You are currently browsing stories tagged with “Food.”
There’s a corner store in Chelsea that sells the best deli meat I’ve ever eaten. I found it when I moved to New York from Israel six years ago. My apartment was a block away, but even after I moved to the Upper West Side, I kept taking the 1 train to the store. Every time I ordered the same: [...]
It’s a bone chilling day in winter as I park my car on a side street next to the Cyclone roller coaster. My head is spinning with all these old Brooklyn memories, and I’ve come back here now looking for signs of them, looking for pieces left behind from the sad sweep of time. Sometimes, when the sky is just [...]
She has just stepped out of her Tribeca branded content office and is leaning against the wall, wondering if she should buy some cigarettes, when she sees a man eating from the trash. His clothes are neat. T-shirt tucked into belted jeans. He must do this often, because he's wearing nylon gardening gloves, and, when he finishes, he picks out [...]
Often the Jewish dumpster is stuffed with bread: not tonight; but walking home a man in a hat says, “Excuse me. Are you Jewish?” I say “No” because last time I was asked that question I said “Yes,” and three Jews wrapped me in ribbons and made me repeat a lot of strange words. So tonight I say “No,” and [...]
In the Jewish neighborhoods he was “Morris, the Maven of Tomatoes.” The orthodox women hardly talked to him, except to call out their orders in Yiddish, enough of which he understood, or to haggle about his high prices or to complain about the accuracy of the scale that hung from the side of his wagon. Some called him Moshe and [...]
Pizza had been on my mind that summer. Who could forget the ever-present sensation of melting? Our skin like sweating cheese, like crusts toasted to a golden brown. We stank, all of us — the garlic you had for lunch, everyone could smell it in the subway car, hiding behind a juicy fragrance. Even nature had blossomed in hues of [...]
I am apologizing to Michelle because I’m crying and I don’t know why. I’m not sad or anything, I’m actually having a good time. This is one of the first times that Michelle and I are hanging out outside of class, and we don’t know each other well yet. But tears keep running down my cheeks and I’m really self-conscious [...]
The week before my high school graduation, I wandered into the Good Humor ice cream garage on East 3rd Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue, just a block from my apartment. I was looking for a summer job. A friend of the family, a college kid named Keith, was working the books there, and he took me in to see [...]
As someone who was born and raised in the famous “city that never sleeps,” it comes as no surprise that I have suffered from insomnia since the age of thirteen. Not a believer in medicinal sleep aids, I experimented with every natural sleep remedy suggested by friends, store clerks and of course, the internet. I drank warm milk, counted sheep, [...]
He gives me a blow by blow while I wait: “might be like 10 min late or so,” and “taking the ACW from 42nd to 14th,” and “2 blocks away.” He is 20 minutes late by the time he makes an appearance. Cute, I think. Tall. Thank you, dating gods. Though I wish he was happier to see me. The [...]
Last week my boss Manny hated me. The business was slow on 47th street. I had been hired part-time to help my replacement H-Love, but neither of us had made a sale between Xmas and the New Year. “I feel like I’m running a charity ward. The two of you are about as useful as a broom.” Manny stated in [...]
My apartment building, across from the ferry, in the St. George neighborhood of Staten Island, fared well against Sandy. From my window, I saw the water rise above the seawall, and swallow the municipal parking lot, but situated on the hill, I never felt threatened. When the power went out, I was watching a DVD of Martin Scorsese's "New York, [...]
At a Scherma family holiday meal there was usually mayhem. Thirty people including Sadie, chief chef, and Frank and their four sons and their families and friends and Aunt Angie sat around a set of long tables. The youngest kids were placed nearby at a separate table. There was always too much food and the wine flowed readily. So did [...]
In the mid ‘70s I, a lifelong New Yorker, eagerly departed the crazy hustle and bustle of New York City when I landed a job in Birmingham, Alabama. I didn’t expect to miss New York or anything about it. But a few weeks after I moved to Birmingham, suddenly and unexpectedly I began craving almost daily something I would never [...]
There’s no real sorrow in this account. I wasn’t working the red light district, nor had I become a Mole Person. I wasn’t destitute or physically mistreated. I was a recent college graduate, holding an entry-level position as a paralegal at a personal injury firm in East Midtown, Manhattan. In fact, with everyone talking about the recession, I felt very [...]
It’s 1979 and the grown-ups are out of control. They are getting divorced and either going to law school or Studio 54. They are in therapy; they are smoking pot, taking lovers, coming out and finding themselves. My parents are married, but my mother buys Donna Summer’s Bad Girls and uses my Stagelight blue roses nail polish. She becomes interested in [...]
On a just-cold-enough-not-to-be-warm evening in April I am at work, delivering pizza; mostly on streets lined with brownstones. Down these lanes I pedal doggedly, lurching on an old blue/green mountain bike with a large wire basket mounted above the front wheel and a habit of breaking down with reliable frequency. Tall and thin with a long, thick mane of red [...]
Every English teacher needs a café of his own, and my weekend joint for nearly seven years has closed. The Fall Café frothed its final latte in early December. I hope my students understood why their last batch of essays was returned later than usual. Signs of the café’s demise were written everywhere, literally. Last July, a chalkboard appeared in [...]
When I was a young man—no bigger than this A chocolate egg cream was not to be missed Some U-bet’s chocolate syrup, seltzer water mixed with milk Stir it up into a heady fro—tasted just like milk You scream, I steam, we all want Egg Cream. --Lou Reed from the song [...]
Many things are curated in this day and age. Google will happily refer you to “a curated book,” “curated digital apps,” “a curated list of televised soccer games,” a “meticulously curated” fixed-gear bicycle boutique in Paris, and “a curated set of grooming products.” A curated door, such as can be found at 27 Ludlow Street in New York’s Lower East [...]
We moved into our apartment on a cold, windy April day. April Fool’s Day, actually. Susan and I didn’t know many people in town and we were looking forward to making new friends. As the movers struggled to get the bed and sofa up the narrow stairs, I looked out the tiny window in our kitchen. The view was of [...]
Everyone thinks the French are so cute. But I’m a waitress, so I know better. I deal with plenty of tourists. I don’t mind them while they’re at the restaurant and I do my best to decipher their accents and answer their questions—though I do draw a blank when they ask me where all the actors hang out. What bothers [...]
As I walked past High Point Coffee on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, a heavy bag of groceries in each hand, I was surprised, even alarmed, to see that the windows were dim. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet on a warm April evening. However, I reflected as I approached, I am High Point Coffee’s only customer, so perhaps they had [...]
Long Live Viva Pancho Viva Pancho is a Mexican restaurant in Times Square, on West 44th Street, just off Broadway. It’s verde awning reads, “Viva Pancho”/“Home Of the Sizzling Fajitas,” in chili pepper script. Neither quaint holdover from the old Times Square, nor modern day restaurant group vision, it could very well be situated in a New Jersey strip mall. [...]
On Sundays, we had a big roast beef or pot roast or leg of lamb which we ate Monday as leftovers. Tuesday was meat loaf or roast chicken with my Mom’s tasty gravy. Wednesday a lamb or pork chop. Thursday’s was Italian--spaghetti with meat sauce, not bad considering we were dopey Irish. Friday was Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks or pizza [...]
They often amuse me, the touchstones that have become the rituals of my life. Jiggling the doorknob to make sure the door is locked. Stacking my self-help books according to dysfunction. Making sure no one is watching when I enter my weight and age into the elliptical training machine at the gym. Checking for ear hairs. Stuff like that. I [...]
The Diner in Williamsburg is a 21st century institution now, I guess (just celebrated its tenth anniversary)—you can get arugula there! And the rest of their food is good too. It’s pleasant at their sidewalk tables if the weather’s fine, though you have to watch your step if you don’t want to trip over two dozen artists. Me and Jean [...]
Yesterday I left for work without having eaten anything all morning. For a person with a normal schedule this would be no problem, but I start work at 12:30 PM and don’t take “lunch” until about 5:00 PM. My office is on Hudson and King Streets and I take the C train to the Spring Street Station. It’s only a [...]
“Do you know--” “Of any sports bars around here?” I interrupted. The towering man paused, chapped lips parted in a bewildered grin revealing white teeth caulked with white material. “You looking for one too?” “No,” I said, “you asked me that last week.” We stood this December afternoon on 22nd off 6th. Last time, 19th and 5th. He smiled a [...]
In my downtown Brooklyn neighborhood were raised a breed of men who are check thieves. A rare breed of men who are slowly becoming extinct. Their turf is Court Street to Smith, Degraw Street to President. These are the sons of the older generation men, who would never let a woman pay for a check. And, who consider it right [...]
When I was a kid, Avenue B was a neighborhood for the working poor. Old guys would sell hot knishes from a portable oven on wheels for a nickel, and in my family, that was considered "eating out." We didn't have a phone, or even a radiator, until the city made the landlady put one in. We did have a [...]
One Halloween, I decided to wear something different than my usual orange shirt from the 1989 Westchester Girl Scouts Jamboree. On the evening of disguises, I tried on a very local one. I dressed as a stereotypical “Murray Hill” Girl, a costume that required an explanation and a bibliography. The costume evoked a particular New York Observer news article written [...]
In Park Slope, Brooklyn, on a week-day afternoon a woman was trying to sell her iguana for twenty-five dollars. She was giving it up for a more traditional pet, like a cat who didn’t need to be constantly put out in the sun to digest its meal but could do so underneath the bed. "It tastes even better than chicken," [...]
[Patrick J. Sauer also has a website. --Ed.] The sense of smell is the most powerful reminder of past events. It’s the hardest sense to pin down, the hardest to define. A smell is never described as it is, only in simile form. It smells like burning leaves. You know, it smells wet, like...like...like a wet dog. That’s nasty, smells [...]
“Those Goddamn kids! I swear to God I can’t take it anymore. I can’t even get coffee without running into a giant mass of those little bastards at the Starbucks. It’s like a fucking daycare center in there during the mornings.” I looked up from the book I was reading at my brother, who had just returned to his apartment [...]
“Just like a boxer in a title fight you’ve got to walk in that ring all alone You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes but they’re the only things that you can truly call your own” --Billy Joel I was looking at some apartments with my realtor, Harriet Loshin, just west of Union square, near west 12th street. We [...]
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