Brunch & the Brooklyn Museum

Yesterday afternoon, I met up with some ladies as part of a Brooklyn Girl's Night Out meetup for a little cafe brunch and browsing at the Brooklyn Museum. I've been meaning to hit the museum myself, on one of the Target First Saturday's (free from 5-11pm + live music), but it hadn't worked out yet. Luckily, there were five of us ladies who had an interest and didn't mind paying the $10 admission. The museum itself is much larger than I was anticipating. Five floors of stuff! Granted, it was five floors of stuff I wasn't totally interested in, but I'm glad I checked it out. My favorite parts were probably the Egyptian art on the third floor, some of the Japanese art on the first, and basically all of the fifth floor where the contemporary art is. It's pretty clear I'm a modern art kind of girl.

Getting our Art on

One new thing at the museum, is a current exhibit by local Brooklyn artist, Fred Tomaselli. Born in the late 50's and completing most of his work in the 1980's, Tomaselli's stuff is pretty "pharmacologically" influenced. That being said, some of his stuff was really neat. His paintings are made out of acrylic, photocollage, and resin on wood panels. There is depth upon depth, and I was a fan.

Some of Tomaselli's work

The Raven

The Raven - up close

Another area of the museum I found really cool, was the visible storage and study center up on the fifth floor. Basically a big closet full of museum archives, there was some rad modern stuff. Plenty of old appliances for a kitchen exhibit, a fun futuristic bike, and soooooo many modern chairs. They must have had an Eames-type exhibit in the past. I hope it returns.

Poor lighting, but cool museum storage

Aching feet aside, our 3 hour tour of the museum was pretty fun. I'm glad I met some cool ladies to spend the afternoon with, and I'll definitely be checking out the museum again.

Soup!

I seem to be attending a lot of festivals these days, eh? I can't help it. I read my TONY every week, and it just so happens that there's been a lot of food-related things going on! This weekend, it was a soup festival to support Brooklyn's High School of International Studies culinary program. At only $5/person too, it was a steal. The event was held in various restaurants along Smith Street in Cobble Hill. Each of the 24 total restaurants had 4oz samples of whatever soup best represented their restaurant menu. There was everything from pasta fagiole to mulligatawny to spiced carrot to avgolemono to soupe de Poisson. The Mister and I tried as many as we could, but even we couldn't manage all 24 between the two of us. That's a LOT of soup. I think the best part of the festival, was the fact that you got to go into each restaurant. Many were places I probably would have just passed by on the street, but now that you know what they look like inside, and what's on their menus, I'm much more apt to go back and try them out for lunch or dinner. Specifically, we'd been hearing lots of good things about a new restaurant, Seersucker. They offered a Country Captain Chicken Soup, which was really more of a curry chicken chili topped with almonds and raisins. I was skeptical (I typically don't like sweet and savory things together), but this soup was really fantastic. Now I can't wait to go back and try out other things.

Smith Street, Soup, and several lines

Clearly, we're enjoying Brooklyn and all it has to offer. Mostly, the food!

The Hallo-weiner

The one drawback to living in NYC, is living far away from my niece and nephew. I used to get to visit with them about once a week, so extended periods without them are hard. I try to stay in contact with them as much as possible (via skype, phone calls, etc), but holidays times are particularly difficult. Halloween is coming up, and I won't get to see those little rascals in their costumes. So I did what any good Aunt would do, and sent them a Halloween care package.

Boo. Surprise!

One funny story about the package. I went to Barnes & Noble looking specifically for some Bearenstain bear books, since Sylvie is at an age where she finally "gets" them. As I was browsing the children's section, a woman stopped me and suggested that I just had to buy the Hallo-weiner. If Gus were just a little bit older, I might have. The story was all about a dachsund who's friends teased him in school and called him "weiner dog," and then his mom bought him a hot dog costume for halloween and he was ultra embarrassed. Long story short, weiner dog of course, saves the day in his weiner costume. The woman at the store said she was a school teacher, and her kids laughed and laughed at this book. I don't doubt it. Maybe next year, when Sylvie is really primed to understand it, and Gus is actually speaking words. For now, they'll have to deal with my version of Trick or Treat.
In other news, I found a couple of random scores at Target this week. My new kitchen rug makes me oh so happy. It's bright, fun, and full of the fall colors I just can't get enough of. I also managed to snag a new Converse dress. I've been feeling very unfashionable around these parts with my lazy jeans and t-shirts (hello, fashion capital), so a dress was much needed. Paired with my long sweater, some grey tights and boots, I finally feel like I fit in with all these hipsters a little more. A least enough to mingle with them while eating soup. Stay tuned tomorrow for a Soup festival update!

Target Finds

Pickle on a stick

That's what you spent your Sunday afternoon doing, right? Eating pickles on sticks? Wait, you didn't? Well my goodness, you're missing out! I ventured again today down to the LES in hopes of all my pickle dreams coming true. They did.

Pickle Propaganda

I tried lots of interesting stuff; preserved lemons, pickled turnips & spicy okra, some kimchi, and basically cucumber pickles of every variety, (half sour, full kosher, mustard, and various levels of spicy). I wasn't brave enough for the pickled pig ear with leeks though. Maybe next time? Anyway, this festival wasn't quite as busy as yesterday's Grub Street, which was very refreshing. In addition, most of the samples of things here were free! I only spent $2.75, and that was because I bought two juices to drink after eating all things brined. Obviously I would have spent more if I were buying pickles to bring home, but since my favorites visit my local Brooklyn farmer's market (Ricks Picks and McClures spicy pickles), I could afford to wait (Rick's Mean Beans are seriously the best thing ever. Something about crisp green beans in really spicy cayenne pepper brine just speaks to me). Besides nobody wants to risk pickle spillage on the subway! Another interesting thing I tried at the festival were several varieties of homemade bloody mary mix. Some of them had some brine action going on, but not being one to ever actually drink a bloody mary, I was surprised at how good they were. Perhaps I need to add this to my "drink at brunch" list?  

Pickle Party!

After all that picklin', I knew I needed to cleanse my palate with something sweet. It just so happens, that the Sugar Sweet Sunshine bakery is right up the street from the festival, and came highly recommended by my friend Erin in her Brooklyn guidebook. The bakery itself was pretty darn 70's cute, and I ended up ordering a sexy red velvet cupcake. Because who doesn't need to order a little something sexy from time to time? It was very tasty. Gritty chocolate buttercream just like I like, and the delicately moist red cake was just as tasty. Mmmmm. I want another one right now just thinking about it from earlier today.

Sugar Sweet Sexy

All in all, another fantastic day of food and sunshine here in the big city. A lady could really get used to this kind of life!!

Getting Grub

Today's agenda included checking out the Grub Street Food Festival on the LES. If it wasn't apparent from some of my previous posts, I'm a big fan of food trucks. They're mobile, fun, and most importantly, their food is fantastic & usually cheap. After reading this week's TONY that highlighted P&H Soda, and then finding out P&H would be at Grub Street, my Saturday afternoon fate was sealed.

Street Food Festival

First off, walking from the subway to the LES was a rather fun adventure for me. I'd never walked through Chinatown before, and checking out streets full of awesome produce was pretty rad. Not so rad? Entire smoked ducks (yep, heads still attached) hanging in many of the store windows. I was also rather surprised to come across Zarin Fabrics & Home Furnishings on the walk to the festival. (Yeah, I watch Real Housewives of New York. What's it to you!?) Anyway, seeing Jill Zarin's place of business was wacky. What was even more wacky? Bethenny, also of RHoNY, was filming portions of her reality show with her husband and baby AT the food festival! Which was CRAZY busy I might add. I can't believe people bring babies or dogs to these things. I guess you make your own rules when you're a reality tv star though. There were a few douchey New Yorker's in attendance in general. Anyway, once inside the fair grounds proper, delicious things awaited. I obviously couldn't partake in everything, but notable food finds for myself and the Mister were a pollo patacon from Patacon Pisao, a ditch dog from Ditch Plains, Lime and Hibiscus & Quince sodas from P&H, a liege w/ nutella & strawberries from Wafels & Dinges, and a fried rice ball stuffed with pumpkin from Arancini Bros. Everything was awesome. There was also mussel paealla, bacon marmalade, chicken chili with hominy, french macarons galore, fresh lobster rolls, and pretty much anything and everything else you could think of. If only my stomach could hold more! The great thing about living in New York though, is that there's always another day, always another food truck. So I don't feel like I have to pack everything all in like I do when I'm on vacation.

Good Eats

Now, stay tuned tomorrow as I head back to the LES, and check out the 10th Annual Pickle Festival! It's surely a weekend of good times and good eatin'.

City Slicker

The city has finally captured me. From walking around with a messenger bag, to the fact that I broke down and bought a cart (vile, vile city cart), I've submerged myself in belonging to NYC. It feels wonderful. :-)

Hail, Hail to...Brooklyn?

You guys, I don't know what the hell is going on. Brooklyn has been having some crazy biblical weather as of late. I blame the Mister, as it seems New York hates him for some reason. Since May when he arrived, he's had only one out of probably 14 uninterrupted flights, there's been two tornado's (hello, NY doesn't HAVE tornados), and now, hail! Yes, you read that correctly. Last night Brooklyn had a hail storm! You can read all about it in the New York Times here. We live in Park Slope, so basically these pictures and video are our neighborhood. Can you believe it? I tried to take some pictures of my own to prove how nuts things were, but images were hard to capture from our apartment. Suffice it to say we had a lake on our street, cars were submerged, the drains were overflowing, and we were just waiting for a hydroplaning car or cab to crash into other cars or a building. Thankfully we weren't witness to any actual accidents, but it sure was interesting looking out the windows. I've never been through anything like that before. If you zoom in on the picture of our balcony below, you can even see the hail. Nonsense!

Hail on our Brooklyn balcony

Likable Lentil Loaf

It's been a while since I've gotten my cook on. I had this recipe for veggie meatloaf tucked into my recipe box from forever ago, and since I had some leftover lentils in the fridge to use up, last night marked my big return to the kitchen. I made some modifications along the way based on things I had on hand, (cooking the lentils ahead of time, using leeks instead of scallions, omitting sliced tomatoes, and using a smaller amount of fresh spinach instead of cooked and squeezed) but otherwise I mostly followed the recipe. First up, making the "checca" sauce. Good thing I was able to fit my food processor into our apartment cupboards!

Checca sauce, whir, whir

Then I started on the actual "loaf" ingredients. I cooked ~3/4 cup of millet (instead of brown rice) in water at a 1:3 ratio. Once that was about 3/4 cooked, I added the pulsed mirepoix mixture, (~1/4 bag raw carrots, 2 stalks of celery & 1/2 an onion) the cooked but cool lentils, and about 1/2 cup of frozen corn. I then cooked this mixture the remaining 1/4 of the way, until everything was heated throughout.

Cooking the millet, and pulsed mirepoix

Just prior to finishing the heated mixture, I added to a big bowl ~6oz of torn fresh spinach, ~1 cup of tiny cubed mozzarella, and 1/2 the checca sauce. I mixed in the warmed lentil mixture, threw in 2 lightly beaten eggs, and a little bit of stirring later, bingo bango baby.

Mix, stir, and pack that loaf pan!

I poured this whole mixture into a greased bread pan, covered it with the remaining checca sauce, sprinkled on about ~1/4 cup each of mozzarella and parmesan, and threw my loaf into a 350F oven for ~50 minutes to cook. The apartment started to smell fantastic, and this is what I got! Dinner was done, and certainly worth it. :-)

Baked lentil loaf, and finally dinner