Smorgasburg

Just bought BlogPress, a new app that allows me to blog from my iPhone. This is my first mobile post! Here we are at Smorgasburg, the food vendor flea market in Williamsburg. Here is what we have sampled so far:


One huarache (very tasty)








One chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich sprinkled with sea salt (also very tasty)








One peach basil ice cream float (not so tasty in my opinion, but according to Brandon it starts to grow on you)








And one watermelon shaved ice which was shaved by hand by this fellow

The Queen of Soul

Went to a little concert on Coney Island that, incredibly, was FREE (or you could pay $5 for a chair, which we did).  She's almost 70 years old, but she still knows how to bring it!  

 

Summer Treats

Hot days in New York City demand cool treats.  Here are a few of my favorites so far (in no particular order)

1. Imperial Woodpecker Snoballs-- this shop in the West Village is only open for the summer season.  They serve you a nice pile of shaved ice in a Chinese take-out container and you can choose one or two flavored syrups to have poured over the top.  These were refreshing on a hot day, but I have to say, the syrups were a little overly sweet, and this comes from someone with a serious sweet tooth.

2. Kelvin Natural Slush-- We managed to chase down this mobile slush truck on the hottest day of the summer (see the temperature display on the CNN building, and this is at close to 7 PM mind you).  These were quite delicious.  You choose a slush base of either citrus, iced tea or ginger and then you choose a real fruit puree to mix in.  I got the citrus with pink guava which was pretty good, but a little on the tart side.  Brandon made the better selection, the "Arnold Palmer" (a mix of citrus and tea slush) with white peach.  The tea cut down on the tartness of the citrus a bit and made it very refreshing.  I suspect I will be calling the "Slush phone" again someday soon, to find out where this guy is parked.

3. Cookie ice cream sandwiches from Melt Bakery-- Tamar and I had ice cream sandwiches on the brain from the moment we stepped on to the High Line.  Melt Bakery has a stand set up towards the beginning of the walking route, and on our first pass by the stand we were tempted, but resisted.  By the time we reached the end of the walk, we realized the pull of ice cream sandwiches was just too strong and we had to walk back to the beginning to pick one up.  Well worth it.  They had various flavors, but we both stuck with the classic: chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream.  YUM!

Apple Cake

Lately I've become a fan of a new blog called Smitten Kitchen.  Perhaps I feel some kind of kinship with the woman who writes it as we are both cooking out of tiny NYC kitchens.  And I like the fact that she publishes recipes with down to earth ingredients; none of that fancy, hard to find stuff that you'll only use for that one recipe and then allow to sit on your shelf for eternity.  So after a few weeks of poking around on the blog, I decided to try one of her recipes--apple cake.  I didn't have a tube pan, which the original recipe used, so I used a bundt pan instead and dressed it up with a little cinnamon-brown sugar glaze and streusel topping.  Came out pretty tasty!