June 24th — The Cockles Tour
One of the Zagsters
It has been a while since I pulled out the computerized pen to ink another excursion
but today I begin my next journey to New York and Ireland. I’ve been studying the
Southwest Airlines menu online, it appears the most nutritious breakfast is a can of
Mr. T’s bloody mary mix. I may ignore my health for a little extra sleep although if
we get a chance to listen to the pilot’s conversation it appears that many of them have
been going through sensitivity training and could be quite entertaining.
I hope all are well and that you enjoy reading about my adventures to the Emerald
Isle and the Immaculate Island in New York. I’m expecting a lot of old time Catholic
memories will be conjured up as I explore the pavement of Priscilla, Queen of the
Boroughs.
June 26th
The Abode
The great culinary experience that is a guide for the comfort and enjoyable experience
of your plane trip started at the security line when I watched small kids crying as their
opened airplane gummy worms were tossed into the trash receptacle and more than
one bottle of dandruff shampoo following the crashed planes into the abyss. I hurriedly
ate my jujy fruits thankful that I did not buy the 7.5 pound bag of chewy sensations bursting
with fruit flavor– Grapes Bundle, Banana, Pineapple, Raspberry, and Pea Pod. Flavors include Raspberry, Licorice, Lime (originally Spearmint), Orange, and Lemon all made by the Heide Candy company starting back in 1920. (You can also order a 5 lb bag of Good and Plenty from them.)
I arrived at Newark airport at 4:20 just 12 hours before the Greek God of Waneta street was to arrive (he spent 4 hours on the tarmac in Seattle waiting for the weather to clear up, our pilot just landed in it. I was glad to have the pillar of jujy fruits in my stomach to help cushion the landing.)
After a rush hour trip on the A-train, NJ transit and subway in crowded conditions, 84 degree weather and rainstorms I arrived at nearly the Plaza, my accommodations. By eight o’clock the fog was rolling in and where I can usually look out the window and see Central Park all the way to Harlem I could barely make out the outline of the park across the street. This called for a straight shot of grey goose out of the freezer.
I walked the neighborhood and noticed the candy store where I could spend my whole week’s budget on a small box of chocolate with ribbon was still open. I put a check in the missed that one column of places I wouldn’t see around the next time I visited. Delmonico’s is open 24 hours so I stocked up on my $20 half pound of Starbuck’s roasted coffee (the only small brand they carry the clerk told me), a quart of milk, one diet Pepsi and a sandwich for the Greek God who had left a message that his flying vessel was delayed.
Saturday —
I waited up to let the god in, you don’t want to start your on the road adventures pissing off
the gods and gave him his sandwich. We both talked about selling our stock on Monday
morning (I hope we don’t create a run on Alaska and Southwest stock, we might the last
two non-corporate shareholders. I will wait for the ticker to go by on Bloomberg Monday
morning. It will show 20 shares sold at market price.)
We naturally gravitated towards a new adventure so we headed out to Queens to have Greek food. Now this is a trip I have been wanting to do for several years but always found an excuse not to go (like == why would you want to go to Queens when you are in Manhattan, that’s like taking a sandwich to a banquet). We caught the N train and headed to Astoria/Ditmars in Queens.I love these trips when you are above ground part of the time and see the neighborhoods, often the deteriorization of the neighborhoods. I wonder what the builders of the high rise apartments some time in the middle of the last century would think of their boarded up windows and graffitied walls.
Immediately I remembered a lot about New York — there are a bunch of boroughs and neighborhoods, something a lot of visitors forget. We walked past the little stores that were selling sausages,groceries, fruit and vegetable markets, bakeries and numerous restaurants. My target was Taverna Kyclades on Ditmars Street. When we arrived the street was being blocked off for a celebration — food trucks, funnel cakes, gyros, bakery goods.
We started with the small Greek salad that filled up the two meat
platters we got for side plates twice. They had a large slice of feta cheese,
several pepperocinis and olives (I thought it was Greek custom to only
give you one olive to split with two people like they do in Spokane’s Greektown)
two or three whole tomatoes but up, small, tasty cucumber slices (they don’t use
the carcas here to hollow out a boat, I don’t like it when the sliced cucumber is
larger than the serving utensil) and lots of flavor in the oil and spices. When they
sit you down they bring an entire sliced lemon so you have plenty to squeeze on
your salad, bread, entree or companion.
We had the Greek hamburger which was a ground lamb/beef patty, probably a
half pound with tzatziki sauce (lots of fresh dill) and three skewers of Pork Kebab with meat platter sides of lemon roasted potatoes and horta (greens) with a full loaf of garlic bread,soaked in Olive Oil and rolled in herbs before it is grilled.
We had a choice of some standard Greek wines (retsina for $4/glass) or five different
kinds of Greek beer. They didn’t have a liquor license. At the end of the meal I said
it was too bad you could get Ouzo and his eyes brightened and he said he could serve the
80% alcohol liquor (must be some sort of Greek calculation that it falls under wine or
beer category).
The total tab for this lunch (and we could have been full on splitting the small salad
and garlic bread, we actually had to take part of our entrees back to the nearly Plaza
room was $26.00 — just slightly more than my drip coffee, one raspberry croissant
and one very small apple turnover at the French bakery in Manhattan. You can eat well
and economically if you want to venture out and see other parts of New York.
It was an amazing lunch and then we saw Martha’s Bakery. The croissant was $5.95
and the very small apple turnover was $6.95 in Manhattan, Martha’s apple strudel
for 12 was $9.95!! and incredible.
The young girl in front who would seat us if we wanted to eat there was not too
enthused about the street festival. She had to work all night for no pay (it is part
of the joy of being in the family that owns the restaurant) while her friends roamed
the street eating Philly Cheese Steaks (the best food there she informed us).
We tripped back to Manhattan and waited for the rest of the entourage to arrive.
A successful first morning in the apple — strudeling on the old banjo.
French Cafe in the evening we headed out for China Town and the Nice Green Bo. A place I have been frequenting for more than 30 years. It used to be called the New Green Bo but
got sued for calling itself new for more than twenty-five years so they changed their name.
You can see all of the old reviews with New Green Bo and on the sign they faintly painted in Nice Green Bo so you could still see New underneath.
Hot and Sour soup bowl for six –$2.50, garlic electric purple egglplan, Moo Shu Chicken,
special Beef Shangai noodles, chicken with peanuts, their special crab and pork dumplings with very hot broth inside, this is the dish made me want to come to the place thirty years ago when I could still eat crab, but I always order it and the other patrons ate all twelve dumplings.
This dinner came to $60.00 for six people. A lunch for two with leftovers and a dinner for six with leftovers and it won’t be as much as for one person tomorrow night when I head to
Jean Georges for my birthday.
That’s what life can be in New York. One last observation we walked through Little Italy about 11:00 pm and the streets were full of people and the sidewalks were full of diners. NY is amazing on the weekends, the neighborhoods come alive and even us returning tourists remember why it is one of the best big cities in the world.
June 27th –Birthday at Jean Georges and an evening with Priscilla
As I sit at my typing station overlooking Central Park I can see the Upper West
Side buildings keeping the trees from escaping into the paved part of the borough.
A few ghosts collide here (they say that Nancy Spurgeon’s ghost
wanders up from the Chelsea area on occasion to commune with John Lennon’s —
ghosts often have more in common than the people did when they were
alive).
It’s my birthday and I am glad I’m not one of those ghosts trying to find
a reservation at Jean Georges, they won’t accept the ethereal area code
for a call back number. Five operations in two years will make you think
that way. The eye operation gone bad is the most troubling which is a
miracle when you think they bandaged my head up when they took out the
tumor, sent me home with “instent” recuperation from the heart operations and
after a week of dripping venom into my body took away the cancer and a
kidney (a bonus for the Dr.Golden, he is such a food collector) and I’m still
here feeling a bit better than I did two years ago and a lot better than I did
seven months ago when they announced as they were leaving my Sacred Heart
Spa room that getting to blood to the heart was only a minor problem in the
scheme of things.
So today I am headed to one of the great restaurants in the world, Jean Georges
for a pre-theater dinner and then off to see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
So how did Sunday go in preparation for this event — it went like this.
After a cup of coffee and a short conversation with Angelo about the pastries
in Greek town (although one of my “friends” said I was a piker if I considered
Astoria an adventure, the real adventure is to go to Flushing where the New
Chinatown has emerged so best I do that later in the week because I hate to be
called a throwaway fish) we encountered the outskirts of the gay pride parade,
a particularly festive event since the state passed a gay marraige law last week.
What bothers me is that a lot of the people thought I was dressed for the occasion
which makes me think about my wardrobe, not much of course because Dickens
says clothes don’t make the man (although he didn’t have as many ads on television
to deal with in those days at the debtor’s prison).
We got tickets to go see Born Yesterday. Jim Belushi played James Cagney. The star
of the show was the female actor playinig Nina. It was the last day of the show and
they stayed a moment to thank the audiences. My most amazing memory moment might
be between the first and second acts when the theater lit up with hundreds of cell
phones — no one seemed to care who came with, they had to twitter they were there
or text someone. I’m not that old but I do remember when going out was about who you
were with and the show you were seeing, not who you could impress at the moment.
(Usually that came after at a holiday cocktail party). The phones are like lightning bugs
that won’t extinguish themselves. They are new monsters taking over the world and
the next Sock Hop will never know what hit them.
Lunch was a hot dog from a street vendor. The dogs have gotten smaller and the buns
last longer (but are still recyclable) but once they slather it with some sauerkraut and
onions (which turned out to be some sort of liquidized onion concoction) you are sent
into street cuisine mode.
After a short respite we headed out to the greek gods anniversary, an amazing fete of
40 years — lasting much longer than the memory of many of the lesser greek gods —
we went to Ellen’s Stardusty Diner. Ellen’s hires a number of actors who perform
throughout the dinner which is a good thing but it takes your mind off the rather expensive
hamburger ($18) or squished reuben or meatloaf with gravy. None of which had a
lot of flavor but one must admit that the waiters and waitresses were very talented.
From their opera tunes (Candide — never saw it, still won’t) to Me & Bobby McGee
(I would like to meet Janis’s ghost sometime — a friend sent me this album while I
was in Tanzania, The Pearl with Joplin and Kris Kristofferson’s first album — that’s
back when they had albums and I was almost a god playing such music in the middle
of the Serengeti — and it kept the lions away at night!)
After the meal we deemed it a perfect night to fight through Manhattan and take the
Staten Island ferry (free and one of the best ways to see the Statue of Liberty). There
were a lot of spectacularly dressed people on the fairy going home who nodded their
approval of my outfit. Do you think Spike has something to tell us Zag fans? They all
thought Gonzaga was a code name and by the time we landed on Staten Island most of
the crowded boat was chanting Zaga and one lone, starry eyed panhandler on the train
even stood up straight like he had a revleation, pointed to the dog on the greek god’s
shirt and said, “Spike”. I think that must have been some sort of divine revelation.
We came overland from the ferry back to Central Park and were delayed by the police
dispersing a rather large crowd of festive paraders near 20th and 6th Avenue. A lot
of very tall people dressed in animal dresses. They looked tired from high heels all day
but I was impressed that they never spilled a drink on the sidewalk. A tribute to both
their dexterity and their awareness as to how much a drink costs in New York.
Well, sorry that today’s On the Road adventure was more rambling than actual food
facts but I’m sure after a dinner at Jean George’s tomorrow’s musings will have a lot
more foie gras in it and less kidney information. Back to my glass of Ronny Brooke
massaged chocolate milk
June 28th
If you walk across the Southern edge of Central Park around
one in the morning you see the dark silhouettes of trees in the
park, a glimmer of the pond from the light of an obscured moon
It is all a faint glimpse of Law and Order, what isn’t faint is the
smell of the Horse Doo. Each buggy you pass you hold your breath
while the drivers try to coax you into their rigs. I’m reminded of the
Seinfeld episode with Kramer feeding his horse a special bean mix.
It was this memory that made me a bit apprehensive when I looked at
my notes and saw that one of my goals was eat at Man Doo in Korean
town. But as the lunch hour neared we boarded the bus and headed down
to 32nd Avenue. A young girl in the window had a bowl of pork and shredded
kimchee she was making into a ball, then picked up a small piece of dough and
formed each dumpling by hand. When we sat down they brought us two types of
radishes, one bowl marinated in a hot sauce and the other in ginger. We munched on
the radishes while we waited for our Yuk Kae Jang –a spicy Korean beef soup with
green onion and egg. We ordered 10 Kimchee Mandoo dumplings with
pork, vegtables, tofu and kimchee and four seafood mandoo with shrimp and
crab (which the mermaid ate). Everything was fresh and delicate, maybe too delicate
but they had soy sauces, rice vinegar and a potent red sauce that allowed you to make up
your own dipping sauce. The total bill was $20.00 for two. I saw one review that said
it was just too much money for dumplings that were fondled by
human hands instead of defrosted from Costco. They wouldn’t go
back again and that’s good, it means those of us who appreciate
a little special touch might get a seat in this place that seats about
thirty people. I was happy to find out that mandoo meant dumplings.
It appears they were brought to Korea by the Mongols
and the original version were always boiled in hot broth.Jean GeorgesAmuse of a mushroom in balsamic on crouton with shot glass of cucumber soup infused with spritzer.
A perfect palate cleanser. We tried a Chateau neuf du pape Blanc with our first courses and it held up to the infusion of flavors.
Next we had a tuna tartare on a fresh avocaco with small radishes cut to look like roses and a pitcher of ginger marinade was poured to form a moat around your tuna castle. The Greek god of Waneta substituted the roasted beet salad for this fish dish.
The next dish was a Foie Gras Brulee with roasted strawberries and an aged balsamic sauce. The caramelized top was the perfect foil with the intense foie gras. I admit this is a weakness but we all need one.
The next course was a slow cooked skate on a bed of aromatic black beans, avocado ginger and truffle juice.
The god had an Alsatian pan fried chicken breast in Gewurztraminer.
The entree was a soy-garlic glazed beef tenderloin on a flawless potato puree with a grilled scallion.
The dessert tasting menu was home made vanilla ice cream and a warm soft chocolate filled chocolate cake, cherry, cherry gelato and a custard stack.
Barely able to finish our dinner in two and a half hours we headed out the door to go see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
I’ve seen the movies several times and was curious how Bette Midler and company were going to translate the outback of Australia to the stage but from the opening moments it captivated the audience. Think of it as three tranvestites on a road trip to do a gig in Moses Lake. Lots of small towns to pass through with a lot of characters and a few hurdles to overcome. A grand ending to the day and it is easy to see why it won a Tony for best costumes.
Well, I have to try on my new outfit, until tomorrow or the next day
June 29th
ZAG ALERT WATCH THE TODAY SHOW THIS MORNING (WEDNESDAY)
YOU WILL SEE OUR ZAG SIGNS WHEN ANN CURRY IS OUTSIDE!!
GO ZAGS
A few chinks in the armor yesterday. It all started out well enough with a trip to the cafe with the dewey decimal dames to munch on the Farmer’s breakfast with in-house cured bacon, organic eggs (with real yellow yolks) and 3 halves of wheat bread. I wonder what happens to all those extra halves of wheat bread? We are told that models show up at all hours to eat but no one took a picture of us when we left the restaurant — I guess we aren’t paparazzi material (although there was a lot of protests going on outside our hotel yesterday which included three 14 foot inflatable rats. We think someone is mad at a current occupant of the hotel.)
After that we went to visit two food museums–
Whole Foods and Dean & DeLuca.
Whole Food always has an amazing array of foods. My friend the film maker calls it Whole Paycheck because that is what you can spend on a small bag of groceries. I was particularly enamored with the Granola bars — that is fourteen different types of grains to put into your bucket and make your own granola. An olive bar gone organic.
Dean and De Luca is one of the classic food museums. They were the first to make their displays look like still life paintings. breads, pastries, fruits behaving — lined up on the shelves, even the Driscoll raspberries were in order inside the plastic containers.
We bought some gluten free muffins for the soccer team of one and a cinnamon bun for the mad food horde of five.We went to Katz’s for a pastrami sandwich. (This is the deli that Meg Ryan made famous in When Harry met Sally although the 100 plus years it has been in existence is more important.) One note: Tip the chef for extra meat on your sandwich.
We crisscrossed town several times trying to find a convenient route to the 2nd Avenue Deli for dessert. Tucked away on 33rd Avenue 2nd Avenue deli has seen better days. The food is good (borscht, cabbage slaw) and the desserts got satisfactory but not rave reviews. I skipped dessert and headed back to the commotion outside the hotel. I stopped at the Patisserie for an apple turnover and fresh pressed coffee.
Today my goal is to head to a part of New York that only a few New Yorkers go to — Greenpointe where everyone speaks Polish and about half also know English. It is supposed to be one of those classic one hour local bus trips from the center of Brooklyn
to Polish town. The deli god and I are expecting to see projects, naval yards, river views, trendy Williamsburg and then contemplate what we saw over a plate of stuffed cabbage and polish sausage. Next episode will let you know if our expectations were met and
maybe more about the three big rats outside our hotel.
WATCH OUR SIGNS ON TODAY SHOW (we will admit that the school marms were the ones who actually were the pedestals that held the signs up!)
June 30th
The trip to Brooklyn was amazing. From downtown Brooklyn (the court house has been the
seen of several high profile trials including Gotti) we took the number 62 bus
through the projects, past Peter Luger’s (I had steak there 35 years ago, still rated the
top steak house in New York by many people), passed an Hassic Jewish community
and then to Greenpoint where most of the signs were in Polish, everyone spoke Polish, all
through the projects, past Peter Luger’s (I had steak there 35 years ago, still rated the
top steak house in New York by many people), passed an Hassic Jewish community
and then to Greenpoint where most of the signs were in Polish, everyone spoke Polish, all
the teenagers who were working their family’s shops for free wanted pizza and to move out
(they spoke English very well) and all of the adults were at the funeral at St Alphonsus.We ate at Lomzynianka (lohm, syn, i, anka or something like that) The little old lady from
Lomzy. The Greek god, the Dewey decimal point and I had three different types of Barszcz.
The first was a cold Borscht which had a lot of dill in it; the second was a hot Borscht with
vegetables and sour cream; the third Barszcz had Uszka or dumplings. A very pickled mushroom flavor with incredible dumplings. They started the meal with a salad of red cabbage, green cabbage, seasoned tomatoes and a salted pickle. The Polski Talerz came with 3 pierogi (one was potato, one was cabbage and the third one was a farm cheese, slightly sweet), a smoked kielbasa, stuffed cabbage roll, potatoes and bigos, the national dish of Poland. Traditionally it was a type of Hunter’s stew and primarily eaten by the aristocracy. They often had wild game in the dish but most modern day versions are made with pork sausages (or wild boar). It gets better after a few days like many pots of food. Mom made a dish called kapusta which I had never seen on a restaurant list until today — it is a cabbage fixed in a number of styles like kiszona (more of a sauerkraut), biala (more like a slaw) Czerwona(made from red cabbage). My hunch is that she remembered this dish because kapusta denotes cabbage in slovakia but she made it more like the bigos we had today.
Lomzy. The Greek god, the Dewey decimal point and I had three different types of Barszcz.
The first was a cold Borscht which had a lot of dill in it; the second was a hot Borscht with
vegetables and sour cream; the third Barszcz had Uszka or dumplings. A very pickled mushroom flavor with incredible dumplings. They started the meal with a salad of red cabbage, green cabbage, seasoned tomatoes and a salted pickle. The Polski Talerz came with 3 pierogi (one was potato, one was cabbage and the third one was a farm cheese, slightly sweet), a smoked kielbasa, stuffed cabbage roll, potatoes and bigos, the national dish of Poland. Traditionally it was a type of Hunter’s stew and primarily eaten by the aristocracy. They often had wild game in the dish but most modern day versions are made with pork sausages (or wild boar). It gets better after a few days like many pots of food. Mom made a dish called kapusta which I had never seen on a restaurant list until today — it is a cabbage fixed in a number of styles like kiszona (more of a sauerkraut), biala (more like a slaw) Czerwona(made from red cabbage). My hunch is that she remembered this dish because kapusta denotes cabbage in slovakia but she made it more like the bigos we had today.
It is good to learn something of your past when it is positive and something you can pass
on to the next generation. A lot better than the list of deserters we had during the Revolutionary and
Civil Wars culminating in Frank James shooting our poor Uncle William the train conductor.
The soup was $2.00, the platter $9.00. You could easily have had an appetizer of pirogi and a bowl
The soup was $2.00, the platter $9.00. You could easily have had an appetizer of pirogi and a bowl
of soup and gotten out for about $6.00. The decimal point ordered a Polish lemonade and the
waiter said, “Lemonade, no good for you.” We drank Pepsi.We returned via the Q train which takes you over the Manhattan bridge which is above ground so you get a great view of the Manhattan and Brooklyn skylines. If you have your trusty little week long pass all of this traveling is included.
waiter said, “Lemonade, no good for you.” We drank Pepsi.We returned via the Q train which takes you over the Manhattan bridge which is above ground so you get a great view of the Manhattan and Brooklyn skylines. If you have your trusty little week long pass all of this traveling is included.
TKTS booth at Jay center is much faster than standing in line in Manhattan to get discounted tickets. You will be way ahead to go out to Brooklyn and get discounted tickets for Broadway plays than standing in line at Times Square.
We walked around the East Village, trying to get Bohemian vibes. Mostly it was crowded restaurants, garbage bags and a few vendors on the street. We settled for a quieter place that the married couple and I went to a couple years ago –the Corner Cafe which features truffle mac n cheese, rigatoni with spicy sausage, roasted chicken leg, pork & a chilled watermelon and peach soup.The Head of State from Waneta decided to rest up so we went over to the Stand for toasted marshmallow shakes and bring one back for him. A NY landmark for $18 Kobe Burgers, $8 shakes it is a thing to about 11:00 pm when you aren’t sure you have had a full day.
Today we are headed to visit the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt. I’m trying to get the Rough Riders up now
for the excursion. Hope everyone is doing well and not worrying that I am wasting away here in the
Big Braeburn.
for the excursion. Hope everyone is doing well and not worrying that I am wasting away here in the
Big Braeburn.
July 1st — Roughrider Fallen
While viewing T Roosevelt home yesterday I was a casualty that will curtail this trip to Ireland. I was being immobilized in the T Roosevelt Hospital (can you fucking believe that coincidence) in Manhattan — after a not so pleasant trip from Long Island — last night after breaking my elbow in a fall.
Sorry about the dereliction of travel duties, I don’t even have a story about their hospital food, the only thing I was interested in after traveling from little roughrider hill to the hospital was pain pill cuisine,
It appears I may have more reports from the Spa –hope you have a good 4th.
Sorry about the dereliction of travel duties, I don’t even have a story about their hospital food, the only thing I was interested in after traveling from little roughrider hill to the hospital was pain pill cuisine,
It appears I may have more reports from the Spa –hope you have a good 4th.
July 8th
i’m not a copy cat e e cummings, but i now understand trying to hold down the shift key with one hand and mehitabel makes more cents to me, a penny for your thoughts? just got back Tuesday about midnight. still broken and immobilized but convinced that an ace bandage and two colored safety pins can not protect you in the ny streets, airports and i reallyhate that welcoming voice saying — it will be a full flight today, keep your wings tucked in or the cart will break them off, sends chills up and down my radius. I guess i should be glad it was my wing and not the 737 that was bent i got into doctor on wed, i’m glad it because the pain pill entrees were running out and by tomorrow all i will have is flaming desserts to ease the pain and a picture of a long gray haired man blowing out the flame to retain as much pain juice as possible will never make the cover of argosy or busty,
tell her that barkus is willin never got me very far in life.
i hated giving up on my platter list so we continued the sling blade tour with food from yuva on Friday night in ny — indian, ventured out to the bronx on saturday to marios — italian sice the mafia and a respite at bottega del vino on sunday for dessert. i hope to get to these places in what seems to be quarterly report — the post op ramblings won’t be an operation until next week– my toronto trip is in jeopardy anyone want to join or contribute to my
one less head on mt. Rushmore campaign?