Ink Lake

Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce — Hard At Work

I tweeted this pic I took yesterday, in a supermarket in Sandy.

and got this in response..

Bagel Bust & Boom

(photo by Kelsey Dickey)

The closing of H&H Bagels on the UWS is no great loss, or even a small one. Over-rated, and over-priced, it was the Grimaldi’s of bagel joints.

Meanwhile, here in Brooklyn Heights, B&B Empire, a Montreal-style bagel shop has opened up, to good reviews. I’m not a big carb-person, and haven’t been down there yet, but as J.J. would say, “This requires investigation.”

I lived in Montreal for a bit, and can report that Montreal bagels are smaller and sweeter. Good for sandwiches. Above is a picture from the Montreal-style deli in Boerum Hill, Mile End.

Untapped New York

Untapped New York has cross-posted my story about soon-to-be-ex Congressman Anthony Weiner, and his perambulations around Forest Hills.

Untapped also happens to have a nice post about Forest Hills’ fantastic ice cream parlor, Eddie’s.

For my personal take on Eddie’s, click here.

National Donut Day

Today is National Donut Day, celebrated every year since 1938. Previously, I’ve written paeans to God’s favorite food, and where in New York to get the best ones.

Every Friday, my friend and colleague Khanh, picks up donuts at the Doughnut Plant, on his way to work. A few weeks ago, he went on vacation to Egypt. This is the note he found waiting upon checking in to his hotel.

Happy Purim

Salt Lake City has only about 3,500 Jews, so I doubt I’ll be able to find any hamentashen. Last year, when I brought some out to give to someone, they had never seen or heard of them.

Pickle Party And Kimchi Crisis in Korea

Last Sunday while on the Lower East Side, I stumbled upon Pickle Day . I had somewhere to go, but I like pickles, so I walked around. To a bit of my surprise, about half the tables were manned by kimchi vendors.

Everyone was giving out samples, but I ended up taking home two jars of Mother In-Law’s Kimchi. It is the best I have ever had. I got a jar of the fresh and another that had been aged a month. They both are made from napa cabbage, but the latter has had more time to ferment and is more sour. It’s not bad, but I really loved the fresh stuff, which is pretty darn hot. I brought some into work, and the consensus was,  “Pretty good, but I can’t eat it without rice.” In other words...pussies!

It’s $9 a jar, and I can eat a jar’s worth in about 4 days. I know this, because it’s now Thursday, and I don’t have any left.

Speaking of all this, according to a story in the Times, the price of kimchi in Korea has shot up, due to a poor napa crop. I’m not an expert, but I think kimchi is essentailly the national food. It is a side-dish, a main dish, and everything in between except for dessert. In other words, they eat a lot of it, like a lot a lot, so this is serious business. The president of the country has gotten involved.

The Times reports,

Meanwhile, there have been reports of cabbage rustling in rural areas, and the government has suspended tariffs on imported cabbage and radishes from China, beginning Thursday. The president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, has said that until the crisis eases he will eat only the cheap and inferior kind of cabbage — the round-headed variety commonly found in Europe and the United States.

“There is no reason for regular folks to have to buy items integral to daily life at higher prices than international prices,” Mr. Lee said at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, while instructing his economists to more closely monitor commodity prices that have sent the South Korean consumer price index to a 17-month high.

The price increases have caused many middle- and lower-income homemakers to cancel the making of kimchi at home this year, a traditional rite of autumn that typically brings together mothers, daughters, aunts, grannies and neighbors. Some families can go through a couple of hundred heads of cabbage, and it’s not unusual for all the bathtubs and sinks in a house to be filled with bobbing cabbages as they are washed, soaked and brined.

 Also, I had no idea what a napa cabbage was until I saw this picture. I imagined the lettuce-sized stuff we have here. Either those people are midgets, or those things are friggin’ huge!

Good Friday

I’ve written about these before. The big ones, are ‘yeast’ donuts, and are my favorite. Every day is  a different flavor. We only do this once a week. Chinese-J. used to bring them, but since he has moved on,  K. has ably stepped up.

When he arrives with the box, it’s like throwing a cow into a piranha-filled Amazon River. I had to act fast to take this picture.

"What the hell do they expect for their lousy 35 cents...to live forever?"

As part of Film Forum’s heist series, this weekend only, a great ‘New York movie’, The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3.

Exciting, knowing, smart, and with an IRT car full of New York acting talent and accents. It was the first R-rated film I ever saw. I was 9. Our babysitter took me and my brother.

This is the original (of course). Released in 1974, the city was near-bankrupt; looked it, and felt it. It was the New York of my youth. 

Getting to hear Walter Matthau say “mishigas” is reason enough to get your ass over to Houston Street.

Trivia:

• The motorman was played by Matthew Broderick’s dad.
• Since the film came out, no #6 train has ever been given the designation “Pelham 1 2 3'”

Movie times and more info here:

“One of our favorite capers at Film Forum's Heist series!  Forget the horrible remake, this 1974 thriller is a 70s GOTHAM-CINEMA CLASSIC!”
– Time Out New York

“EDITORS' PICK! Not only one of the snappiest thrillers ever made, it's also a notoriously accurate glimpse into how the city works.”
– New York magazine

“A violent and funny hostage caper with the cynical irreverence of a vintage Jimmy Breslin column and the relentless energy of an early James Bond film…
Directed with breathless expediency.”
– Bruce Bennett, The New York Sun

“A time capsule spiked with amphetamines… It may be the perfect movie for post-blackout New Yorkers. And what a cast!”
– Michael Sragow, The New Yorker

P.S. As a bonus, it’s playing as a double-feature with Charely Varrick, another great heist film, also starring Matthau.

Pictures With Lillie

Ever since I wore the suit, all the talk around the water-cooler was when it would make a re-appearance.  Well, I figured as the weather was cool, it would be good to wheel it out before summer officially ended.

Lillie was one of those asking, so here we are. The thing I’m happiest about is that I have retired all my ‘regular’-fit office shirts, and gone all ‘trim- fit’, though it has me eating less sweets than has been my wont.

BTW, if you don’t recognize the reference in the title of this post, as my homeroom teacher said on my very first day of junior high school, “Stand in the corner and think about why we’re here”.

(Yes, I’ve always had a problem with authority, and in that vein, I just read a little about an incident at my old school — more to come).

Cocktail Attire

I mentioned the other day that I was searching for ‘coco goya head images’ — the reason was, I had received an invitation to a charity event, and it said “cocktail attire”. My thoughts immediately turned to those old Coco Goya ads with the tuxedo-clad guy, whose head was a giant can of Coco Goya, charming the ladies at some debonair function. Growing up, those ads were a constant fixture on New York television, but try as I might, I couldn’t find any pictures of it on the Internets.

Then I remembered, back in the early 80’s, I took a picture of someone in that costume at the Village Halloween Parade, Before the parade became, like a lot of other things in New York, (such as watching the Macy’s parade balloons being inflated on 77th Street), ruined, an ‘event’.

It stayed mostly on the side-streets, was a real neighborhood affair, with lots of originality. A person like me could jump into the middle and take pictures, no press pass or anything. Here’s another pic, and I’ll be posting some more as Halloween approaches.