Balthazar, when Paris is too far

A few pastries to start your weekend off right. It's a good thing I'm no longer living within walking distance to this bakery...

Meringue with raspberries

Inside a cannele

EXT: Cannele and chocolate croissant
'

Donut (tres francais), madeleine, croissant, apple tart

Vanessa's Dumpling House

Over the summer, I was fortunate to live within walking distance to Vanessa's Dumpling House, which I found out about through the internet when I was looking for good dumplings. You know it's a winner when there's a steady stream of customers, which there always is at Vanessa's.

Waiting in line isn't so bad, though, because you can watch the skillful steaming and frying of massive numbers of dumplings... And anticipation is a good appetizer.

A juicy shrimp dumpling

A veggie dumpling
(These take extra time to prepare, but are worth it)

A scallion and egg "pancake"

Dumplings prior to being consumed

A sandwich made on a sesame pancake, with fried egg and veggies

I think my total for all this food, which fed me for three meals, was $13.

30 Rock Apple Rescue

I recently started volunteering with City Harvest, a great organization that "rescues" food from all over the city and then redistributes it to soup kitchens, low-income greenmarkets, and others in need. This past week I was part of a team that rescued thousands of apples from Rockefeller Center, where an education conference was taking place (using apples as decor).





Not only did we bag lots of apples, but I got to see the bowels of Rockefeller Center, and I can truthfully say that the industrial kitchens down there smell a lot better than most industrial kitchens I've seen.

Court St + Sahadi's

Having read about Monteleone's Bakery in a book, I decided to check them out recently. They have a nice selection of cookies, but the counter service was eternally slow, so I left and headed down the block, where it turns out there are a number of old Italian bakeries, some with windows selling Italian ices, like this naturally colored pistachio ice...

Further down, Court St runs into Atlantic Ave, home to several stores selling Middle Eastern food and wares. One such is Sahadi's, a venerable old store. There are always crowds inside checking out their enormous bulk section (dried fruits, nuts, olives...) For the Atlantic Antic festival, Sahadi's set up a sidewalk cafe...



I wasn't sure what to expect from their deli counter, but everything I got was delicious and inexpensive. Creamy hummus, a nice eggplant salad, vegetarian grape leaves, and a feta, cucumber and tomato salad. The focaccia bread, also good, was from a bakery on Court Street.

Ice Cream Three Ways

Some glamour-shots of ice creams past, before the weather gets too cold....

Peach soft-serve from Milk Bar

Mine: Ginger gelato and lemon sorbetto
Lizzie's: Frozen yogurt (world's best) and unidentified chocolate flavor
From Grom

Black sesame from Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

Huarache in the City

Ever since I read David Byrne's description of the Red Hook vendors several years ago, I'd been longing to see them for myself. Since the ball field is a manageable walk from my apartment, I headed over there over Labor Day weekend. The crowds were small at 11AM on Sunday. All the better to observe the offerings of each truck, and make a careful decision.

I ended up with a shrimp huarache and some horchata, which I sat down to enjoy at an empty picnic table. The huarache, on a giant, handmade, masa, tortilla-like structure, disintegrated quickly and as I had failed to ask for a fork, I ended up eating it with my fingers. It was delicious but very messy and I was glad no one was sitting next to me... Until a little old lady sat down with her arepa and looked over and said, "Bueno?" To which I enthusiastically responded "Si!" and then continued contentedly to stuff my face with saucy bits of huarache.

Park Slope Farmer's Market

I wouldn't exactly call South Park Slope a "food desert," but it is a bit tricky to find good produce, and next to impossible to find organic fruit and veggies. The PS Farmer's Market, which takes place on Sundays, is not all organic, but the produce is largely pesticide free, and beautiful. They also have a few vendors of prepared foods...

A Finnish "rye"

Kale and chard

Corns

Beans

Collards?

Purty eggplants and peppers