, the banter, the repartee--and GCOB’s selection of oysters on the half-shell is always impressive. We ordered a cross-section of house specialties--baked, fried, stewed, and raw (representing Long Island, the Chesapeake, Nova Scotia, and Washington)--and a round of beers, and we settled right in.

The lowdown:

appetizer: clams casino

raw bar: blue points; bras d'or; kumimoto; royal miyagi

hot dishes: oyster stew; clam pan roast

fig. m: inside the Campbell Apartment

Afterwards, we found out our friends R & M had a little surprise in store for us: a nightcap at the Campbell Apartment, the cocktail bar that occupies the former office of William J. Campbell, a financier and railroad tycoon. A former office in a railway station. Sounds glamorous, right? Well, this was no ordinary office. Campbell evidently had a thing for the Northern Italian culture of the late Middle Ages--he spent loads to have the place decked out in medieval Florentine splendor, and just to make sure everyone understood that he had money to burn, he placed a huge, imposing safe in his sizable fireplace. Campbell’s 3,500 sq. ft. office has been fully renovated to its previous splendor (including the safe), but now much of the space is taken up by a big, old bar, and the Campbell Apartment functions as a swanky cocktail bar. Talk about a nightcap!

To be continued...

Sullivan Street Bakery, 533 West 47th Street, New York, NY (212) 265-5580

Colombian Coffee Federation/Juan Valdez Coffee, 140 East 57th Street, New York, NY (917) 289-0981

Café Sabarsky, 1048 5th Avenue, New York, NY (212) 288-0665

Schaller & Weber, 1654 2nd Avenue, New York, NY (212) 879-3047

The Grand Central Oyster Bar, 89 East 42nd Street, New York, NY (212) 490-6653

The Campbell Apartment, 15 Vanderbilt Ave., New York, NY (212) 953-0409

new york snapshots

Just a few weeks after our rendez-vous with the Colonel, we were back in New York. This time we drove back and forth through Upstate, but, unfortunately, we didn't really have the time to stop. We were heading to the Big Apple, and we only had about 48 hours to play with.

fig. a: fakin' the A Train

fig. b: Canarsie-bound

We were a little rusty when it came to riding the Metropolitan Transit Authority's subway system, so we paid a visit to the MTA's Transit Museum to get a little practice on some vintage subway cars before moving on to the real thing--you know, with movement, crowds, graffiti, debris, etc. As you can tell, it didn't take us long to get back in the swing of things.

fig. c: oysterettes!

fig. d: yes! it's...

fig. e: strictly vegetable

What we hadn't anticipated was that the Transit Museum is a fantastic repository for vintage advertisements, including plenty of food ads. We especially liked the ones for Oysterettes and for Schmulka Bernstein's kosher cold cuts. Too bad we couldn't find one for Bernstein's kosher Chinese.

fig. f: trains, trains

It's also a great place to take kids. Every kid we saw was having a blast.

fig. g: A & A

Now that we had our NYC legs, it was time to make use of them. One of our very first stops was A & A Bake & Doubles Shop in Bed-Stuy. We'd heard raves about A & A's authentic Trini chick pea doubles with hot sauce, and doubles are quite simply one of our favorite delicacies. A & A's doubles were rather different than the ones we're accustomed to up here (Mister Spicee), but we loved them just the same. Their fried dough was thin but tasty, and their chickpeas were heavenly--sweeter and more fragrant than we'd ever had, with lots of herbs and spices (allspice, nutmeg, etc.). Great hot sauce and tamarind sauce too. A & A is take-out only, but those doubles barely lasted the trip out the door.

fig. h: "it melts in your mouth"

I bought Michelle this Sahadi's halwah tin years ago thinking that we had been there together on one of our visits to New York and that she loved Sahadi's as much as I do. Turns out Michelle had never been there and that she didn't know Sahadi's from Bebe Rebozo. Oops.

fig. i: Sahadi's dried fruit

Well, I finally took her there this time around. Michelle was looking for dried fruit for this year's batches of fruitcake, and though Sahadi's prices could barely compete with the brand spanking new Trader Joe's that's opened across the street, their selection was still pretty hard to beat. She walked out with two pounds' worth of dried citron (and, no, that's not French for "lemon").

fig. j: at the Brooklyn Flea Market

One of the major highlights of our New York trip (actually, it was barely long enough to be a trip--it was more like a fling) was our Sunday morning trip to the Brooklyn Flea Market. There we found tons of great stuff to be had--clothes, furniture, knick-knacks, art, clock faces, etc.--but what left the deepest impression on us was the small but stunning array of food stands.

fig. k: fresh beef taco

Stop #1 was to the rather prosaically named Martinez Food Vendors From Red Hook, seasoned veterans (no pun intended) of the legendary "soccer tacos" scene. We could barely wait to get our hands on a couple of freshly prepared tacos with "the works" for our Sunday brunch, so we marched right over and got busy. Perfect timing, too. They had just finished cooking down another batch of carnitas just as we arrived. Topped with all manner of fixings, plus a couple of lethal hot sauces, these were the best tacos we've had since Frisco.

fig. l: truckin' good

Just as impressive, and even more original, was the Pizza Moto stand.

fig. m: Pizza Moto's oven

Here, Mr. Moto (a.k.a. Dave Sclarow, seen on left) serves freshly baked pizzas from a brick oven built on the bed of a trailer. Good pizzas. Very good pizzas.

fig. n: Pizza Moto's pizza

Sure, they looked a little funny, but they made up for it with a chewy crust, a wonderfully assertive tomato sauce, and some rather tasty blistering. This was pizza #1. #2 was even better. It was also better looking, but I was too busy eating it to snap a shot. Talk about the little oven that could.

When we got back to Montreal I checked to see if our friend Adam "Slice" Kuban had paid a visit yet. Not yet, apparently, but it turns out Mr. Sclarow just recently got some well-deserved coverage in the New York Times. According to the NYT, there's a reason Pizza Moto's pies have so much character: Sclarow honed his skills at Franny's and picked up some additional inspiration backpacking through Italy.

Oh, yeah: and don't miss the stand selling open-faced sandwiches with smoked ricotta and hand-carved prosciutto di Parma on semolina-sesame bread. Among other reasons, they not only use Brooklyn's own Salvatore ricotta, with its unparalleled creaminess, they sell it retail too.

fig. o: gimme!

The very best coffee of the weekend, by a long shot (again, no pun intended), was the macchiato I had at Gimme! My expectations were big, but Gimme! delivered. And then some. After that jolt, it was more like Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

fig. p: menu, table, upholstery

But the most magical hour out of the 48 we spent in New York, was probably the hour we spent at Café Sabarsky. Michelle had made Café Sabarsky her #1 priority for the weekend after hearing P. wax poetic about chef Kurt Gutenbrunner's meticulous Mitteleuropean pastries. She insisted that we pop in on our way out of town, and god bless her for having been insistent.

Café Sabarsky is located inside the Neue Galerie, specializing in Austrian and German modernist art, and is named after Serge Sabarsky, the Vienna-born art collector to whom the gallery is dedicated. It's got an absolutely note-perfect Central European café feel to it, from the professional service right down to the upholstery.

fig. q: apple strudel

And the pastries? My apple strudel was among the very best either of us had ever had, a perfect marriage of tangy sliced apple filling, the flakiest of strudel doughs, and plenty of ground walnuts,

fig. r: strudel + sachertorte + kaffee = bliss

while Michelle's sachertorte was simply fantastic, leagues better than anything we'd ever experienced. It was light as a feather and had the most exquisite chocolate flavor, yes, but really it was that homemade apricot preserve that made all the difference. Truly outstanding. And that whipped cream!

So there you have it.

MTA's Transit Museum, Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn Heights, (718) 694-1600

A & A Bake & Doubles Shop, 481 Nostrand Ave., Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

Brooklyn Flea Market, Lexington and Vanderbilt, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Sundays

Gimme!, 228 Mott St., (212) 226-4011

Café Sabarsky @ the Neue Galerie, 1048 5th Ave., Manhattan, (212) 628-6200

aj

fig. s: the occasion

[Thanks to H. for the hospitality. Thanks to R. & M. for providing us with the occasion.]

New York Odds & Ends 1

fig. a: Egg

Egg

Ever since I was taken to a restaurant in Reykjavik that operated as several different restaurants during the course of the week (there was a rotation at work, so it'd be a hippy vegetarian restaurant every Friday, a Pakistani restaurant every Saturday, and so on), I've liked the idea of restaurants sharing a space as a way of minimizing overhead costs. Of course, the fact that both visits to that Reykjavik resto were successful certainly helped. In theory, rock bands sharing a rehearsal space can be a pretty cool thing too, but in practice the results aren't always all that, well, noteworthy. Anyway, when we heard about the breakfasts at Egg, which started off by sharing its space on N. 15th St. in Williamsburg with a nouveau hot dog and hamburger joint named Sparky's--Egg by morning, Sparky's by afternoon and evening--we were intrigued. When we heard the folks at Egg were serving Col. Bill Newsom's legendary Kentucky country ham, we were more than intrigued: we got downright excited. We'd been dreaming of Newsom's hams for some time, and we even looked into getting a Newsom's country ham shipped to AEB headquarters in Montreal at one point, but we're sorry to say free trade ain't what it's cracked up to be.

It was a little too blustery to dine seated at the outdoor table for two you see pictured above, so we stepped inside and joined the short queue waiting inside the door of this slender, minimal restaurant with the short, minimal name. Ten minutes later we had our table and our menus and it took about 2 seconds to make up our minds about our order: country ham biscuit with fig jam and aged Grafton Village cheddar for her, eggs over easy, cheese grits, and artisanal bacon for him. The grits, from South Carolina's Anson Mills, were quite possibly the best I'd ever had. They weren't really cheese grits, they were more along the lines of "grits with cheese," but I couldn't have cared less because the grits themselves were truly awesome. The bacon was ridiculously good too, and cooked to tender perfection--such a rarity. But that country ham biscuit was simply out of control. What it lacked in volume--it's fairly compact and is easily dwarfed by its plate--it more than made up for in complexity of flavor. That ham, that cheese, that jam--we're talking a veritable symphony. I can't say I'm a connoisseur when it comes to Southern hams (sadly, I might add), but it's hard for me to imagine a better-tasting ham. Dark and smoky, with an almost crumbly texture that reminded me of a fine Parmigiano Reggiano, this was a ham with character to spare. Michelle enjoyed every last morsel. And when she'd made it disappear we ordered a generous side order of Newsom's ham for the road. Pretty much the best $4 we've ever spent.

From there we crossed the bridge

fig. b: Brooklyn as seen from the Williamsburg Bridge

and made our way into the Lower East Side.

Essex Street Market

We paid a visit to the Essex Street Market for the first time since its make-over and while we were at Saxelby Cheesemongers sampling some cheeses and having a friendly chat with one of the cheesemongers (eventually we bought some artisanal butter), we both couldn't help but notice an odd-looking café just to the right of the cheese counter. A few tables, a short-order cook behind the counter composing his short orders, an informal, open setting--nothing too strange about that, right? Aside from the fact that there was a waitress, the format was pretty much the same as any other North American food court operation. Except that we found ourselves looking at the plates that were getting served, trying to figure out what kind of food they served, and, try as we might, we just couldn't pin it down. Some plates looked vaguely Mexican, others vague Southeast Asian, but none of the plates looked entirely like one thing or the other. Then we noticed their hot sauces. This place had a massive selection, and, again, they spanned the globe (Mexican, Caribbean, Southeast Asian, American, etc.). And then there was the grizzled beatnik manning the kitchen. After puzzling over things for a minute or so, we both came to the same tentative conclusion: "Shopsin's? Here?" And so it was.

We'd been having elaborate Shopsin's fantasies ever since we read Calvin Trillin's "Don't Mention It," his in-depth account of the Shopsin's mystique, in The New Yorker a few years back. We knew Kenny Shopsin had reopened his namesake restaurant in Greenwich Village sometime after his original "general store" was forced into retirement--we had no idea that he'd picked up and moved the operation yet again. Unfortunately, as brisk as our walk across the Williamsburg Bridge had been, it wasn't quite brisk enough to work off the country ham and grits we'd just finished wolfing down, so all we did was admire Shopsin's from the periphery. Correction: all we did was admire Shopsin's from the periphery and grab one of Shopsin's thoroughly unhinged menus,

fig. c: detail of Side 1 of Shopsin's menu

the better to prepare for our next trip to New York.

fig. d: one of #1 Dumpling House's #1 dumplings

#1 Dumpling House

Minutes later we had just enough room to run a little QC on #1 Dumpling House, and we're happy to report that their pork and chive dumplings and their sesame pancake with beef are both just as dazzling as ever.

fig. e: Saigon Bakery

Saigon Bakery

Post-#1 Dumpling, we were back to having no room, but that didn't stop us from following up on another lead and checking out Saigon Bakery in search of mind-blowing banh-mi, and as soon as we did it was clear to both of us that this was an opportunity that we couldn't possibly pass up on. Saigon Bakery is tucked away in the back of a jewelry store, but, make no mistake, this is a serious banh-mi joint. We ordered one of their massive--and I mean massive--meatball subs and promptly got our minds blown. These were luscious pork meatballs, they were hefty, they were packed into a big sub that was slathered with pork pâté and mayo and absolutely overstuffed with Saigon Bakery's fresh, flavorful (and spicy) fixins, and they forever changed our notion of what banh-mi means. You could have fed a family of four with that thing. You could have fed a family of four and made them very happy indeed. Definitely the best $3.75 we've ever spent.

Joanne Hendricks

A couple of hours later we were on the western extremity of Greenwich Village. We'd gone there in search of out of print, antiquarian, and unusual cookbooks and behind this handsome door

fig. f: Joanne Hendricks

that's exactly what we found. We knew from experience that New York's cookbook specialists could be very impressive, and Joanne Hendricks was just such a bookstore. We'd already had our minds blown by Saigon Bakery's meatball sub--now we found our minds getting majorly expanded by the curiosities at Joanne Hendricks. Like a good museum, or a sprawling flea market, a store like this exposes you to so many things you never even knew existed. We spent about an hour just browsing, each of us lost in our own little culinary world. Then we started talking to Joanne Hendricks herself--she was almost as excited about our impending pizza tour as we were--and the next thing we knew another hour had elapsed. In the end, I only picked up one book, but she's a beaut: Judith and Marguerite Herman's Cornucopia, a book I'd once pored over at my friend J.'s place some years ago (and had been coveting ever since). Here's a seasonally appropriate scan (complete with Mrs. Acton's Christmas Plum-Pudding receipt [courtesy of Tabitha Tickletooth]) to give you a small taste of Cornucopia's considerable charms and its striking two-tone printing:

fig. g: Cornucopia on plum pudding, holly, and mistletoe

The Strand

Our mandatory visit to The Strand only turned up one real gem and Michelle found it in their Rare Books department: The Merle Armitage Book of Food. I mean, what can you say about a book that combines some pithy food writing, a collection of recipes that includes everything from Lapin au vin blanc to 'Possum and Sweet 'Taters, celebrity recipes from the likes of Lewis Mumford, Edgar Varèse, and James M. Cain, and "Four Vegetables," a four-page portfolio by Edward Weston? Beautiful layout, too, including, some more fine two-tone printing:

fig. h: Merle Armitage on food as art

Egg, 135 N. 5th St., Brooklyn, (718) 302-5151

Essex Street Market, 120 Essex St. (at Delancey), Manhattan

#1 Dumpling House, 118 Eldridge St., Manhattan, (212) 625-8008

Saigon Bakery, 138 Mott St., Manhattan, (212) 941-1541

Joanne Hendricks, 488 Greenwich St., Manhattan, (212) 226- 5731

Strand Bookstore, 828 Broadway (at 12th St.), Manhattan, (212) 473-1452

aj

New York Stories 3

Enough already. No need to drag this "saga" out any longer.

Ain't that the truth? Especially since Day 3 was our wind-down day in the Big Oyster. "What, winding down already? After only two days and 200 blocks?" Yeah, I know. Kind of slack, huh? The thing is, we knew we had dinner plans on Sunday night--R and M, our hosts, were throwing a small dinner party. Plus, the temperature had been dropping like a stone all weekend. By Sunday things in New York had gotten frosty, blustery, and downright Canadian. So we opted for a relatively easy day, one that involved a considerable amount of time indoors.

1. Coney Island?

We'd been thinking of spending the day at Coney Island, checking out its weatherbeaten off-season splendor before the Coney Island Strategic Development Plan goes into full effect, Thor Equities and co. get their way, and we get stuck with this freak show:



But, frankly, Coney Island seemed just a little too exposed.

2. NYPL

So we grabbed an "everything" bagel and a schmear from a local bagel shop, cut over to Fifth Ave. and walked down to the grandeur that is the New York Public Library to do a little research.



We both had some hard-to-find titles that we wanted to take a look at, and we were happy to see that they had a couple of great shows up--the inspirational "Where Do We Go From Here?: The Photo League and Its Legacy, 1936-2006" and the smart,



playful, and, well, cheeky "A Rakish History of Men's Wear"



--but we were especially excited to dig up some exotic recipes. In the end, though, the best recipe we discovered that afternoon came from one of Michelle's hard-to-find books, a copy of Dieter Roth's (a.k.a. Diter Rot, a.k.a. Dieter Rot) 1968 Something Else Press title, 246 Little Clouds. There, quite by chance, Michelle found Roth's recipe for a, uh, Hot Futz Sundae:



When we'd finished jotting down our notes we were ready for another walk, and if there was snack potential at the end of that walk, all the better. So we crossed another "must-see" off our list:

3. Kalustyan's

Speaking of hard-to-find... The store itself is easy to find, but their specialty has shifted somewhat over the years from spices and imports to spice, imports, and the otherwise-impossible-to-find (both domestic and imported). Whenever you come across some obscure ingredient in a recipe in one of the big food magazines or in some international cookbook aimed at a North American audience, there's a pretty good chance the source listed will be Kalustyan's. It's almost to the point that we don't have to check any more when we come across such recipes. We just turn to one another and say, "Let me guess: Kalustyan's?" Anyway, we certainly wanted to get a sense of their completely overwhelming selection of spices,



but we're perfectly happy with the spice selection we have here in Montreal, so we were more interested in things like their encyclopedic collection of beans and pulses, especially since discovering after our Vermont trip what a huge difference a good bean can make to what you thought was your iron-clad baked beans recipe (more on this soon). We'd been looking for Jacobs Cattle beans, Steuben Yellow beans, and the like all weekend long as we traveled back and forth across town--at Kalustyan's we hit the mother lode. Michelle also found the Guyanese Pride Brand Artificial Mix and Guyanese Pride Brand West Indian Style Burnt Sugar (Caramel Colour) that she'd been needing to finally be able to make this Trinidadian Black Cake recipe that appeared in Saveur a while back. She knew Kalustyan's carried the stuff because that was the source that had been listed at the back of the magazine, but she couldn't actually find either ingredient on the shelf, so she asked one of the employees who, in turn, asked the manager. He listened to the query and gave us this "Here we go again" look, like he'd been fielding the exact same question from the exact same types for months. Apparently it's not easy being "A Landmark for Fine Specialty Foods." We finished off our purchases with two more items that we can't find in Montreal, and, as it turns out, are both excellent, but which we bought primarily for the packaging:



&



Who says there's no good design left in America?

4. J.P.?

On our way back uptown we swung by The Morgan Library, hoping for a Great Libraries of New York double-bill, but it was already late afternoon and the library wasn't going to open long enough to make a visit worthwhile, so we did the next best thing: we headed back to Grand Central Station to take a closer look at the Grand Central Market.

There, we were happy to run into a familiar face:

5. Murray's

Murray's Greenwich Village store was also on The List. We spent time in the Village, too, as you well know, but the one time we made a point of walking by Murray's they were already closed for the day. By Sunday afternoon, we'd glumly crossed Murray's off The List. So, you can imagine our delight at finding Murray's one and only annex right there in the Grand Central Market. The main reason we were so intent on going to Murray's was in order to find Jasper Hill Farm's impossibly difficult to find Aspenhurst (of course, mistakenly calling it "Alpenhurst," as Michelle had been doing for months, only increases your handicap), most of which is bought up by the likes of Thomas Keller (with good reason, as we found out). We'd tried and loved all the rest of Jasper Hill's raw milk masterpieces--this was the only one left for completists such as ourselves. Michelle thought for sure that this tiny little market branch wouldn't actually be blessed with any of Murray's small quota of Aspenhurst, but thankfully she was wrong. We bought a quarter pound of this lovely Leicester-style cheese--



the likes of which I haven't tasted since my last visit to Neal's Yard Dairy in London--some beautiful Spanish Marcona almonds, and took off before we came across any other temptations.

6. Top Chef

Back on the Upper East Side, little did we know that we had a rendez-vous with a rising star of the New American Cuisine in store for us. We knew there was going to be good food awaiting us--R and M have never let us down in that department (or any other), and they kept up that tradition this time around, too. Everything from the ribs to the mac and cheese to the sticky toffee pudding was a knockout--the perfect comfort meal to bring the weekend to a close, the perfect comfort meal to take in the madness that was Super Bowl XLI. But at the top of our personal AEB highlights reel that night were a couple of the guests, S and C. Rarely have we seen such cute, bright, well-behaved kids (and, at our age, we're definitely part of that circuit). But when C trotted out her homemade cupcakes, well, forget about Prince and his formidable halftime heroics, forget about Peyton Manning, Tony Dungy, Devin Hester, this year's crop of "edgy' advertising, and all the rest of that jazz--that stole the show.

New York Public Library, Humanities and Social Sciences Libary, Fifth Avenue & 42nd, (212) 930-0830

Kalustyan's, 123 Lexington Avenue, (212) 685-3451

Murray's Cheese, 254 Bleecker St., (212) 243-3289, and 43rd & Lexington (Grand Central Market), (212) 922-1540

aj

New York Stories 2

The saga continues...

1. B.A.L.

Things got started with an impromptu gathering of the Bacon Appreciation League. We discussed the ins and outs of applewood-smoked versus cob-smoked bacon, and the regional traditions of the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic, and Great Lakes states, and then, the focus of that particular gathering being the smoked bacons of Wisconsin, we cooked up a full two pounds of Nueske's award-winning applewood-smoked bacon, along with some buttermilk waffles and some scrambled eggs, and got to work. We'd covered well over 120 blocks on Day 1. We were pretty sure we were going to cover some ground on Day 2, too.

Stop #1 was back down at Washington Square. We hopped a 6 train and headed south. 20 minutes and a minor mishap later, we got off at the Prince St., got some fresh air, and headed to the Grey Gallery where we had a rendez-vous with...



2. WB & Co.

I'd heard fantastic things about "the Wallace Berman show," Semina Culture: Wallace Berman & His Circle, which, as the title suggests, is much, much more than solely a Wallace Berman show. In fact--and the title suggests this, too--the show starts with Berman's Semina, his limited edition, loose-leaf, mixed-media journal, and spirals out, investigating the numerous artists and other collaborators that contributed to Semina and made up Berman's shifting scene. This list of collaborators is stunning: everyone from Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, and Alexander Trocchi, to Bruce Conner, Lawrence Jordan, and Jack Smith, to Jay DeFeo and Jess, to Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper (that's right), to Toni Basil (yes, Toni Basil). Better yet, most of the work assembled is stunning, too. We really took our time because the show touched a nerve. It was at once a deeply inspirational and a deeply melancholy experience. So much talent and vision, so many tragic stories. When it was almost time to go, we unwound with some of the far-out proto-music videos (ballet dancers, masks, Hendrix) Toni Basil directed years before she became a star of MTV. If only people made music videos like that these days.

Back out into the bracing air and sunshine, took in a father and son golfing (with real golfballs and real clubs!) their way across Washington Square, left on Sullivan, and a few minutes later we chanced upon a place that was on our "to do" list, but which we'd somehow forgotten was on Sullivan Street:



3. Joe's Dairy

We'd been wanting to visit Joe's for years. This time we'd decided, "That's it, we're doin' it!" So when we suddenly found ourselves face-to-face with Joe's quite by accident, there was no need to even discuss it. It looked a lot like I'd imagined it: tiny, no-nonsense, old-fashioned. We stepped right up to the counter and got busy. Michelle ordered some fresh mozzarella, paid for it, and made her way back onto Sullivan. I was about to follow her, but then thought better of it. "You got any smoked mozzarella?" "Yeah, they just came out. How many smokeys you want?" "Just one, thanks." She wrapped up my "smokey" and handed it to me. It was still warm from the smoker. The smell was ridiculous. I took it out onto the street, unwrapped it, and we tore into it. It was then and only then that we both realized we'd never actually had smoked mozzarella before. First of all, we'd rarely ever had mozzarella this good and this fresh before. But, more importantly, up till then, we'd only ever had smoke-flavored mozzarella. Talk about irresistible. We ate about 2/3 of that hunk right there on the street. It took superhuman will not to polish it off then and there. When what was left of that "smokey" was safely tucked away, we kept walking.

4. Grandaisy?

Problem was, about two minutes later we found at 73 Sullivan St., smack-dab in front of the former Sullivan Street Bakery, now Grandaisy Bakery. "Grandaisy?" We knew that Sullivan Street had opened up a new store up in the West 40s, but we hadn't realized that the former partners had parted ways. I turned to Michelle and said, "Jeez, I guess the split wasn't exactly amicable." One partner took the Sullivan Street name (and the brand) up to West 47th; the other kept the Sullivan Street location and came up with the name Grandaisy. Hmm. Anyway, yeah, we'd just gorged ourselves on mozzarella, but our curiosity got the better of us. We got one slice of their pizza patate (potatoes, onion, rosemary) and one of their pizza pomodoro



and we sat down to conduct our taste-test and warm up a bit. After all, we've got a pizza crawl to bone up for and Sullivan Street Bakery has been a contender in the New York pizza sweepstakes for quite some time. The verdict? Well, we like our bakery pizzas up here in Montreal (i.e. Marguerita, Roma, Boulangerie/Charcuterie St. Viateur, etc.), but this was a whole other league. So good, in fact, that we picked up a slice of pizza bianca for the road and we headed east. We took a fairly haphazard route, across SoHo, through NoLIta and Little Italy, into Chinatown, and by the time we stopped again we were on Orchard in the heart of the Lower East Side.

5. Lower East Side Tenement Museum

I was hoping to show Michelle the Lower East Side Tenement Museum Store/Antique Shop, but it was no longer. They still have a store, but they moved that up the street to a location where they sell tickets for their tours, but the antiques shop is gone. We were disappointed--I'd been there twice before with H and they'd had great stuff both times, and some of it was even reasonably affordable--but we soldiered on to the store (which is a pretty great museum store). For some pathetic reason I'd never taken any of the L.E.S.T.M.'s tour, even though I've been fascinated with the history of the district for years now. With "enough is enough" being a bit of a theme for the day, and one of the L.E.S.T.M.'s "Getting By" tours about to commence, I took the plunge.

An hour later, having toured re-creations of both the Gumpertz family kitchen (1870s) and the Baldizzi family kitchen (1930s), having discussed the hard times brought on by not one but two economic depressions, and having imagined (and, I confess, romanticized) the kinds of German-Jewish and Italian subsistence meals each family cooked and shared to get by, I was starting to get a little hungry. I guess we could have gone to Katz's or Sammy's Roumanian or Yonah Schimmel, but we would have had to walk quite a few blocks to find some decent Italian, and we were right on the edge of Chinatown. Plus, we were planning on eating Asian for dinner, so this snack could act as the appetizer course for our next meal, and one of our Chinatown faves was just on the other side of Allen. That's all it took.

6. #1 Dumpling

Three minutes later we were packed inside #1 Dumpling House like a couple of sardines, hoping to get an order placed at the height of their dinnertime rush. It really wasn't that bad--we always enjoy standing at the counter watching the cooks made the massive sesame pancakes and the pan-fried dumplings, and assembling the sandwiches, and there's really absolutely nothing like #1 Dumpling here in Montreal, so we're always happy to be patient. Within ten minutes we had our "sesame pancake with beef" sandwich and our order of pork & chives dumplings in hand and we were on our way to Sara D. Roosevelt park to sit and snack. We've said it before, but that sesame pancake with beef is sensational, and at $1.50 a pop it's in the running for the steal of the century. Those dumplings--well, they were some of the finest we've had in quite some time. There was actually a split second there between the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and #1 Dumpling where we contemplated passing on our Chinese snack and holding out until dinner, but that would have been foolish.

A couple of hours and a long, brisk walk later, we found ourselves in that part of the Village that borders Chelsea at a restaurant we'd been meaning to go to for a couple of years at least:



7. Fatty Crab

We'd been fantasizing about Fatty Crab's take on Malaysian for a while already when our friend P came back from a trip to New York reporting that Fatty Crab's Watermelon Pickle and Crispy Pork salad was the single most mind-altering thing he'd tasted in five years (!), and this from a man who knows his food and has traveled extensively. That's the kind of testimonial you take note of. Like Momofuku, Fatty Crab is young, loud, and brash; like Momofuku Ssäm Bar, Fatty Crab's dishes come in succession and they're meant to be shared. We started off with the Green Mango with Chili-Sugar-Salt, which was exactly as advertised and which instantly primed our tastebuds, and actually kicked them into overdrive. Then we ordered the Assam Laksa, a "traditional spicy fish soup," the Stone Crab Claws with Black Pepper Sauce, and, instead of the watermelon salad, we got the Pickles Raja Chulan... Yeah, right. As if. No, don't worry, we didn't get the pickles, we got the watermelon salad. Not only that, we enjoyed it. Neither of us were willing to say that it was the best thing we've tasted in the last five years--hell, pretty much every time I have a smoked meat sandwich it's the best thing I've had in the last five years--but we certainly understood P's reaction. Chunks of watermelon, crisp-fried lardons, scallions, mixed herbs, and a tangy dressing--what's not to like? You'd have to have a Teflon palate for the eruptions of flavor contained therein not to get to you. The Assam Laksa was very traditional--very spicy, but also very heavy on the preserved fish. Good, and I'm sure very healthy for you, but the amount of preserved fish was even a bit overpowering for me, and I'm someone who truly loves salt-packed anchovies and their ilk. The crab claws, on the other hand, were sheer pleasure. Big and juicy--even a bit messy (as the prat next to us found out when a sizable chunk of Michelle's crab landed on the cell phone he'd placed next to his drink)--and accompanied with a rich, heavenly black pepper sauce. We were having such a good time by that point, we couldn't think of up and leaving, so we ordered some steamed pork buns as our finisher so that we could compare them with Momofuku's. How did they fare? They compared very favorably, indeed. For one thing, with Fatty Crab's, you got the pleasure of assembling them yourself. Each plate comes with two buns stuffed with two thick slices of pork belly. It also comes with a dark kecap manis-based sauce and some sauteed mixed herbs. I thought the pork at Momofuku was more satisfying, but otherwise Fatty Crab's steamed pork buns came out on top.

8. By the time we left Fatty Crab we had just enough time to make our movie at the IFC, a midnight screening of Infernal Affairs. Just when I thought the day's feasting had come to an end, Michelle pulled a couple of Doughnut Plant ginger doughnuts out of her bag of tricks. Showtime.

END OF DAY 2

Joe's Dairy, 156 Sullivan St., (212) 677-8780

Grandaisy Bakery, 73 Sullivan St., (212) 334-9435

#1 Dumpling House, 118A Eldridge St., (212) 625-8008

Fatty Crab, 643 Hudson St., (212) 352-3592

Doughnut Plant, 379 Grand St., (212) 505-3700

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