Playing Catch Up

Did you know that just a 75 minute drive from New York City lies a serene state park where hiking trails abound and a blue lake awaits you? It's called Clarence Fahnestock State Park and I had passed it many times on so many drives up and down the Taconic during college, but had never ventured inward until this Memorial Day weekend.


With our beach plans thwarted, Jesse and I wanted some other naturesque escape from the city's grey blocks. Guessing that Bear Mountain would be crowded with similar-minded Memorial weekend escapees, we decided on Fahnestock park, which is much less known, left at 2pm, and found ourselves there after what felt like a short drive later. Even better, entrance was free! The park covers a larger area than I had imagined, filled with hiking trails, and smoky campsites, and a clear blue lake perfect for exploration via canoes and rowboats. It also supposedly boasts a beautiful white sand beach, but that did cost money, so we didn't get to see it.


After a couple hours traversing a short pass over the Appalachian trail we simply headed back home and were back in Brooklyn for dinnertime. It seemed almost too easy of a getaway. But those simple hours in the woods restored our hearts and minds and prepared us for the remainder of the alcohol hazed weekend.


On the way home we stopped at Fairway to pick up soft shell crabs. I'd been wanting to try them for so long, since Jesse had extolled their virtues as a seasonal delicacy. He grilled them to perfection according to Jen's directions on Last Night's Dinner, along with grilled asparagus. Meanwhile, I prepared a lemon thyme vinaigrette for a simple salad with fresh lettuce. We usually put together balsamic vinaigrette for our salads, so I wanted to try something new. It wasn't quite right - the flavor of the olive oil was too prominent. But it was a nice change of pace, and certainly heading in the right direction for bright summery salads.


As for the soft shell crabs, I wasn't the biggest fan. The texture of the shell wasn't as crispy as I expected and was just a little too tough. I found myself hankering for the pure unadulterated crab meat inside, but couldn't get a bite without the exoskeleton. I have hope though that maybe it's a taste that will grow on me - after all, Jesse wasn't such a fan the first time he tried soft shell crabs, but he oohed and aahed over his creation this time.


As for the rest of our long weekend, it involved an easy bike ride down to our favorite spot in Prospect Park, at the bottom of the lake, where we had beer and sandwiches from Bierkraft nestled against a tree with the wide blue lake before us;


pitchers of margaritas out in the sun on Flatbush Avenue; many more bars; and burgers delivered to our rooftop gathering because it was too much to ask everyone to coordinate a potluck barbecue when all we wanted to do was go on drinking and relaxing some more in the sun and the night. And now back to the workweek.



Lemon Thyme Vinaigrette
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp dried thyme, or 1 tsp fresh thyme (I used dried because my thyme plant isn't looking quite big enough yet)
2 stalks spring garlic, minced
1/2 tsp mustard
salt
pepper

Whisk ingredients together and adjust to taste. Serve over fresh lettuces for a delightful salad.

Bicycling vs Spinning

May is Bike Month here in NYC, and I think I know why...because it's finally consistently warm enough to encourage the public to ride outside. Likewise, I've been biking a lot more these days. Although my bike is an old piece of junk that clanks obnoxiously, it still plugs along reliably, and I've gained enough confidence that I can now ride solo in Manhattan. Just this week, I commuted to work by bike for the first time, and I can't wait to do it again next week. Although, as I crawled across the steady upward incline of the Queensborough bridge, I thought to myself, it must be like childbirth, whereby you only get yourself to do it again by blatantly ignoring the pain it takes...BUT the "biker's high" I get afterward helps too.


Last weekend, I rode about 25 miles in one day, beginning with a refreshing but leisurely paced morning 10 mile ride: we got up early for the Brooklyn Greenway Waterfront Tour. Although we were running late (thanks to Jesse aka Mr. Morning Dawdler), we were lucky enough to catch up with the mass of bikers at the East River Park in Williamsburg and continue southward on Kent Ave in Williamsburg, where they have just approved construction of a protected bike lane. The tour continued into the gated-off industrial innards of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. They're in negotations with the development corporation to push back their fences for a Greenway alongside the water.


Next we had a pit stop at Empire Fulton-Ferry State Park, where they were nice enough to set up port-a-potties and offer water and donuts (which I happily used my willpower to reject). We headed past the future site of the Brooklyn Bridge park, where they have already started to demolish pier structures, and then down the first actual completed segment of the Greenway on the Columbia Street waterfront. It looks like an elevated paved sidewalk/bike path, and they had just planted little trees earlier that morning! Our tour finished at Valentino Park in Red Hook where there's a nice view of the Statue of Liberty. It was an interesting ride, although disappointing to learn how long they expect the completed waterfront to take (approximately another 5-10 years), but I really respect the vision and dedication of the Brooklyn Greenway organization.


Last week I also went to a spinning class at the gym with coworkers. I was curious to try it out and see if it would be a good way to train for biking outdoors on bad weather days. In truth, I found it to be godawful boring and torturous. I often have that experience with gym classes, since I'd much rather be working at my own pace or stop when I want to stop. In this case, it felt pathetic to be biking and sweating away in a black box or a room, spinning our wheels, and going nowhere.

Like A New Old-Fashioned Gal has said, in olden days, life incorporated a lot more manual labor, including the exercise involved in transporting oneself around. It seems silly the way people stop and take the time to run in place on treadmills at the gym. To that end, I really like the idea of getting my exercise by commuting by bike or walking partway to work on perfect-weather days.

Pros for Biking:
- Great exercise
- Contributes to my health
- Get home earlier than I would if I went to the gym after work
- Fun
- Biker's high afterward
- Makes me feel badass
- Helps me indulge my inner map geek when I figure out routes
- Could save money on metrocard if I bike enough
- Could save money by cancelling my gym membership, but see below
- Electricity-free workout (unlike the gym)
- Gas-free transportation (unlike the subway or Jesse's car)

Cons against Biking:
- I sweat. A lot. As a result I get weird helmet hair.
- I have to get up earlier in the morning to have time to stop at the gym near my office to shower off my sweat before work.
- Bridges or anything resembling a hill is hard (New York City may look flat, but as soon as you're on a bike you learn it's not)
- Higher risk of intaking the pollutants from New York City air

And the pros outweight the cons! The bike wins! Now let's see if I can keep it up. And if I ever find a nicer bike. If you want to join the fun, check out all Transportation Alternatives for rides, resources, and volunteer opportunities, and Bike Month for bike events this May...like National Bike to Work Day next Friday May 16, complete with snacks provided by eco-friendly City Bakery at all East River bridges. Guess who's looking forward to that?!

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Perfect Spring Dinner

Now that it's spring, what better way to celebrate than to head to Brooklyn Botanic Garden to see the cherry trees in bloom. Admission is free on Saturdays if you can manage to get there before noon. So last weekend after our hearty breakfast of eggs and ramps, we biked down to the BBG. Well I thought it would be mostly downhill. I'm not sure why, except that going south always seems like it should correspond with going downhill. Little did I know that it would actually be uphill most of the way on Washington Ave to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I guess that would be why they call it Prospect Heights. I was huffing and puffing, and the hill seemed to have no end, with just ten minutes to go before noon. But we managed to make it with minutes to spare. And it was worth it to see tons of pink cherry trees in full bloom.


I particularly liked the culinary beds, to indulge in fantasies of my own vegetable garden. I think swiss chard is such a pretty plant, with its bright colors and shiny leaves.


I also liked the garden paths winding around a pond with Japanese sculptures, lined with elegant weeping cherry trees, willows, and Japanese maples, complete with cute turtles sunbathing on rocks!



There weren't a lot of flowers out this early in the spring, but there were pretty tulips.


I'd like to go back later in the summer to see how the garden changes with the seasons, to enjoy more colorful flowers, and to see how the vegetables and herbs in the culinary beds have grown.


Later that night we enjoyed a great dinner that felt so wonderfully springy because I was lucky enough to find the first asparagus of the season at the Greenmarket the day before. I snapped the tough ends off the asparagus, rolled them in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then roasted them for 10 minutes at 400. Meanwhile, I let some quinoa simmer away while Jesse pan-fried thin flounder filets in olive oil and seasoned them with salt pepper.


To top it off, I mixed up an herb mayonnaise using garlic, lemon juice, and some parsley from my urban garfunkel garden. I'm not a big fan of quinoa. Although Jesse loves it for its high protein content, and we often substitute it for pasta or rice for that reason, I think it has a dull soft taste that can sometimes ruin a dish. But with a dollop of lemony fresh mayonnaise, the quinoa was transformed into something I could enjoy. And that is something to cheer about.


We enjoyed dinner with cold mugs of Wiesen Edel-weisse beer. It cloudy wheaty bright taste, great for warm spring or summer days, was the perfect complement to our meal.

New Years Resolutions

2008 is going to be the year that I take hold of my life. Here are some resolutions/hopes/ideas:

- Get involved in Transportation Alternatives
- Start going to Brooklyn Green Drinks instead of just thinking about it
- Go to Green Edge events
- Find local sources for grains and beans
- Participate in the Dark Days Local Challenge
- Starting in April, form a Once-a-Month Local Foods Potluck (comment if you want to join this!)
- Support restaurants on the Eat Well Guide, and similarly minded joints
- Plant a mini garden on my (likewise mini) deck with rosemary, basil, sage, licorice mint, lettuce, tomatoes, banana peppers - any other ideas?
- Learn canning so I can enjoy local summer's bounty into the winter, through pickles, jams, applesauce, tomato sauce, salsa, and more
- Bake better bread
- Figure out a composting method that will work for my apartment
- Figure out how to green my cleaning
- Try riding my bike to work
- Write a new song
- Perform at open mics
- Play another show
- Join a choir
- Go to the opera
- Spend more time with friends
- Take my dog to Prospect Park
- See more of the city's sights
- Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
- Go out dancing!
- Visit DC
- Visit Maine
- Visit Montreal
- Visit Montauk, probably by bike
- Tour Southampton Publick House (restaurant and brewery)
- Camp for free at New York's only whiskey microdistillery, Tuthilltown

My First Pizza: Meatball and Onion

Now that it's pretty much winter, it felt like time to make my meatball heros, all warm and saucy on crusty bread. Jesse loves my meatballs. It must be the Italian side coming out in me that I can make great meatballs just like my old Italian aunts, without even knowing their recipe. Usually, I end up with leftover meatballs, which I make into another hero for lunch, or add to pasta or something. But this time I hit upon a great idea - to use the leftover meatballs on homemade pizza.

This was my first attempt at making pizza, dough and all, from scratch (well, except for the tomato sauce, that came from a can), and it was a huge success. Just look at the photo - crunchy, warm, with the right combination of sauce, cheese, and toppings, and the taste of whole wheat to make it really feel homemade and good for you. Jesse couldn't stop raving. In between every bite, he declared that this was the best thing I've ever made. He even said he would marry me just for my meatballs and pizza, now combined in the greatest dish of all, meatball pizza.

After enjoying the pizza, we geared up for a suprisingly easy and not too cold five mile bike ride to the Columbia Street waterfront district for an open bar with Sixpoint beer, and a friend's birthday party. After riding back drunk on the empty Brooklyn streets at 3am, we toasted up the leftover pizza, scarfed it down, and passed out. What a perfect way to end the night.

Of course, I am already thinking of how I might improve upon the recipe for next time. The bottom of the pizza was nice and charred and crunchy, but actually it was crunchy throughout, without any springiness. Maybe I poked too many holes in the dough and let too much air out. Next time I will try putting all the ingredients on before the pizza goes in the oven and just cooking it all together for 10 minutes.

Meatball and Onion Whole Wheat Pizza

1 packet (1/4 tsp) active dry yeast

3/4 cup warm water

2 tbsp honey

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup tomato sauce (half can of Muir Glen tomato sauce)

3 cloves garlic, diced

1/4 onion, diced

About 8 leftover small meatballs, cut into pieces

1/2 ball fresh mozzerella

In a bowl, dissolve yeast and honey in warm water and let it stand for approximately five minutes, until it is nice and bubbly like the photo below.

Add the flour and salt to the bowl and stir until ingredients begin to form a dough. Place dough on a floured surface and knead for 6 to 8 minutes, until dough feels nice and elastic, adding extra sprinklings of flour as needed when the dough gets too sticky.

Place dough in an oiled bowl, turn it over once to coat in oil, and cover it with a dish towel. Let it rise in a warm place, (ideally 85 degrees), away from drafts for 45 minutes, until dough has doubled in size. Because my apartment is cold lately, I turned my oven on and placed the bowl on top of the oven to create a warm environment for the yeast.

About 20 minutes into letting the dough rise, place a rimless baking sheet on the lowest level of the oven, and preheat to 550, or as high as your oven will go.

Once dough has doubled, punch it down and let it rest a few minutes. Place it on a floured surface and roll it out thin with a floured rolling pin. You don't have to roll it into a perfect circle. I tried, but it turned out more rectangular, and I think next time I will just go straight for a rectange. Crimp the edges to create a crust, and feel free to make your crust as big as you would like - I wish I had made mine bigger. Poke small holes throughout the crust to keep too many bubbles from forming, shown below. Spray surface of dough with olive oil cooking spray.

Remove preheated baking sheet from oven, sprinkle with cornmeal, and carefully slide dough onto the sheet. Bake for approximately 5 minutes, until dough begins to get crusty.

Remove baking sheet fom oven. Spoon tomato sauce over the pizza. Place half the mozzerella on top, then scatter all other ingredients over it, and then place the rest of the cheese on it. Grate 1/4 cup parmesan over the top. Finally, season with salt, pepper, basil, oregano, crushed red pepper, or other spices as desired.

Place pizza back in oven and bake until cheese is melted and crust is golden brown, approximately another 7 minutes. Cut into squares and dig in. One pizza is plenty for two people, especially because you get to enjoy the leftovers later. I think I might make my next dinner party a pizza party!

Brooklyn Bike Tour II: Destination Red Hook

This is my block in Williamsburg, where new condos are sprouting up everywhere. Notice how much taller the beige building in the top right corner is than all the other vinyl sided row houses?
Around the corner, there used to be an old factory in this lot, now vacant except for one obnoxious piece of machinery. I didn't have a chance to photograph them, but three of the four corners of this intersection are all empty boarded lots, warehouses that were, now condos to be.

We biked down to Park Slope for lunch at Bonnie's Grill. Jesse loves their burgers and I enjoy them as well, but let me just say that other items I've had from their menu were subpar.

Next, we rode down Union Street over the Gowanus canal. Someone created this pretty mini sunflower garden at the gate of the bridge.

The canal itself isn't so nice, but I actually liked the surrounding area. Just look at the golden leaves lining this brownstone street:

We continued our ride all the way to Red Hook. We're not Red Hook newbies, as we drive there frequently to shop at Fairway (best grocery store EVER), but this was our first time biking there. We rode to the waterfront on Van Dyke street and stumbled across this little park.

Those benches are a lovely place to sit, rest, and enjoy the calming feeling of the water. Afterward, we went in search of the Six Point brewery and the attached bar to taste their multitude of beers. Well it turns out that the Libery Heights Taproom I had read about online has been replaced with a new bar, Rocky Sullivan's, that only has two Six Points on tap. It looked empty, so we didn't bother with it. The other strange thing is that there is no signage to even tell you that you've found the Six Point. So we didn't find it, we thought maybe it had moved too along with Libery Heights, but a Red Hook local later confirmed we were at the right corner.

So instead we went to the Bait & Tackle Bar on Van Brunt Street for a drink. It's extremely quaint, decorated on almost every inch of the bar with taxidermy, fishing gear, knick knacks, and so on, and it's a cute place to kill some time.

We had dinner at the Good Fork, which I had been looking forward to all week because I wanted almost everything on their menu. Maybe because I was so highly anticipating the dinner, it fell a little flat. We started with two appetizers, cornmeal crusted oysters and beet salad. The oysters were meaty and well executed with a nice cornmeal coating and a Russian dressing-like sauce. But we decided we still prefer oysters in the raw because the greatest thing about oysters is the salty taste of the sea. The beet salad was skimpy on the beets and walnuts and didn't benefit from the one lettuce leaf it was plated on. Considering that beets are in season now, I was hoping for a richer, sweeter taste like I've experienced before.

For dinner, I chose the paperdelle with pork ragu. The homemade pasta was soft, tender, and delicious. But somehow the wow factor was missing. Jesse felt the same about his salmon over crunchy lentils. Conclusion: The Good Fork is a good restaurant, but we probably won't go to Red Hook again just to eat there.

Brooklyn Bike Tour

Last weekend Jesse and I braved the cold and ventured on a 16 mile bike ride throughout Brooklyn, from Williamsburg, whizzing under the Williamsburg bridge (above) through prettier neighborhoods of Brooklyn, including Fort Greene below. Maybe we live in the wrong neighborhood, we pondered during our ride.

We stopped in Park Slope to visit Bierkraft, because I was really interested in checking it out. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but I like that the beers are organized by region so that was able to focus on selecting a New York state beer, because I am trying to drink local whenever I can. And the cheese selection! What a great idea to sell beer and cheese - it's not just all about the wine and cheese anymore. I came up with this plan that we should get beers and cheese and have a picnic in Prospect Park. It was cold, but we managed, on a lovely bench by the lake as the sun set. Our favorite cheese is Doddington, a cheddary English cheese, so we asked to try a new cheese that would similarly appeal to our palates and were given a cheese called Licolnshire, but Doddington still remains the champion in our cheese quest. Taste it, you won't be disappointed!


And by the way, Prospect Park is amazing! This was my first time, and I had no idea it was so woodsy and spacious. It fills that void in my life that Central Park just doesn't because Central Park never allows you to feel that you've escaped the city, but Prospect Park does. I can't wait to take my dog there.


After a ride around the park, and craft beers at some bars on 4th Avenue that did not live up to their reviews, we capped off the evening with dinner at Flatbush Farm , which I have been looking forward to for a while. Their menu is filled with seasonal vegetables and organic meat, sourced from New York state farms, at least I think so. As a burgeoning locavore, I was very excited to support this restaurant. To my dismay, there was a 30 minute wait for the restaurant room. But no problem! They simply directed us next door to the bar where we were still able to have a table and order from the restaurant menu. I don't really understand why they bother having a bar separate from the restaurant.


We both really love oysters, but haven't been able to indulge as much since oyster prices went up. Hence only five oysters as an appetizer below, but delicious they were. Slurp!




Since we'd been munching all day, I convinced Jesse we should split one entree, and we chose the half chicken with collard greens. It was the most delicious, meaty chicken I've had in a while, and the collard greens were as good as ... greens are. I try, but I just don't like greens like kale as much as Jesse. I could say more, but by that point in the night I was sufficiently liquored up that I don't remember much more than the dark, warm, ambience of the restaurant (which lent itself to a nice romantic dinner) and warm fuzzy glow in my stomach from the food.




PS. I'm watching TV as I watch this and I would just like to rant that I hate Sears' new ad campaign: "Don't just give a gift, give a wish." Encouraging people to spend money up the wazoo for the holidays, on things like a complete set of tools for your garage or a complete new wardrobe for a teenage girl! What??!! No one needs a whole wardrobe for Christmas except for poor children who have no clothes. Ads continue to trick people into thinking they need to spend shitloads of money to make themselves and oher people happy. When really what we need is to calm down and enjoy the simpler things in life. Sigh.