Autumn Opening

On a recent Saturday I had an excellent opportunity to run upstate for fresh air and to feel the proper onset of fall. It was nearly ninety degrees, but I think it still did the trick. I was giddy the moment we got in the car, and got progressively higher on oxygen as we left town, gripped with regular laughter as we hit and ran over falling leaves in the road. Our first stop was a Stewarts Shops, which had one bale of hay outside the front door. Stewart's is a regional gas station/convenience store chain covering a wide plume-shape area rising from New York City. They all have a lengthy self service counter that snakes around, offering all the convenience store items you would expect, but spread throughout a different landscape. I love the fat font that covers everything, identifying the brand's sacked, wrapped and bottled items, and even the occasional novelty spoon. I ordered my favorite: a maple walnut milkshake, and noticed the inventive and appropriately creepy spheres floating above.

Every breath smelled more or less the same. The even, humid air was constantly noticeable, slowly counteracting all the different breaths I took in the city, where there are at least five smells in every block. I felt an inner scale slowly slide towards health, and realized I was relaxing a little from a constant awareness of my immediate environment informed by my nose. Here, inhaling under a tree would probably be a similar experience to inhaling twenty feet away from it, and so I let go of an unconscious humming inside.

We attempted to pick apples, but a slight lack of planning and the bizarre hours of a pick your own place forced us to stop at this spot. I bought some lovely brown eggs, a bag of honeycrisp apples (the BEST), some fresh mozzarella and a maple candy shaped like a maple leaf. There were 15 kinds of apples, and a variety of fresh things, but two thirds of the shelves were stocked with high fructose corn syrup "jam", and 30 colors of "olde-fashioned stick candy". There were wooden things painted with "gone fishin'" and other country wisdom, and unfortunate quantities of bland, processed foods.

We recovered from our roadside retail experience with something cozy, beautiful, mysterious and familial: The opening of Martine Kaczynski's: Route 11. Visit www.ruralprojects.org to see more about this particular work and exciting space. Children ran around, there were arias sung, a bonfire lit, raspberries picked, a biodymic apple eaten.

At the end I stepped away from the fire which was burning one side of me, and walked toward the dark which was just as dark when my eyes adjusted. Maybe I should just camp out for a few days...

Embrace of the Lobster

The trip to the fish market yielded three 3+ lb. lobsters. They had to be gently protected all the rest of that late morning and work day before we could celebrate their lives in the kitchen.

Here one sits in familiar feeling shadows before meeting the steam pot.

"Best lobstahs yevah gonna have"...

We drank a buttery wine, had rosemary roasted potatoes, some spicy wilted greens, and salad to accompany the lobster. (As if there was a reason to eat anything else). Each one was steamed for about 15 minutes, and after the beautiful and funny process of getting into them in order to get them into us, every bite was textured and sweet. Fragrant fat covered our hands and everything on the table until we were finally still with satisfying dizziness.

The New Fulton Fish Market

Its 2am. Do you know where your children are? They're walking through chilly fish puddles in a year-old $86,000,000 refrigerated facility in the south Bronx.





If you can't sleep, go to the fish market. Its between the meat market and the prison, and is filled with fluorescent lights and the pungent, gleaming catch you were hoping to find.







Its cold and damp. Guys have cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, and many of them have round bellies that bulge protectively close to the fish, watching over them.

A Crime Against Cherries

At least there were souls who walked by and didn't think this was a good idea at all, and left those sad embalmed things on the shelf to be marked down to move.





Be thankful for actual cherries. The ones that ripen, the ones we eat, adding their souls to ours.

Cold Summer Drink III

Cherry Juice

I wake up from a dream. In the moment before waking, someone whispers something that seems present and pressing to me at the time, words that don’t mean anything outside the moment of their dream context. Something under my skin is with me all day, but I can’t remember it, or can’t hear it.

I’m standing in the sun after some wandering around, looking for I’m not sure what. I’m drinking cherry juice through a straw from a box. When I turn with the light on my back, I see my dark shadow and a clear red line from my hand to my mouth, part of my shadow’s body.

The taste of the cherry is under something, not as easy and upfront as you might think. It’s under the sweetness. Like how a walnut has a flavor that is below and looks up at you, cherry juice is there being sweet but not knowing it. It’s not missing anything and not self-conscious, looking at you in the eye but saying something in your ear.

Cold Summer Drink II

How could you not get neck-deep in a thorn bush for this?










Wild blackberries found in Central Park make beautiful and tasty cocktails. Press them gently (they're fragile enough that they'll crush if you talk to them directly), strain from their seeds, add a tiny pinch of sugar to the liquid and combine syrup with vodka, ice and soda.

Cold Summer Drink

I love this satisfying and interesting drink-and I've never purchased buttermilk so frequently. A Polish version appeared in Saveur Magazine, and I adapted it. I think there must be a creamy cultured beverage from every corner of the world...

tall glass of cold 1% buttermilk
small handful of chives snipped tiny with scissors
several grinds of black pepper
small pinch kosher salt
large pinch ground cumin
equal pinch ground coriander

When you think about it, these are all things that will NOT make your teeth look awesome afterwards. Stir it up well and drink anyway. And chew. Sound bad? its not. Its great.

June: Another Exercise in Chile

L.I.C., New York-



Attended the 1st Food Film Festival at Water Taxi Beach and saw George Motz’s film Hamburger America, which features (among others), the be all and end all green chile cheeseburger from the Bobcat Bite in Santa Fe. In celebration they flew in fresh frozen green chile from Hatch, NM and applied it to burgers (unfortunately with embarrassing teaspoon-sized portions). Though I have large amounts of chile in the freezer (as well as in dried form), this got me all riled up to visit the vibrant plates of El Norteño.

Santa Fe, New Mexico-



Huevos Rancheros at the Tecolote Cafe, (corn tortillas with eggs -I like poached- and smothered in red and green chile) served with potatoes.



Enchilada Plate at The Shed (rolled blue corn tortillas stuffed with cheese and raw onions, covered in red and green chile (“X-Mas”), with pinto beans, posole, and an egg over-medium. All traditional dishes are served with a small amount of chopped lettuce and tomato. The Shed serves the best red chile. Accompanied by the classic Silver Coin margarita. Not shown, enchiladas from the Santa Fe Bar & Grill, they have a good red too, very dark and smoky. Also had green chile cheeseburgers from the Zia Diner (organic) and fancy Niman Ranch GCC’s from Santacafe. Breakfast burritos from the Baking Company.





A Frito Pie at the Atomic Cafe. A traditional Frito Pie is served in the Fritos bag, with red chile and meat (like a sauce), and beans and chopped raw onions. The Atomic's is served in a bowl with Fritos, green chile, jack cheese, carrots, red onion, tomato, black beans and a slice of jalapeño. They serve some version at the Levee in Williamsburg, but I'm not sure what its about. I assume they're using a form of chili, not chile. Needs investigation.



The most unusual (and therefore appealing for a sucker like me) was the Kobe Beef burger from Bert’s Burger Bowl ("One Location Worldwide"). A funky burger joint that’s been open forever, Bert’s is never run of the mill. They serve “lime Cokes” and “French Cokes” the first with fresh squeezed lime juice and the second with half and half.









I had the burger with green chile of course, and it was good of course. I should have had them omit the yellow mustard and pickles though, which just sour everything up.