You Want to Taste and Help Yourself

Amidst the tomfoolery of the local establishments trying to sell us on silly food themes or gimmicks instead of straight awesome eats, something exciting is taking place on the streets.  Brave cooks are popping up with their makeshift gear and setting up sans food trucks, just hot plates and tables, selling their smoked BBQ or tamales, jerk and assorted other offerings.  If you're not a social media partaker, you have to be lucky to catch them but when you do, it's a kismet!  Like these delicious fall off the bone ribs....

....and this smoked chicken with greens and the meatiest dirty rice we've ever tasted! It becomes more special because when it's a chance encounter, the treat is that much better.

Earlier, the morning provided treats from Alamo Draft house City Point here in Brooklyn in the form of the tenderest chicken tenders and dreamiest queso with chips.  The Accountant 2 matinee and the surprise wonderfulness of Jon Bernthal. 

Come Pick Me Up, Come Take Me Out

Supporting local businesses!  Yeah, that's the ticket to indulging in take-out lunch specials on days when you could cook but you just can't bring yourself to do it.  You want to eat healthy, but you also want some indulgence.  You planned to plan ahead but you waited too long and now your stomach is making the choices.  If you cohabitate, this is a very familiar place to be.  One hopes the other will 'figure out the meal', so you wait it out and both come up with zeroes.  Grouchy and famished, decision-making can then turn dark.

This is the perfect time to surrender, admit you have no power and order out.  Of course you can still make semi-appropriate choices, like these vegetable heavy bowls (mine had glass noodles underneath, which are heavenly in their light sauce) from Yori Bowl.  Sure, I was weaker and chose the Korean fried chicken chunks in a delicious sauce while P went for the Spicy Pork.  I try not to have food regret, which is a delicate balance, because I also try not to get heavy in weight, as my short frame can't handle much extra stomach bulge or else I begin to feel constricted and lethargic.  

If your biggest problem is that you can't figure out what to eat for lunch, you must remind yourself that life is still pretty effing great.  

Are You Man Enough When the Goings Rough

Freddy's Mexican Food Truck

Freddy's food truck breakfast tacos

An early morning walk that ended in incredible breakfast tacos from Freddy's truck was the inspiration for my first attempt at making corn tortillas.  This is a good example of ignorance and fear keeping one in darkness for years.  I always thought the process was laborious and drawn out, hours of dough resting, flour all over my apron. I figured sweat would be involved.  It takes 20 minutes and it's so easy!  But, and it's a substantial but, there are nuances and skills that will develop to get them to be incredible. 

 I am a huge advocate of non-fussy cooking.  I feel I'm winning when I can make a meal from random ingredients that I need to use up.  I had bought this Masa Harina and every time I opened my cabinet it was like, here I am girl!  Whatchu gon' do with me?  I think success is getting something that tastes great locked down on all the regular days of your life. 

They say your comal or griddle should be medium high, but of course that really depends on your burner BTUs, so getting that heat correct was a bit of a challenge.  But the moment your first tortilla balloons up for you is a proud one!

Got a Good Reason (For Taking The Easy Way Out)

Freddy's Taco Truck True Confessions

Don't get me wrong, I love to cook. It's one of the joys of being in the world.  I love my tiny kitchen.  I love my knives and bowls, my setup, all of it.  But in the winter and working full time odd hours into the night and then waking up to open early has taken its toll on my ability to want to get vertical when it's time to nosh.  I get tired.  It's no mystery.  It's tiring.  But that's the beauty of living in New York where there is a bounty of options.  Still, when given choice, mine has been Freddy's Truck lately, all the time.  Who doesn't love the new girl?  It's all the color and variety I love, without exuding the energy. 

Lovin' You is Easy Cause You're Beautiful

Chocolate Chip Brownies - I had time to make these because I didn't slave over dinner.

Because....Freddy's Truck to the rescue again!  A beefy burrito

A fajita plate (chicken underneath the mound of fresh guac and lettuce, pico)

Carne Asada nachos - all from Freddy's Truck, our new obsession and neighbor. High respect for his talent with flavors and his prices are so insane.   Even if he raises the price, it will all still be well worth it. I couldn't make this heap of goodness
and there are enough leftovers to take for lunch the next day.

For breakfast, I did make poached eggs on avocado toast with chili crisp

It's finally looking like full fall towards the end of November.

I've already started working on my Christmas card but will be lucky if I get it sent out in time for the holiday as I am a chronic procrastinator.

They Call Me the Working Man

Just when I thought the neighborhood was drying up, a new food truck emerged.  An authentic Mexican truck at that!  With carne asada platters for $11!  Freddy's.  One guy, a wife in the background at home buying, cutting and preparing all the meats and vegetables.  In this time when the local restaurants are trying to be so fancy, it is a blessing to get a taste of old New York. 

Food trucks are so much work, and it's hard to imagine anyone is able to pull this off each day.  Serving breakfast lunch and dinner, standing up in this tiny vehicle.  After thoroughly cleaning the truck at night, Freddy tells us he has to get his buddy to drive over and lift it up off the street.  Together they haul it to a garage too far away and then, he goes home and starts the whole process over again.  I don't know about these busloads coming in at once, but if anyone has any doubt that the Mexican immigrants that make their way to New York work their asses off, peak in at any business and see who is doing all the shit jobs, and that is who you will see, working harder than you and me. 

And on top of all of that, his food is absolutely delicious!!!  How lucky we are to be able to sit in the park and eat it on a bright, sunny day.  The neighborhood just stepped up it's game. 

Fort Greene Park looking luscious

The ugly menacing new skyscraper towering over Brooklyn

Give Me One Reason to Stay Here

Hot Sauce Chicken 

I've come to embrace the ease of this one pan chicken idea.  Vegetables, grains, chicken and then any type of seasoning spin works every time.  As long as you brown the chicken first, then add all else, bring to a boil and stick in the oven with tight fitting lid for an hour or so from 375 to 425.  

This time I used bell peppers and onions, tons of garlic, Mexican oregano, wild rice and a heaping cup of my homemade hot sauce, with enough chicken stock to cover.  

Tangy, zesty and spicy.  It's comfort with a kick. You can leave it until the chicken is falling off the bone, as I like it or with a little give.  You can put the chicken skin up and on top of all other ingredients if you like or bury it deep in all the juices.  Its versatile.  

Chilaquiles in Red Hottest Sauce for me

Castro's Breakfast Chorizo Tacos

That morning we headed to Castro's Mexican Restaurant for breakfast and I sweated out my angst with the hottest sauce on my chilaquiles.  The breakfast tacos, although very tasty, needed some accutroments on that stark white plate.  I'm thinking a little pico de gallo drizzled across the three would have cost nothing and improved the look triplefold.

Even though the service is questionable, I like this place because it's old timey and that's hard to find anymore in the neighborhood.  All the post COVID shut down restaurants are being taken over by high end establishments.  Two precious pizza restaurants serving martinis featured a standing host , an oyster bar, a pasta factory (no objection to this gem).  Two women opened an exclusive looking foofy eatery replacing the longtime Academy Diner and it serves scallops and beets with pistachio and horseradish.  I get that food is more expensive and restaurateurs need to fish for the people with big bucks, but this is a neighborhood that could also use affordable take out options.  

And It's Getting More and More Absurd

Jerk Chicken Lunch from Island Shack

This chicken is the reason we take out food from local eateries.  Just look at the glossy finish of the sauce draping across the charred chicken.  I could cry, knowing how amazing the slightly sweet rice will taste with the steamed crisp vegetables against the deep heat of that Jerk sauce.  I look on this with utter respect for the cook.  How unworthy are we mere mortals for this type of food, when you think about it.  I mean, we were hunter gatherers minutes ago and now, just a notch on the evolutionary scale, we're living in a time when we can eat exceptionally prepared food, that may not be around for too much longer.  Food that only Kings and Queens were privy to in their palaces years ago, I'm eating in elastic pants, in my Brooklyn apartment.  Life can be so absurd.