Crown Heights on foot, May 1, 2011 Herbs, Cloves, Spices

Inspired by the beautiful weather, and a desire to get my garden going, Andy and I took a walk to King's County Nursery in Crown Heights (the new hood) to get some containers and extra seedlings.

We took off down Nostrand toward Empire Blvd. having decided to try and find the remnants of Old Clove Road, the first Dutch road that once linked Greenpoint and Canarsie when brooklyn was nothing but fields and farms and forests.  The road appears in maps through the last several centuries, but was all but totally covered up by the modern grid system by the late 1800s.  Only one block of the original "highway" remains . . . a confusing alley-like section we found at an angle to the grid here:

Old Clove Road (the block that remains)

The Belgian Block paving from the 1800s

Labeled with NYC street signs as "Clove Rd.", it seems to be an actual city street, and is half-paved, but impassable due to a city street light's being placed directly in the center of the access to Montgomery St.  It seems like you can get your car onto this lost road by Malbone St. (another historical remnant only 1/2 block long).  Malbone St. and Nostrand Ave. (my street) is where a saloon brawl (at Nealy's Saloon) led to the death of one Thomas Lennon in 1896.  Francis J. Hamlin was one young man detained in the murder investigation, and he lived in MY HOUSE.  See below from the NYTimes:

It's all coming together.  But on to the nursery.

For a carless New Yorker like me, King's County Nursery is a MAJOR find.  In the heart of Crown Heights, it is a family owned and operated (I'm pretty sure the son lugged our soil, the dad found our buckets, and the grandad rang us up) full-service nursery within walking distance!

I had started some seedlings inside the house, and after a few thoroughly enjoyable hours on my fire escape with soil, buckets, and water, I had sun-smacked shoulders and this:

"Balcony" garden day one

Ariel view

Looking forward to beans, peppers, tomatoes, celery (we'll see), basil, rosemary, and lavender . . . and the fun and challenge of gardening in a world of rats, pigeons, and lugging six gallons of water out the window every day . . . gotta devise a  watering system for that.

You'd think that would round out the day nicely, but after all that soil lugging, and planting and climbing in and out of windows, a man gets hungry.  And wants  . . . wings, of course.

Enter our new favorite Sunday pleasure:  SUPER WINGS  I have no idea how this woman does it, but this joint has the BEST wings I have ever had.  Ever.  

Super Wings.  Go here.

We waited about 25 minutes (and met some great people) and then carted three pounds of them home where they looked like this:

We got:  Ginger Buff, Trini Tamarind, and Spice Island Rubbed, and they were "Shut your mouth" good (with sides of corn salad, chick pea fritters, and spinach balls, and lots of ohmygoding)

Later (like 12 minutes later):

There are like eight other flavors left to try, but I'd be happy with Spice Island Rubbed as my desert island only choice.

So, in summation, Herbs in the garden, Old Clove Road, and Spice Island Rubbed.  A fine day, the first of May.  Hope you all had an equally beautiful one.

Seven Green Things your Grandparents Did

This list of seven easy life adjustments we could learn from the "greatest" generation compiled by the often excellent Mother Nature Network:  after le leap . . .

I wonder how it pours?

In a remarkable move, Hunt's has removed high fructose corn syrup from all of its retail ketchup!  This is good news.  Of course it still contains sugar, but a general move away from the deceptively cheap and easy-to-add-to-everything-in-sight HFCS and a return to sucrose, or table sugar is seen as a slight victory for the real food movement.  Debate exists over the actual health risks associated with HFCS:

"Critics of HFCS point out a correlation between increased usage of HFCS in foods and obesity rates in the United States over three decades.^[38] Some allege that HFCS is in itself more detrimental to health than table sugar (sucrose); others claim that the low cost of HFCS encourages overconsumption of sugars. The Corn Refiners Association has launched an aggressive advertising campaign to counter these criticisms, claiming that high-fructose corn syrup "is natural" and "has the same natural sweeteners as table sugar".^[39] Both sides point to studies in peer reviewed journals that allegedly support their point of view."

High Fructose Corn Syrup is also the product of massively subsidized American corn farmers, so I suggest Hunt's throws them a bone by replacing their disposable plastic bottle with a corn-based bio-degradable one.

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Fresh Fish Food for Thought

Please to enjoy this amazing video on the future of farmed fish, and a call to arms to rethink the way we farm globally.  It's worth the time spent.


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Secret Fusion is the Bomb Doggity

Everybody in New York knows when a new hit restaurant opens, or closes, or becomes the next big thing, or gets handed off to the Bridge and Tunnel patrons (or *gasp* tourists), but sometimes in NYC you stumble across a culinary gem when you least expect it.  I have a guilty pleasure.  I advocate for reducing meat in our diets for the health of our bodies and the planet, but every so often a person can indulge in one of our city's mainstays of street eats:  The Hot Dog.  So I found myself hungry on Bleeker the other day in front of a joint called New York Hotdog and Coffee.  The title was bland and a bit odd -- the food was anything but!  I tried the Bulgogi beef dog (okay two), and Andy had the Kimchi Bulgogi hamburger.  WHAT?  I know.  That's what I said.  The Dogs in this place are Korean fusion creations and wild American twists that are so much more interesting and delicious than the name implies!  Bulgogi is a slow marinated grilled sliced beef wonder, and Kimchi, for those of you who don't know, is a pickled cabbage creation spicey and sour and wonderful -- with more pro-biotics than yogurt, but lower in fat and calories, and that I'm now putting on everything I eat forever.  The delicious fries made it through from the American tradition, and the wieners themselves were high quality 100% beef brisket (delicious and somehow magically low-calorie) on delicious potato rolls snuggled in with pickles.  I love New York for just this kind of find -- strange delicious fusion right under your nose.  Healthy fast food -- who knew?

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Why is this bowl of leaves SEVEN DOLLARS?

Why is the average salad -- just a bowl of leaves and some nuts and berries -- so much more expensive than a slain cow that had to be reared to adulthood, and fed, and slaughtered?  Why does my deli dude scribble $7.75 to $10 on the top of my lunch order when it is all veggies and weighs just ounces?  Why does the government tell us to eat according to the pyramid on the right, but fund food industry according to the one on the left?  And why oh why are we so fat?  It's largely about subsidies.

A pound of flesh

This chart from The OilDrum shows the amount of energy it takes to bring a pound of each food to the table.  There is interesting discussion in the comments about whether the beef numbers are skewed by grain/grass feed, but I'm just glad that cheese isn't the worst.  It's my guilty pleasure.
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