#9 - A second home

I have a second home in New York. It's not really a refuge where I go to for a weekend away. Also not a particular place to sleep or to have my things neatly at hand. I could never afford it anyway. Rather, this is where I go to rest my eyes and mind. And challenge other senses. This national historic landmark devised in 1858 is the home to many species of plants and animals. However, I think the animal that most profits from its existence, in my biased opinion, is the Human. This is the iconic Central Park.

Like animals in the wild

Central Park has been referred to, and depicted in, an "endless" amount of movies and cultural manifestations. Before I ever visited it, my mental image of it was not much more than the mysterious and sort of surreal impressions I would gather from watching countless episodes of Law and Order Special Victims Unit, movies with a couple of scenes taking place in it or seeing fashion ads with its pictures. And although all that fantasy still amuses me I feel absolutely no connection between such images and the real Central Park, my real image of it. There is so much more sense of depth, smell and touch to it.

Central Park extends itself beyond the Ramble, the bridges or the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. There are smells in the air (mostly good and exhaling from the myriad of trees and bushes around). There are squirrels galore and marvelous insects. Over it hovers an atmosphere that shifts as one walks from forest-like shady areas to open grass fields, to promenades and cafes. In Central Park people walk their dogs, stroll around, play baseball, soccer, tennis, ice hockey. In pairs, families, with friends or on their own, they stop for brunch, they go to the theater, they sit quietly on a bench or chat rowdy on a swing. They are stereotypical New Yorkers, business persons crossing the park drives by foot hastily and phoning, they ride a bike or a skate at high speed. Others are just passers by from all corners of the world. They close their eyes while lying on the grass on a warm evening, and listen, for free, to the music emanating from the SummerStage. 


In Central Park people run. All running fanatics in Manhattan (dare I say New York City) end up running, at some point, the small and large loop of the Park, the loop around the Jackie-O reservoir, up the "Cat Hill" and past the Boat House on the East, down the Strawberry Fields on the West. Whatever paths they might find interesting. I am no exception to this. And with my friend L., running buddy, inspiration and coach all-in-one, this touristic attraction has ceased to be so for me. I really feel ever more compelled to call it my "shared second home" as I add an extra mile to my running shoes.

Another friend, J., joins for a Saturday morning run and
sneaks a shot on the way down the West side 

#8 - sun + shade = ?

It's hot. Sunlight is intense.
People deal with it in different ways:

1) they don't seem to mind it;
2) they want to have more of it so they actually bury themselves on what I would call the "UV-coffins" to get even more orange than what they already look (they look like coffins and their are surely not doing any good to the DNA of those skin cells... yes I am an advocate of mindful interactions with sunlight);
3) they protect themselves from the sun with what I thought "it's a sunbrella"!

I thought it was a brilliant word! Of course someone as creative and way faster than me has already thought of it before... and patented it... Sunbrella.com ...selling acrylic canvas-like fabric for in and outdoor furniture and shading. Bummer...

Anyway, around this time of the year there are a lot of 'my' sunbrellas walking up and down NYC's avenues.

#7 - chal lah noun \ˈḵä-lə, ˈhä-\

Like the "melting pot" of cultures that the City is, or whatever metaphor it is now identified with, cuisine and great food are no exception when it comes to her signs of diversity. Among the many influences and types of snacks, delicacies or simple local comfort foods there is surely and not surprisingly a strong Jewish signature. Yes, yes, there is of course the obvious bagel, the rather famous pastrami (which I will skip since I don't "do" meat) and many other things. But one thing that got me at first glance is the challah. 

Challah (klingersbread.com)

"Looking" tempting at me, from the windows of many bakeries and bagel shops (from the most rustic to the a bit too ubiquitous Hot & Crusty), there it was. This huge loaf of bronzed, tanned crust and a yellowish inside peaking out. With a little bit of a glaze (surely brushed over with eggs) and in sort of cluster of lumps. It looked just like... or well, it reminded me instantly of one of my forever favorite Portuguese sweet goodies, the folar-da-Páscoa or Easter bread. Every year I demand for its baking! Provided I am home of course to convince my mum to do so (which is not that difficult ;)) or to "treat" me because after all I happen to be home.

Folar-da-Páscoa ( tentacaodosabor.com)

It's a very slighty sweet bread, of an egg-containing bread dough spiced with ground fennel seeds. On top of the loaf there is a cross of dough and under it there are 2-4 hard boiled whole eggs, hidden like eggs in a nest.  It's such a simple and unambitious thing, but it absolutely drives my craving. In Old Amsterdam I found out, around Easter time, something similar named duivekater which was close enough to keep me happy but not enough to deter me from baking my own folar one Easter that I was neither home nor could "import" my mum to bake it for me.

The challah tastes similarly, but it is a bit lighter, fluffier in consistency and often it contains raisins or it's sprinkled with poppy seeds. The funny thing is the challah reminded me of folar, not only in taste and shape/color but also phonetically. Maybe the latter is kind of a mind leap, what would folar have to do with challah anyway? Nonetheless, old Portugal was an earlier "melting pot" which once hosted many Jewish people (that we infamously expelled and oppressed later on, thus furnishing the streets of Amsterdam and other metropoleis with some rather important Portuguese-Jewish entrepreneurs and thinkers). Maybe it is faint the possibility that challah and folar are relatives but I really like musing on the idea of that ancestral link... regardless, both breads make my taste buds extremely happy!

And in case curiosity takes over your own taste buds:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/challah-i/ 

http://www.portuguesegirlcooks.com/2012/04/portuguese-easter-bread-folar-de-pascoa.html

#6 - Selfless selfish NYC

Right now on BBC World, live from Manhattan:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00trs0d

A constant contrast. Assertive yet smiling. Pushy yet generous. Emotional yet thoughtful.

#5 - New York pets II

Other sort of the City's beloved pets include:

- mosquitoes, they say everywhere, on the radio, magazines and newspapers: be prepared, they are on their way!

- cockroaaaaches! I had the pleasure of "meeting" a couple at home... small sized luckily!phew! On the street, though, the other day leaving work and turning the corner there it goes speeding! A lovely juicy big "cucaracha" above the allowed speed limit crossing my way on the sidewalk... eeek!

- at high speed also a couple of mice have scooted away on my way to or out of the metro.

- which takes me to other rodents. Rats, the lords and ladies of the subway. They do not shy away as they exercise back and forth on the rails. And when I mean they don't shy away it's because they really think they own their joint! Underground, one of these days, I step out of the metro car and there it is: one fat rat (no no, no subliminal pun about Wall Street's wealthiest) right in the middle of the platform! And bloody hell the thing didn't move an inch as people poured out! Nonchalant, it just couldn't give a damn, it just stood there! Even the rats have got the nerve in this town!

Oh yeah... I think they name all the above plagues*, in fact.



*Before posting this I realized that actually this list is rather incomplete... Further, there are the pigeons, raccoons, chipmunks/squirrels, seagulls, starlings... The question is: were they in the city before us or did they come as we urbanized? I wonder what/who started the "plague".

#4 - In search of a working fish market

In highly urbanized environments such as New York, or even more cosmopolitan and touristy spots such as the area around Pier 17, there is hardly place for what I had been dreaming about the whole previous day. I heard on the radio about a fish market “reopening”. However, I did not tune too accurately in on they actually were advertising. In my mind I was finally going to find, here in the big metropolis, a fresh fish market with enough offer I would visit as often as I liked so as to buy proper fresh whole fish. Well, I guess I had something in mind similar to where I used to go as a kid with my mum. A place where we would go buy us fresh fish for the week/coming weeks, a place down by the true fish docks.

It was rather naive of me to assume that WNYC would announce something less than hip and novel instead of just telling listeners about yet another place where one could buy cheap and have a lot to choose from. I mean, I love this radio station and a lot of what I try around here follows their suggestions but let's say that when it comes to culture they do serve certain groups of people. Which is fine and they did refer also that at that market there would be demos on how to cut and prepare fish. That alone should have given it a bit away that I wasn't going to meet the regular market by the docks, but it didn't click in my mind then. Indeed, I ended  in front of what use to be the old Fulton fish Market. The New Fulton Fish Market is actually located in the South Bronx and from the photos on the internet looks rather mass scale and industrial, to serve the best fish restaurants in the city I suspect.

Old Fish Market down by South Ferry

But back to Old Fulton. Although decrepit, it is a nice evoking building. It is pretty much falling apart and looking as abandoned as it could. Its architecture does remind me of the same type of coop-regulated markets I indeed was used to from going shopping for food with my mum. These are big bulky buildings divided in rows of shops/stands that circled around the ground and sometimes upper flours. Each vendor sold more or less similar fishes and seafood with the occasional rarity to be only found at specific stands. As a customer you would take a couple of strolls to probe where to get the freshest fish for the best price (the one with healthy eyes, that smelled like the seaside, salty water and algae rather than of the bloody long standing ones. At this New Amsterdam Fish Market, however, I ended up where there were but a bunch of fish stands, half of them selling actual whole fishes the other half selling ready to eat fish-based (very tasty) snacks (I ate an awesome sea scallop ceviche). The fresh fish stands were by far outnumbered by numerous artisan bread, farm greens, handcrafted cider sirup and all sorts of organic-made sweet stuff. I ended up at yet another cool and cosmopolitan "museum for food" to educate city people, rather than at a place where I would have gone to buy some fish to stuff my fridge and freezer with. I even had stopped at Duane Reade to get myself a cooling back in case I would take too long to get back home..."you fool" I thought.

The New Amsterdam Fish Market

As it seems I have to strongly improve my filtering of local markets for genuine food  so that I won’t end up at educating urbanites markets about sustainably produced goods. Goods which I would like to buy in any case but I could easily pass on the gloss that comes with all the fancy advertising and of course the price of it. The hunt continues.

"Food & awareness" stands

I guess I am only now realizing how as a young person I did not think at all about these places to where we went for food. I just took them for granted, the markets where we bought the edibles which were the ingredients of my mum's conscious and delicious cooking. For me such docks were naturally the places where to go for the proper real fish. There, men with sun-stained skin and a mustache, in a tank top and balding, and women with big hands and a scarf on their head, they were the ones that knew all about the Ocean and seafood. Far from the experience of the urbanites around me, I grew up where the small fishing boats, “traineiras” with their small but ever burpy motors, arrived loaded with mussels, octopuses, fresh sun shining scaly (and often still jumping) sardines and mackerels. And a few hours later with a crusty salted skin, with fresh olive oil poured over their fresh white tender meat and sided by a fresh tomato, cucumber and lettuce salad and boiled potatoes (in their skin) they would be the on my plate for lunch and take over both my taste buds and my brain circuits.

#3 - Seamen

They circumambulate the city and he fills my mind with reveries of sails and the high Sea.

by Herman Melville, in Moby Dick