Category Archives: Food

Late summer birding update: bird and food pairings

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rb-nuthatch

Pairs well with cafe bombon. (Photo credit: Gus Keri)

I’m all too aware that many of the folks who enjoy my posts on running or food (or both – there’s a substantial overlap between the two) are less than enamored with my birding updates. Try as I might to spread the love I feel for skulking sparrows and soaring seabirds, it’s proving to be a hard sell.

But, you know, I started this 200 Bird Challenge, and I’m going to finish it. With the better part of four months yet to go, and fall migration just beginning, you can count on more birding posts to come.

Sorry about that.

But birders, like runners, need to eat. And so I’m adopting a new approach in this update; if it’s popular, I may extend it to future updates as well. Besides tallying up birds and doing my best to describe them – their beauty, their peculiarities, the threats they face, why non-birders should care about them – I’ll try to couple each sighting with a food review from the same outing. Continue reading →

Eating Avenue U: Quick bites (and bobolinks)

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IMG_4286One downside of less time spent birding is less time spent exploring neighborhoods adjacent to birdy areas. Add to that the construction-related closure of the Avenue U station on the Coney Island-bound F train, and my effort to eat my way up and down Avenue U, from Gravesend to Marine Park, has slowed considerably.

Reports of bobolinks at the Salt Marsh Nature Center sent me back to the neighborhood recently. And because birding requires sustenance, I worked in a few quick food stops.  Continue reading →

A Queens interlude

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IMG_4235Although I’ve categorized this post under “Seen on the run,” that’s not entirely accurate. My number one training goal for this month is to avoid heat stroke, and so my trek to Astoria last week to see the Welling Court murals was accomplished via N train and a slow, shuffling walk down 30th avenue. (Truth be told,”slow” and “shuffling” are also pretty good descriptions of my running these days.)

The plan – to the extent I had one – was to see the murals; try the falafel and shawarma at King of Falafel and Shawarma (henceforth, “KOFAS” or simply “the King”); and use my NYC ID to sign up for membership at the Museum of the Moving Image. If I stumbled across some other interesting stuff along the way, so much the better. Continue reading →

Eating Avenue U – Pho Vietnam

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imageI haven’t been eating my way up and down Avenue U as quickly as I originally intended, but fear not: Eric is on board, and we have a plan. Last Friday, we kicked off our Memorial Day weekend with a ride on the F train and an exploratory, menu-reading stroll that led us to one of two Vietnamese restaurants on the avenue.

I have a soft spot for hole-in-the-wall type places, and since I’m not a restaurant reviewer, I have the luxury of keeping these food posts positive. In that spirit, here are things I liked about Pho Vietnam: Continue reading →

Passover follies

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This was where I lost it

With our usual knack for careful planning, Eric and I decided the Tuesday before the holiday that it would be nice to host a Passover Seder. Friday night was out, since we had theater tickets for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Henry V at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (more evidence of our knack for careful planning, and also of the fact that the Shakespeare fan in our household is the non-Jewish member of our household, and, well, I forgot). But Saturday was wide open, and even though many of our friends had already made other plans by then, we were able to lasso one guest.

So it was off to the races.

Almost immediately, we ran into brisket problems. Continue reading →

Eating Avenue U: Joe’s

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Joe’s is well-served by public transportation – a stone’s throw from the F train (this picture was taken from the stairs) and the B3 bus.

My quest to see 200 species of birds in New York City in 2016 has taken me into some corners of Brooklyn I’d inexplicably neglected over my three years here. Gravesend, Sheepshead Bay, Marine Park, Canarsie . . . these are my new stomping grounds.

And eating grounds, too. Continue reading →

A Mexican epiphany

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All along 5th Avenue in Sunset Park this week, bakeries and grocery stores are advertising “Rosca de Reyes.” Peek through a steamy bakery window, and you’ll see giant pastry wreaths bedecked with unnaturally bright candied fruits and sparkly, multi-colored sugar stripes.

It’s part of the celebration of Epiphany, or Three Kings Day. Tomorrow night, families and friends will eat rosca, drink hot chocolate, and try not to ingest or break a tooth on the tiny baby Jesus figure baked inside each ring. Continue reading →

Lutheran Halal

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This is my Brooklyn.

Go ahead and try to wrap your mind around the concept of Lutheran halal. (Spoiler: it’s not really cuisine prepared according to the dictates of both Lutheran and Muslim dietary laws, but the name of a coffee shop by Lutheran Medical Center.)  It’s as Brooklyn as . . . well, as a large extended family, all dressed up, the women wearing hijabs, smiling for a group photograph in front of Junior’s before their traditional ‘Eid al-Adha feast of pastrami and cheesecake. Continue reading →

One Brooklyn runner’s totally idiosyncratic spectator’s guide to the TCS New York City Marathon

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Welcome to Brooklyn, baby.

Welcome to Brooklyn, baby.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Originally published in October 2015, this post has been updated to reflect business closings (a sad fact of life for restaurants everywhere, perhaps especially in gentrifying sections of Brooklyn) as of September 2018. 

This is for you, marathon spectators! Thanks for listening to our whining, humoring our obsession, pretending to understand our talk of intervals and tempo runs and split times and generally putting up with us throughout our months of training. As if all that isn’t enough, you’ve further agreed to stand outside for hours in whatever weather November 1 brings. Some of you have traveled long distances and invested significant sums of money to be here on marathon day.

You deserve the race of your life.

I’ve been a spectator along the marathon course about as many times as I’ve actually run the race, so I know a little bit about spectating. The main thing you need to know is that it’s great; prepare yourself for a wild, raucous, exciting time. It can also be a little tiring. It may be cold. Cheering for random strangers will leave you thirsty and hoarse. At some point, you will get hungry.

Since I’m a runner who gets cold and thirsty and hungry a lot, and who uses many of her runs to explore Brooklyn neighborhoods (including, of late, obsessively running portions of the marathon course), I can help. And I want to help, because your cheers are what make the New York City Marathon, in my biased opinion, the greatest race in the world. Continue reading →

Wind, rain and morocho

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I would look even colder and more miserable without the morocho.

I would look even colder and more miserable without the morocho.

With the abrupt change from heatstroke weather to nor’easters and possible hurricanes, my post-run treats recovery foods are changing, too. This was the summer of watermelon – pre-cut chunks from the grocery down the street, gone by the time I reached the apartment; pureed in agua fresca, the colder the better; sliced into half moons and sprinkled with spicy, salty Tajín seasoning; transformed into a salad with basil and feta.

My love of watermelon, though deep and strong, is not deep or strong enough to withstand 50 degrees with 20 mph wind gusts. There comes a day when, however regretfully, you must move on . . . preferably to hot, sweet, viscous, milky drinks that warm you both inside (when you drink them as intended) and out (when you spill them down your front because your hands are numb and shaking).

Once again, Sunset Park comes through. Continue reading →