New awning sighted cross the street from Antoinette's. Anyone know what this is?
Tell me it's not a direct competitor for Posh Paws, just a couple of blocks down from there....
Also, there's a sign on SoHa 118 indicating that a Chase branch will be opening soon.
An unsolicited suggestion to retailers: We really appreciate your efforts. But there's a MaMu on 116th and Fred, and clusters of banks at 116th/Lenox and 125th/Fred. Our pets already have nice things to wear and a vet. The human residents are looking for a green grocer, a bagel shop, an excellent pizzeria, Thai food, Japanese food, sit-down Chinese food, Indian food, a wonderful educational toy shop (Grandma's is great but not close enough to my house), stores that sell baby supplies (strollers, child-safety-hardware, furniture, etc.), indoor play areas without flashing lights and tons of artificial noise, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Okay: Rant over.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Harlem Thanksgiving - digest (heh)
Due to a miscommunication, there were no blackeyed peas. However, there was cornbread, a Harlem-inspired addition which I failed to mention in my earlier post. While no one was blown away by the cornbread, it was pretty tasty and moist, which apparently is an achievement for parve cornbread, since cornbread is usually heavily dairy. (The recipe, which I found on a kosher blog, is a vegan recipe, purportedly from Angelica Kitchen, a restaurant I'm not crazy about but everyone vegan seems to love.) The collard greens, to which Uptown Dad added liquid smoke to make up for the lack of ham hocks, got lots of praise. And the sweet potato pie was certainly the sleeper hit of the night (people seemed more excited about that than about my husband's famous chocolate pecan pie, although we chocoholics continued to prefer the latter).
And the turkey -- oh my goodness, suffice it to say there were NO leftovers, none, zip, from a 17-pound bird. Yikes!
And the turkey -- oh my goodness, suffice it to say there were NO leftovers, none, zip, from a 17-pound bird. Yikes!
Harlem Thanksgiving 2
I never posted what we decided to do about Thanksgiving because it remained, and to an extent remains, up in the air. Suffice it to say, the "Thanksgiving" feast I was planning will take place this afternoon (yes, the Sunday after Thanksgiving). In honor of our beloved Harlem, it will include collard greens, black-eyed peas, and sweet potato pie, as well as wine from The Winery. In honor of our commitment to ethical kashrut, it will include kosher organic free-range turkey from Wise Organic Pastures. (Kudos to Simon Weil for starting Kosher Conscience! -- but we were not aware of its existence when we made our purchase.) Uptown Dad is doing ALL the cooking, and as the babies are asleep, now is my chance to go tidy up. I'll post later with how it turned out!
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Restaurant Review: Los Dos Molinos
A long, long time ago, when Uptown Mom was neither uptown nor yet a mom, she lived in New Mexico for several years.
The Land of Enchantment is, well, enchanting. It gets under your skin. Especially the food, which is a central part of life in New Mexico. New Mexico's "State Question," "Red or green?", refers to the type of chile you will be having on your food. (And yes, I do mean "chile". New Mexicans have made that very clear by directing their senator to enter the correct spelling into the Congressional Record.) (I just remembered that there is a third correct answer to the question "red or green" -- "Christmas" -- but I am never quite that indecisive about my New Mexican food.)
So we arrived in NYC (my hometown) in 2000 looking for New Mexican food. We tried so, so hard, for years and years, and couldn't find it. The closest we came was the enchiladas chile colorado at Alma and the green chili (sic) Sunday brunch at Superfine, both of which were actually pretty good but sadly incomplete as they did not come in the context of the whole cuisine. We don't eat pork, of course, but vegetarians do fine in New Mexican restaurants, and what we really wanted was somewhere where we could order our usual: cheese enchilada with red and chile relleno with green, and have sopapillas with honey and unsweetened iced tea. It didn't seem like such a tall order in a city with such an enormous diversity of cuisines, but we just couldn't find it. So my husband learned to make his own green chile, on the rare occasions that we could get Hatch green chile peppers from New Mexico (usually from friends who still had family there). Red is easier -- the dried red peppers can be found in NYC if you look hard enough -- but the green chiles, which must be transported cold, can only be obtained from friends who are flying back from New Mexico or by ordering them by fed ex overnight with dry ice at great expense. So sad we were! But we became resigned, and I think that for the past few years we haven't even tried to find it. We were defeated.
Then, we heard from some fellow UNM alums (my husband got a graduate degree while we were there) about Los Dos Molinos. And I am now so full and happy that I really don't care that this review has nothing to do with Harlem or kids. We had our enchilada "with red". We had our chile relleno "with green". We even had the sopapilla, which the New Mexicans had cautioned us were more akin to (Navajo) frybread, but which we found close enough to the real thing once we got them to serve the honey on the side. And we had iced tea, and a margarita. Oh, it was a revelation. The real thing.
Funny thing, everyone (including the New Mexicans we met) seems to go on about how extremely spicy the food is, and how the east coast natives can't take it. Our verdict was: it's exactly as we remember the food in New Mexico. Spicy but not out of control. As a New York native who was raised from infancy on Szechuan food (and learned to adore Indian and Thai as a teenager, although my parents never introduced me to it), I never found the spice level in New Mexico particularly difficult to handle -- this was pretty much the same. So yeah, it's spicy, but not out of control -- just good, honest, enchanting New Mexican food.
Too bad they have chile spelled wrong on their menu (at least the online version, we hardly looked at it in the restaurant because we knew what we wanted!).
Uptown Mom is going to lie down now and enjoy her food coma. Have a good night.
P.S. The babies enjoyed the sopapilla, tortilla chips, side of flour tortilla with side of sour cream, beans and rice, and milk in a glass. There was only one highchair. The big brother had other plans for the evening, but he'll have to learn to like it soon.
P.P.S. Warning: Closed Sundays.
P.P.P.S. If you can get your hands on some real New Mexican Hatch green chiles, they are an AMAZING addition to latkes.
The Land of Enchantment is, well, enchanting. It gets under your skin. Especially the food, which is a central part of life in New Mexico. New Mexico's "State Question," "Red or green?", refers to the type of chile you will be having on your food. (And yes, I do mean "chile". New Mexicans have made that very clear by directing their senator to enter the correct spelling into the Congressional Record.) (I just remembered that there is a third correct answer to the question "red or green" -- "Christmas" -- but I am never quite that indecisive about my New Mexican food.)
So we arrived in NYC (my hometown) in 2000 looking for New Mexican food. We tried so, so hard, for years and years, and couldn't find it. The closest we came was the enchiladas chile colorado at Alma and the green chili (sic) Sunday brunch at Superfine, both of which were actually pretty good but sadly incomplete as they did not come in the context of the whole cuisine. We don't eat pork, of course, but vegetarians do fine in New Mexican restaurants, and what we really wanted was somewhere where we could order our usual: cheese enchilada with red and chile relleno with green, and have sopapillas with honey and unsweetened iced tea. It didn't seem like such a tall order in a city with such an enormous diversity of cuisines, but we just couldn't find it. So my husband learned to make his own green chile, on the rare occasions that we could get Hatch green chile peppers from New Mexico (usually from friends who still had family there). Red is easier -- the dried red peppers can be found in NYC if you look hard enough -- but the green chiles, which must be transported cold, can only be obtained from friends who are flying back from New Mexico or by ordering them by fed ex overnight with dry ice at great expense. So sad we were! But we became resigned, and I think that for the past few years we haven't even tried to find it. We were defeated.
Then, we heard from some fellow UNM alums (my husband got a graduate degree while we were there) about Los Dos Molinos. And I am now so full and happy that I really don't care that this review has nothing to do with Harlem or kids. We had our enchilada "with red". We had our chile relleno "with green". We even had the sopapilla, which the New Mexicans had cautioned us were more akin to (Navajo) frybread, but which we found close enough to the real thing once we got them to serve the honey on the side. And we had iced tea, and a margarita. Oh, it was a revelation. The real thing.
Funny thing, everyone (including the New Mexicans we met) seems to go on about how extremely spicy the food is, and how the east coast natives can't take it. Our verdict was: it's exactly as we remember the food in New Mexico. Spicy but not out of control. As a New York native who was raised from infancy on Szechuan food (and learned to adore Indian and Thai as a teenager, although my parents never introduced me to it), I never found the spice level in New Mexico particularly difficult to handle -- this was pretty much the same. So yeah, it's spicy, but not out of control -- just good, honest, enchanting New Mexican food.
Too bad they have chile spelled wrong on their menu (at least the online version, we hardly looked at it in the restaurant because we knew what we wanted!).
Uptown Mom is going to lie down now and enjoy her food coma. Have a good night.
P.S. The babies enjoyed the sopapilla, tortilla chips, side of flour tortilla with side of sour cream, beans and rice, and milk in a glass. There was only one highchair. The big brother had other plans for the evening, but he'll have to learn to like it soon.
P.P.S. Warning: Closed Sundays.
P.P.P.S. If you can get your hands on some real New Mexican Hatch green chiles, they are an AMAZING addition to latkes.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Harlem Thanksgiving
For the first time since moving to Harlem, it's my turn to host Thanksgiving dinner for my extended family. I'm considering (maybe) a Harlem-cuisine theme: items that leap to mind are sweet potato pie, collard greens, and cornbread.
But because of our various eating restrictions (a complicated amalgam of kashrut and concern for animal welfare, but the bottom line is we eat vegetarian in restaurants), we don't eat at many of the Harlem institutions that exemplify classic Harlem eating. So my grasp of what is traditional is poor. Anyone have suggestions for great food that a Harlem Thanksgiving shouldn't be without? (ixNay on the amHay. But to the extent that great recipes for veggies call for, say, ham hocks, I can do a certain amount of adapting myself.)
(I'm not certain we're going to go the classic Harlem cooking route; I'm also considering an entirely different cuisine -- New Mexican, which we dearly miss from the years we spent living in New Mexican. We also have zero recipes for that but can probably track them down. Still deciding.)
But because of our various eating restrictions (a complicated amalgam of kashrut and concern for animal welfare, but the bottom line is we eat vegetarian in restaurants), we don't eat at many of the Harlem institutions that exemplify classic Harlem eating. So my grasp of what is traditional is poor. Anyone have suggestions for great food that a Harlem Thanksgiving shouldn't be without? (ixNay on the amHay. But to the extent that great recipes for veggies call for, say, ham hocks, I can do a certain amount of adapting myself.)
(I'm not certain we're going to go the classic Harlem cooking route; I'm also considering an entirely different cuisine -- New Mexican, which we dearly miss from the years we spent living in New Mexican. We also have zero recipes for that but can probably track them down. Still deciding.)
Techiyah finally has a website!
Check out our awesome new website!
Our next two events are a Friday night minyan/potluck and Saturday night party during Chanukah. See the website for details.
Our next two events are a Friday night minyan/potluck and Saturday night party during Chanukah. See the website for details.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Shabbat services and pot-luck next week
Next Friday, November 9, Techiyah of Harlem will be having traditional egalitarian Jewish services and a dairy pot-luck dinner in an apartment on 117th Street in Harlem. For several years now, we've been meeting approximately monthly. Not specifically a children's event, but a few kids are regulars -- motzi is usually said by a child -- and the more kids, the merrier. No website yet, but if you'd like to be added to the evite list, please let me know!
Some Harlem happenings this weekend
- Harlem/Habana Festival (Friday/Saturday)
- Fall Festival in St. Nicholas Park (Saturday)
- "Coffee Park" at St. Nicholas Dog Park (Saturday)
- Uptown Veterinary Associates Grand Opening (Sunday)
- Don't forget to watch out for the NYC Marathon when making your Sunday travel plans! (And best of luck if you are actually running in it -- maybe we'll come watch you, but in the past my son has not yet been really interested!)
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