Author Archives: lkewing313

Chasing Boston (part 1: why)

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Screenshot (18)Once upon a time, I didn’t care about running the Boston Marathon.

I had my reasons. There was my New York chauvinism (even back then, when I lived in Detroit): the New York City Marathon is just a better race, I declared, before I’d run either one. There was my desire to seem quirky and iconoclastic, gleefully puncturing the assumption that I had run, or at least aspired to run, Boston (“Boston? Nah, for some reason I’ve never been interested. What I really want to run is the Around the Bay 30K in Hamilton, Ontario. Did you know that race is actually older than Boston?”). There was my aversion to training hard through the Michigan winter. And, I’m ashamed to admit, there was snobbery. Weren’t those vaunted Boston qualifying standards a little, well, soft?

In my not-so-youthful arrogance, with two Boston-qualifying races to my name, I figured that if I ever changed my mind, I could always shuffle my way to another BQ. The standards just get easier with age, after all, and I had plenty of time.

Then came my cancer year. Continue reading →

Cool treats for the Brooklyn summer: lychee slushie

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Lychee slushee and honeydew milk tea (go for the slushie if you dare - it's better as well as colder)

Lychee slushee and honeydew milk tea (go for the slushie if you dare – it’s better as well as colder)

Warning: do not try this when the day is less than sweltering. Avoid air conditioning while consuming. Counter-indicated for individuals with a history of sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia (popularly known as “brain freeze”).

It is cold, so cold. And good, so good.

I got mine at a tea house on 8th avenue in Sunset Park (Ten Ren’s Tea Time, to be precise). On the menu, it’s listed as “shredded ice” (not to be confused with Taiwanese shaved ice, which is a whole nother treat); on the video screen that flashes a rotating display of menu items, it and its many-flavored brethren are labeled “slushies.”

Whatever. It consists of a whole bunch of ice pulverized (shredded?) in a blender with flavored syrup, then poured over tapioca bubbles.

I got a regular ($4 for 12 oz); I think a double ($6 for 24 oz) could lead to frostbite. Did I mention how cold this was?

Ten Ren, by the way, is a Taiwan-based chain that sells tea and various herbal products, elegantly packaged. Once you get past the long line and whirring blenders at the front of the shop, the atmosphere is positively serene. It made me want to start drinking more tea.

Featured in this post:

Ten Ren’s Tea Time, 5817 8th Ave., Sunset Park, Brooklyn 11220

Cool treats for the Brooklyn summer: chamoyada

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IMG_3336 (4)To mark the start of July, a new series: icy treats from Brooklyn’s neighborhoods.

We’re kicking things off with chamoyada. This one – an explosion of orange and magenta, overflowing its chili-coated plastic cup to leave you sticky-fingered – comes from El Comal Juguería y Taquería on 5th Avenue (47th/48th) in Sunset Park.

“Is this your first time?” the guy working the counter asked, after I placed my order. (How did he know?) “I hope you like it.”

Oh, I did. My mango version included mango ice (with brain-freezingly cold chunks of frozen fruit); the briny, sweet-spicy sauce called chamoy (from whence the name); a chili-tamarind straw; and strips of dried mango dusted with chili seasoning.

And no, that’s not a cherry on top. It’s a chili-tamarind candy, and it was delicious.

Coming soon: drunk painting

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IMG_3337Look what’s coming to Fifth Avenue in Park Slope! Soon we’ll be able to get sloshed while daubing paint on canvas somewhere other than in the privacy of our own homes.

I was unfamiliar with this franchise concept, but on reflection, its appeal to frazzled moms who feel their creativity is being stifled makes it a natural for the neighborhood.

Thank god we still have Leopoldi Hardware and Save-on-Fifth for the rest of us.

Katie and Linda’s Central European Adventure

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vitkov viewThis blog is back from its travels and unstuck from its post-trip doldrums. It will return to its usual Brooklyn-focused posts soon enough (with a race report or two thrown in for good measure and, no doubt, some whining about marathon training). For now, I offer these highlights and observations from our mother-daughter trip to the Czech Republic and Slovakia. (Hat tip to Evan Rail at the New York Times and “Taste of Prague” bloggers Zuzi and Jan for never steering us wrong throughout our trip.)

Czech beer is good – and cheap. Guidebooks breathlessly proclaim that in the Czech Republic, beer is cheaper than water. That’s not entirely accurate. Despite warnings that nothing in the Czech Republic is free (including – gasp! – ketchup packets at fast food restaurants), we found that we could in fact ask for and receive complementary tap water in restaurants and cafes. (For our first few days, in thrall to the guidebook warnings, we demurred offers of water and left bread baskets untouched. We were idiots.)  Continue reading →

Ten ingredients I discovered too late in life

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IMG_2763As readers of this blog know, I like to eat. For me, food is a way to enter other cultures and connect with other people, to satisfy my curiosity about the world as I sate my appetite. I may roll my eyes at the pretensions of molecular gastronomy, but I’ll grant its proponents this much: discovering a new ingredient is a bit like discovering a new element. It raises questions and opens up possibilities.

Ten years ago, I had barely heard of the ingredients listed here, if I’d heard of them at all. I certainly didn’t cook with them.

A pause here to sigh for those wasted years – then on with the list. Continue reading →

Race report – the Brooklyn Half (May 16, 2015)

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The scene at the Stillwell Ave station after the race.

The scene at the Stillwell Ave station after the race.

Why was I getting up at 5 am to run a race that starts within easy jogging distance of my apartment?

Because when a race has more than 26,000 entrants – making it the largest half marathon in the U.S., according to the New York Road Runners – it’s not a neighborhood event. It’s a global production requiring precision, political finesse, and the occasional tactical compromise.

Like starting at 7 am on a Saturday, so that most of the runners clear the vicinity of Grand Army Plaza before most Brooklynites are up and about.

Like requiring runners to walk through metal detectors to enter their corrals. (So what if they beeped for everyone?)

Like closing the baggage trucks at 6:10 am, so that . . . well, I’m not sure why the baggage trucks closed so early. I only know that (a) they stretched a loooooooong way down Eastern Parkway and (b) many unhappy runners clutching NYRR-issue clear plastic bags were sprinting toward their assigned trucks at 6:09:59 am. Continue reading →

Eating 8th Avenue – a two-part dim sum extravaganza

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So long, 8th Avenue; you've been delicious.

So long, 8th Avenue; you’ve been delicious.

At the end of April, with Eric in tow, I headed back to the now-familiar 8th Avenue stop on the N train. It was to be my last “official” visit (reserving the right to come back for unblogged meals) before this blog moves on to another avenue TBD. To mark the occasion, we planned a dim sum blow-out.

So, it turned out, did several thousand other people. The line at Bamboo Garden (8th Ave and 64th St, our intended destination) spilled out the door and around the corner.

Our hearts sank. What to do? We ducked into the food court in an adjoining building, but there was no place to sit. Was everyone in Brooklyn on 8th Avenue that day? It was beginning to look that way.

We ended up at a bakery/diner hybrid called Jade Food Inc., drawn by the declarative simplicity of its awning (“Coffee. Milkshake. Other Beverages. Dim Sum. Bakery”) and the fact that there was an empty table inside. Over (rather watery) congee and (slightly gummy) dumplings, we plotted our next move. Continue reading →

Brooklyn’s hot moms wish you a happy Mother’s Day

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el castillo motherThe folk artist(s) who decorated Fifth Avenue storefronts for Valentine’s Day is back at it. There’s slightly less demand for his or her services for Mother’s Day (forcing me to ask: what’s wrong with you, Fifth Avenue business owners??), but there are still plenty of voluptuous moms in the South Slope and Sunset Park to remind you that Sunday is their day.

A gallery follows. Continue reading →

Eating 8th avenue – wife cookies at Gaoming Bakery

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Gaoming BakeryOn repeated visits to 8th avenue over the last two months, I’ve nibbled around the edges of Gaoming Bakery (which is not at all a bad way to approach it). Its chicken sticky rice consoled me after a disappointingly wan bowl of noodle soup elsewhere; its strong, lightly-sweetened iced milk tea was a perfect pick-me-up for the long slog to 5th avenue and the even longer wait for the B63 bus.

But its wife cookies deserve their own post. Continue reading →