Category Archives: Food

From BKLYN to CDMX

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Just like Brooklyn!

Mexico City is sprawling and intimate. It smells of exhaust fumes and sewage and eucalyptus and cinnamon and masa and sizzling meat. It awakens to birdsong, sells itself in sing-song chants, and talks and shouts and eats and drinks and honks its horn late into the night. Oh, and the weather is perfect year-round.

I loved it.

What follow are some general impressions, beginning with this blog’s principal obsessions – food, birds and running, looking at stuff (often while birding and running) – and then offering some broader thoughts on the city. While I don’t pretend to know or understand it, I was struck by the way it manages, however improbably – built as it is on sinking ground, its population swollen to 20 million – to work. The contrasts between politics, national mythology and historical memory here and there provided plenty of food for thought. Continue reading →

A non-running race report: the 2018 NYC marathon

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Runners (and their shadows) in mile 13

Here it is, at last: my report on this year’s NYC marathon from the spectators’ side of the police tape.

As you may recall, I’d mapped out a plan in advance that would take me from Park Slope to Bay Ridge (with a stop in Sunset Park) to Greenpoint to Long Island City to East Harlem to the Upper West Side. I executed my non-running race plan much better than I’ve ever executed any of my actual running race plans. You could even say I hit my “A” goal.

I also learned a lot, and am already making plans for 2019.

Here’s how it went down. Continue reading →

2018 NYC Marathon spectator’s guide to Brooklyn (and Queens)

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I’ll be there.

It’s back, for the fourth consecutive year!

To help you have the best possible marathon-viewing experience, I’ve compiled pointers from my own past races – those I ran (2005, 2006, 2009 DNF, 2014, 2015) and those I watched (2007, 2011, 2013, 2016, 2017). This summer and fall, I ran the course (in manageable segments), seeking out interesting places to stop for a bite to eat and something warm (or cold – one never knows what kind of weather the first Sunday in November will bring) to drink.

This guide, like the three before it, is unabashedly Outer Borough-centric. That’s true for several reasons. First, I’m an Outer Borough kind of gal. Second, the crowded viewing spots along First Avenue and Central Park don’t require a guide; they’re where people go by default. Third, and most important – I honestly believe that your viewing experience will be better here. You’ll be closer to the action, and also closer to the real spirit of the race, and of the city.

Plus, the eating is way better.  Continue reading →

NYC Marathon spectator training report

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Yes, but will it be open by the first Sunday in November?

It’s September! Were I running the 2018 NYC Marathon, this would be my monster month: I’d be piling on the miles, trying to live right, and generally being an extremely boring person. But just because I’ve retired from marathoning doesn’t mean I’m not training. Now, though, my training is focused on being the best possible spectator (and possibly coaching others toward their own personal spectating bests).

To that end, I set out on this steamy Labor Day morning to run a (small) portion of the marathon course. I’ll be doing a lot more of that over the next month and a half, aiming to publish an all-new course guide in the second half of October. In the meantime, here are some teaser pictures from today’s training run.

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What, no beetroot?!?

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Sacks of flour and poppy seeds (not pictured) leave me hopeful that this in-the-works-for-over-a-year Shelsky’s outpost will in fact be opening soon.

What I saw (and ate) at the 2017 NYC marathon

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Almost halfway there . . . runners closing in on the 20K mark in Greenpoint

For three years now, I’ve compiled a spectator’s guide to the NYC marathon. Sometimes, I even take my own advice. Here’s a belated race report, of sorts, from someone who did not run – but nonetheless spent the entire day (from a little after 7 in the morning until nearly 7 at night) along, or in proximity to, the course.

Pre-race

I love marathon morning. I love it even more now that the first Sunday in November is also the first day of standard time, which lets me bounce out of bed, linger over my coffee while the sky lightens, and still head out at a ridiculously early hour. By 7 am, I had my running shoes on and was heading down to Fourth Avenue for my traditional run-the-course-backwards jog from Park Slope to Bay Ridge. Continue reading →

An eater’s guide to the NYC marathon course – 2017 edition

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It will also make you hungry.

(NOTE: This post has been updated as of October 2019.)

Not running the marathon this year? Aren’t you the lucky one! While the runners are suffering (and oh, how they will be suffering – sure, they’ll be all smiles in Brooklyn, and some will be grinning and pumping their fists as they cross the finish in Central Park, but somewhere between, believe me, they will suffer), you can be eating. And exploring some great neighborhoods. And cheering, too, of course.

2017 is the third edition of this guide. You can find the 2015 and 2016 versions here and here. Rather than repeating myself, I’m letting these two posts stand on their own merits, with minor updates (closings, in particular, are noted). To get a full sense of your options, as well as general race viewing advice (and some great writing, of course), do check out these older posts.

So what’s new this year? Continue reading →

I find my Cuban spot

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Louie Estrada’s Cuban spot is now mine, too

What does it take to rouse this blog from its slumbers? What it takes, evidently,  is a jolt of sugar and caffeine, followed by a sharp slash of yellow mustard. Sour orange juice, garlic, salt and pork help, too.

Which is to say . . . I had lunch at this counter in Gowanus, and just had to write about it. My initial plan was to include it in my annual NYC marathon course round-up (yes, installment #3 will be arriving soon), but (a) My Cuban Spot is closed on Sundays and (b) it really deserves its own post. (UPDATE: the restaurant is now *open* on Sundays starting at noon. It’s closed Mondays.) Continue reading →

Eating Nostrand Avenue: Taste the Tropics

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imageSunny and 63 degrees in the second week of February! On the last such frighteningly unseasonable day, a few weeks ago, I arranged my tempo run (expect a Boston marathon training post soon) so that my cool down would end right around Nostrand and Avenue D. That’s where Taste the Tropics dominates its corner through sheer exuberance and force of personality. Continue reading →

Eating Nostrand Avenue: Ital Fusion

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Food for the long haul

With each desperate dispatch from Aleppo; with each revelation about Russian interference in November’s election; with each ethical breach by the Grifter-in-Chief and his progeny; with each horrifying cabinet appointment – the temptation to curl up in a ball grows. Some days, it’s overwhelming.

What helps?

Activism, I would say. Coming together as a community. Supporting one another. Fighting back. (And, for Syria, checks to Doctors Without Borders, the International Rescue Committee and the UNRWA.)

I list those things first, because I honestly believe them to be the most important . . . but also, if I’m to be even more honest, because they sound like the sort of thing one should believe to be most important.

Here, at the risk of sounding trivial, are other things that help:

Running.

Looking at birds.

Eating soulful, home-style cooking.

Which brings us to Ital Fusion. Continue reading →

Watching the NYC marathon in Brooklyn – 2016 edition

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“What’s good?” – this post tries to answer that

(NOTE: originally published in 2016, this guide has been reviewed and updated as of September 2018, with closings noted. Stay tuned for the all-new 2018 edition, to be posted sometime in the second half of October.)

Less than three weeks until race day on November 6!

If you’re running, this is high-anxiety time, when every training sin (workouts missed, long runs bailed on) comes back to haunt you; when thoughts of everything that could possibly go wrong run through your mind in a continuous loop (you fall off a stool while reaching for a high shelf and twist your ankle, you miss a connecting flight and are stranded in Atlanta, you contract food poisoning the night before the race); when your interpersonal relationships are strained by this obsession of yours that no one who’s not running quite understands.

But if you’re spectating along the course, as I will be this year, this is a fun time. Instead of visualizing the long climb up the Queensboro Bridge, you can visualize brunch spots; instead of obsessing over those twinges in your left calf, you can obsess over finding the best tacos in Sunset Park; instead of planning your best race, you can plan your best race day.

Last year’s guide was pretty popular, and I’ve gone through and made some quick updates and corrections to keep it useful for 2016. But because it was so much fun to do the research, I’ve been back out there running the marathon’s route through Brooklyn (in nice, manageable segments). In the process, I’ve found a whole bunch of additional places worth checking out.

So, here it is – the all-new 2016 edition of one Brooklyn runner’s totally idiosyncratic guide to where to eat, and what to do, along the NYC marathon course.  Continue reading →