The Algorithm Fails to Find Itself.

Gah.

Less "gah-" and more "wtf?-" worthy is the soccerball we found wedged in between the Wa and Mu portion of my bank's sign. This one found in Woodhaven, Queens, after an excessive yarn buying binge. Crazy sales, I tell ya!

There, he dreamt I was an architect...

I was supposed to be in Canada tonight but a "broken airplane" grounded me here, so I took the chance for a wee saunter to the East Village with a few of the other marsupials. It's unseasonably warm today - over 20C!! - and it was still pleasant and balmy by nighttime. We did a tour of 1st, 2nd and 3rd aves, visiting the lovely Otafuku, purveyor of takoyaki, and trying our new favourite again - Caracas, the areparía on 7th st. between 1st Av and Avenue A.

As on my first visit, the tiny space was crowded and warm, but we managed to snag the same corner table and from that cosy nook devour light and delicious treats. An arepa, for those who haven't yet experienced its delights, is a griddle-fried corn flatbread stuffed with delightful treats - most classically cheese. But the possibilities are endless. On the first visit I shared a plain white-cheese Paisa; and a Playera, a fabulous combination of fish, tomato, herbs and a bit of cheese into a moist and toothsome morsel vanishing far too fast. This time I tried la del Gato, which had guayanés cheese, fried plantains, and avocado slices. And it was delicious! Even more delicious was a sauce on the table which I tried to parse into its component parts. For now I'm guessing olive oil & vinegar (ciderish?), mustard, thyme/oregano, chile powder, and passionfruit juice... With all this I had a fantastic refresco of papaya, not too strong or sweet but with real pieces of fruit gently suspended in it, and a hit of citrus. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm....

But the funniest thing that happened was, after we peered into the cute little ramen place we found recently on 3rd Av, and then sauntered bravely on, I heard a man's voice persistently calling, "Excuse me! Excuse me!" Confident that I hadn't dropped anything, and tired of street harassment, I carried on undaunted. But the unstoppable man persisted, finally running up and actually grabbing my arm to get my attention.

"Excuse me," he said, holding my arm just above the elbow. "Are you an architect?"

"No," I replied flatly. And he dropped my arm and faded away, back to the bar patio from whence he had so urgently sought me. We marched on, wondering. Did he mistake me for someone famous, whose name he couldn't quite remember? Did he urgently need a consultation on his bathroom fixtures? Did he and his tablemate bet each other they could pick an architect at 40 paces? I fear I shall never know.

And we walked into the night.

Pachinko & friends.

Today was a work day, with trains, Thai food at lunch, and many other things starting with "t", but most especially teatime. A coworker, Neko-chan, had brought in special green tea, so we sat around with an assortment of biscuits and had one of those conversations. It all started with a lovely CNN story title, "Gay Sex Immoral".

Well, duh, we already knew you thought that.

But really, ugh!

Anyway, our conversation fluttered from there to marriage rights in different countries, to Pachinko, the Japanese gambling game, to the Atomic Squid's glasses. As long as there was fresh water for the teapot you could not keep that conversation down!

And on the way home we stopped on the East Village and this time successfully had arepas, on which more later. I love the East Village.

Lost and not found.

Something else depressing: the Gowanus Canal.

Today I realised I had lost something important, and more than the frustration of the loss was the feeling of fearful inevitability - that if I could have let this happen, what other terrible things would I do? What I lost was blue, as was the day.

However as the sky darkened I went for a long walk in the neighbourhood and out to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and watching Manhattan sparkling in the not-very-distance, was soothing, as was eating leftover fish porridge and curling up in bed.

La Marqueta: An Afternoon in Williamsburg

The Atomic Squid, avid reader of the Brooklyn blogs, discovered a Hispanic market in Williamsburg that is sadly slated to close, so before it could, we wanted to sneak out there and sample the wares.

We hopped on a G and soon emerged into a bustling area where Spanish was being spoken everywhere. We wended our way along to a small closed market area, similar to the Essex St Market we stumbled into a week before, only quite a bit smaller. There were a lot of empty stalls; either Sunday is not a big day or people have already started to close down. Still it was interesting to see what supplies there were, and what was there was SO CHEAP! At one stall we got a big bag of garlic, a big bag of achiote, a bit container of homemade sofrito, and two gooey coconut sweets, for a total of $5!! From what I could tell the stalls were mostly Puerto Rican and Dominican owned.

Then we perused the snack counters considering having some fried yuca or other comida típica, but settled in the end on a batido, for it was sunny and who can resist a batido? We even learned a dialect word - parcha is apparently the same as maracuya, otherwise known as passionfruit. We shared a parcha batido and a papaya one, both delicious. The parcha was tangy and the papaya sweet and creamy and we both preferred it, though the parcha was also delicious. And I got to order them in Spanish!

After that we wandered north on Avenida de Puerto Rico to Grand St and considered late brunch options, despite being fairly full of batido at this point. I had to cower in fear in front of one place, which had a billboard out front declaiming: "Wombat! We want YOU for brunch!"

Of course, the place was called Wombat.

Anyway despite the excitement there, we decided to go to Bahía, a Salvadoran resto also on Grand St. So of course we had to have pupusas - a bean one, and this delicious one with Loroco, the flower of a salvadoran plant that tasted vaguely like broccoli. As usual this was served with pickled cabbage, and a delicious thin, mild tomato salsa. The texture of the pupusas was a little less crisp than some I had had but the flavours were nice. We also had a side of casamiento, or rice and beans, and a little condiment-salad called chirmol, with chopped tomatoes and radishes etc. And I finally tried a tamal de elote, or sweet corn tamale. It was perhaps a little sweet - not that different to a steamed cornbread - but it was nice to try it eventually.

By this time the Williamsburg adventure was winding down, but on the way to the subway we stopped at the landmark Gimme Coffee! which is supposed to be Brooklyn's best. Certainly the coffee was good and the descriptive labels on the (expensive!) beans amusingly hipsterish. But as with so many cafés in this country - only disposal cups! For shame.

There were more wonders to be revealed in this tour of Williamsburg, but for now this shall suffice. It's a nice place to visit, but I'm happy enough to return to my little corner of South Brooklyn. To do laundry...

Day 156: Sviata Vechera!

A new tradition, a new foray into food we don't really understand but want to eat anyway: Sviata Vechera 2007!

Or, in translation, our version of a traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve Supper, where "we" are the Figtree denizens + the AS' brother, The Curator, and me. Held on Jan 6 because of calendar shifts, the meal traditionally has 12 dishes and is a solemn, mystical affair you can read more about here: http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/holidays/christmas/ukraine.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-dish_Christmas_Eve_supper

Our version had a few fewer dishes and a lot less solemnity, but was tasty and exciting nonetheless.

We started off with a joint Fairway expedition to stock up, plus some provisions I had brought specially from Canada, and the delightful bread dough The Curator had made in advance. Once back in the kitchen, we lost no time in shaping this fine dough, destined for kolach, or the traditional round braided bread gracing the table with a red candle atop it (see below).

Our fingers were busy throughout with many details, from the Atomic Squid's cabbage rolls lovingly tied together with chives, to the irregularly-but-lovingly-shaped pyrohy brought into being by the paws of one yours wombat truly.

The final menu consisted of the traditional first course of kutia, wheat berries cooked with honey and poppy seeds, heavy with symbolism I'm a little fuzzy on, but thankfully also rather delicious. We tried to keep the portions small out of initial skepticism and the many dishes to follow, but in fact everyone asked for seconds! *a decorous cheer*

Following the kutia we had a nice bowl of borscht, made vegetarian as is traditional for this meal, which should have fish but no meat or other animal fats (we did cheat and include butter in some dishes). There were several beetroot skeptics in the assembled audience, but the deeply pink soup was well received by all, especially with its garnishes of sour cream, fresh dill and chives. The photo doesn't show off how lovely the garnishes actually were, but hey, we were hungry!

After the borscht, the main courses together. First, there was a very Ukrainian, er, Southeast Asian style fish baked in a banana leaf. There were actually two fishes, one red snapper and one porgy, although in fact the poor porgy was passed over as our straining stomachs protested its unwrapping. These were stuffed with a mixture of the Atomic Squid's devising, involving lime, leek, tomato, lemongrass, and other exciting flavours - in fact it might have been the most exquisitely flavoured fish I have ever had.

The fish had plenty of company. For something a little more Eastern European there was some nice pickled herring, as well as the aforementioned cabbage rolls. They had a rice stuffing and were baked in a tomato-eggplant stew, to great tastiness. The traditional meal is accompanied by many vegetable sides, represented here by some sautéed mushrooms and some simply beautiful kale in garlic and a bit of veggie stock.

The (in my mind at least) essential element was the pyrohy or perogies - two flavours of them. One was a plain potato mash, but with roasted garlic for a full flavour, and the other was plain mash with a considerable quantity of orange cheddar grated into it - I confess these are my favourite. Vareniki are the boiled version, and then some of these were taken and pan-fried to a slight crispiness before being served with sour cream and fried onions.

All this inhaled in company with generous slices of the beautiful kolach. Kolach by itself would make a festive meal. It's similar to both challah and brioche but has a particular texture and rich flavour all its own.

After all this we had to take a break, wherein The Curator was initiated into the Revolutionary Knitters' Circle and also the Fanatical Watchers of Kath and Kim Club (an excellent Australian sitcom). Amid all the excitement we were able to worry down some dessert - a traditional dried fruit compote made with honey by the Grand Pademelon, and the utterly nontraditional key lime pie made by Steve (on which more later), before dispersing to our diverse locations and collapsing on our beds to relive Sviata Vechera in our dreams. It was quite a few hours of work and I felt a bit guilty for not having researched it more thoroughly, but however inauthentic it was a truly festive meal. And then there were the leftovers... :-)

Day 155: Distraction of the day.

I think we can all feel good about the fact that this week was a short work week and it's over now :P To celebrate we got pizza from Zaytoons and flaked out in front of the Figtree tv. I don't have photos of that, but here's lunch to celebrate with instead :-)

Day 154: Let's talk about something more pleasant.

Than my ongoing boring work and sick state. Let me distract you all with photos of tasty food, here some nice buckwheat soba with mushrooms and green onions. Mm. Noodles.

Day 153: I am ze crafty one now!

Still at work, still sick. But on the bright side, I finished knitting this fine hat!

Day 152: Back to work.

Back to work. Still sick. But on the bright side, I get to eat this noodle soup. And it has tentacles! Go, Atomic Squidlet!