06.12.06
Posted in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Famous Fat Dave's Five Borough Eating Tours, Flushing, Gravesend, Japanese, Jewish, Korean, La Pizza, Manhattan, Middle Eastern, Pickles, Sandwiches, Sheepshead Bay, Upper West Side at 6:19 am by Administrator
David Wain and Ken Marino of The State went on a Famous Fat Dave’s Midnight Munchies Tour last week for a www.gawker.com story. I cannot express to you how overjoyed I was that I had, in my cab, the man who said, “I got soooooome babaGANOSH!!!” and the man who responded, “I wanna dip my BALLLLLLLLLLS IN IT.” Coolest thing ever.
The direct link is: http://www.gawker.com/news/gawker-walker/gawker-walker-midnight-munchies-with-famous-fat-dave-179379.php
(Famous Fat Dave never looked so fat or so famous)
(David Wain rarely smiles, but I assure he loved the bulgogi)
(Ken Marino, next to the cab parked on Avenue T, expressed his feelings on the adventure)
Visit www.famousfatdave.com to take virtual eating tours without comic geniuses
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05.08.06
Posted in Brooklyn, Fruits and Veggies, Pickles at 4:49 am by Administrator
Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong decade. I would have loved to have been around during the 20s and 30s. It seems like that lifestyle would have been right up my alley. I’ve spent my last few years trying to capture a little of that old timey feeling, working the streets as a yellow cabbie and the sidewalk as a pickle man. My jobs are very unusual for a twenty-something Jew these days, but they would have been quite common for my demographic during that straw hat era.
I’ve heard that you used to be able to walk down the street in New York and not miss one pitch of the Yankee game, because every window was open (I admit I would not have been happy without air conditioning) and everyone was listening on the radio. I like using old fashioned sayings like “What the blazes” and “Get on the trolley.” I would have loved to hang out at any speakeasy, but I’ve never even considered going to The Crowbar or PM or Lotus. And people used to eat pickles because they were delicious and plentiful, not because they were nostalgic or kitschy.
This weekend, I witnessed something I can describe only as heartening. A brand new Brooklyn pickle company, Wheelhouse Pickles, was born. They threw a launch party at Freddy’s Back Room, an old speakeasy that is slated to be torn down to make way for Ratner’s Nets Stadium. One of my fares gave me flyer with a picture of smiling, buck-toothed pickle strapped to a rocket being launching skyward. The rumour was that they were going to actually launch an actual pickle via fireworks. Lured by promises of free beer, free gin, free music, and free pickles, I couldn’t resist. “COME FOR THE PICKLES, STAY FOR THE PICKLES,” the flyer boasted. Right up my alley.
When I arrived at Freddy’s I was astonished to find a full fledged party in progress. The back room was jam-packed, the bar up front was overloaded, and people were spilling out into the streets. Everyone was smiling, alcohol was flowing, and dancing was breaking out. A live jug band, The Flanks, was playing some great old-timey music with a stand-up bass, a fiddle, a guitar, a banjo, a harmonica, and, I think I heard at one point, a kazoo.
The star of the party, however, was the free pickles. Trays of sliced pickles made the rounds through the sweaty room, and the revelers enthusiastically stabbed at the samples with tooth picks. I heard one overwhelmed man holding an empty tray high above his head as he tried to make his way back to the kitchen say to no one in particular, “The kids love the pickled beets.”
(The mob scene at a pickle tray)
But that was not all they loved. The pickled okra was a particular success, along with the pickled pears, pickled wax beans, and bread and butter pickled cucumbers. Every kind of pickle I tried had a nice blend of sweetness and crunch along with a spicy kick on the aftertaste. The sour pickles didn’t compare with the traditional lower east side variety, but they were still tasty.
One of the people passing around the pickle hors d’oeuvres shouted me a brief story about the company being born out of the necessity to preserve the pears near the owner’s grandmother’s country house upstate lest they rot on the topsoil. And I must say, the pickles tasted very country. Bread and butter pickles are not New York pickles. When I worked at Guss Pickles on the lower east side and people asked me for sweet pickles, I’d tell them to go to Georgia.
Well, now I guess they can just order from Wheelhouse Pickles (not for another week). As for me, I spent a good deal of time at the merch table of my dreams:
And I ended up taking home a jar of pickled cucumbers in champagne vinegar which I’ve already polished off:
(as a former pickle man who takes pride in his craft, it is nice to see that Wheelhouse packs their jars full and tight)
I was smiling from ear to ear the entire time I was at the launch party. It truly made my heart swell to see so many people thoroughly enjoying pickles without a hint of irony in their eyes. Everyone was there and everyone was happy because everyone likes pickles. It was a great time, and it made me feel a little more at home in this century.
(You can’t get more up my alley than a Taxi Driver/ Pickle reference)
Wheelhouse Pickles, Only online at http://www.wheelhousepickles.com
Freddy’s Back Room, Dean Street and 6th Avenue, Downtown Brooklyn
Guss Pickles, Orchard St btwn Broome and Grand, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Read an article I wrote about pickles on Ludlow Street a century ago in L Magazine in the “Published Food Writing” section of the Famous Fat Dave’s Five Borough Eating Tour website
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04.24.06
Posted in Fruits and Veggies, Korean, Manhattan, Pickles, West Village at 12:43 am by Administrator
Osama is a flaming homosexual vegan dancer from the Panshir Valley. I found him just after sunset at the corner of Roebling and Metropolitan. He was staggering drunk, wearing a black and white checkered headdress around his neck, and frantically hailing me. He told me he was heading back to The Village to meet “one of my lovers,” and boy did he have a chip on his shoulder.
The traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge afforded me time to learn many (but I’m sure not all) of the trials and tribulations one goes through when his is born a flamer in Afganistan in the early 60s and lives with the name Osama in New York in the 00s. His mother wore mini-skirts when she visited Kabul with him during his youth. He was adamant that he was not a terrorist, though I had not accused him of being one. He said, “I’ve always been gay. I grew up playing with barbies not bombs.”
Thankfully for Osama, he did not have to liv through the Taliban era. I can’t imagine he would have made it very far. In fact, he did not even have to endure the Soviet occupation. He, his sickly sister, and his mother managed to make it to New York just in time for Osama to enjoy the burgeoning disco scene. He told me he remembered learning of the Soviet invasion as he walked out of a gay porno theather on 42nd Street on Christmas day in 1979. In his words, it was a “buzz kill.”
Osama told me the US reconstruction effort in Afganistan is a joke. He recently returned from a trip to Kabul, and, according to my increasingly agitated fare, the only visible sign of progress is a newly paved road between the capital and Kandahar. And even that is only used by heavily armed UN and NATO troops because the bandits are prevalent.
What’s worse, he meets people all the time here in America who tell him they hate his name, or hate him for his name. Osama claimed that is the equivalent of an Afgan hating all Westerners named John. I will admit to you that, when I trekked through Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains soon after September 11th, I named the mule that carried all of my heavy, stinking bags “Osama” out of spite. I didn’t mention this to Osama last night, because I didn’t think he’d see the humor in it.
He had worked himself into a tizzy, and he felt it important to tell me, “Let me tell you, I cried harder than you did when the World Trade Center collapsed, because you were born here but I had to work to become an American.” Before Osama got out of my cab in a huff, I asked him where his favorite cheap place to eat in The Village is.
Without hesitation he told me he’d been going to Temple in the Village for more than 20 years. The Temple serves the healthiest buffet in the city, if not the world.
The lengthy buffet table consists entirely of vegetarian, vegan, and macrobiotic (foods that occur naturally in the local ecosystem according to Osama) selections. Osama declared that he had lived on a macrobiotic diet since his youth back in the Panshir Valley.
My belly was pleading with me for some veggies after my giant, late-night slice of pizza the night before. I was more than satisfied with this meal. I grabbed myself three quarters of a pound of seaweed, pickle spears, collard greens, bean sprouts, bok choy, sesame broccoli, olives, zucchini tempura, broccoli rabe (a personal favorite) and spicy cabage kim chi. At 6 bucks per pound, my whole meal was only 5 dollars including tax. I asked the shy owner why the kim chi was so good, and he told me it was because he is Korean and he makes it himself in the back.
It was one of those places I couldn’t believe I’d never been to after all the time I’d spent in that neighborhood over the years. I’ll be eating at the Temple in the Village again I’m sure. I won’t, however, be making fun of anyone’s name again anytime soon.
Temple in the Village, West 3rd Street between LaGuardia and Thompson, The Village, Manhattan
Visit www.famousfatdave.com for a laugh or an eating tour
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