food

Tenant Status

So this is the end.

I thought a few weeks ago I would be saying that about my Brooklyn stay itself, but the tides have changed and creative choices have won out over “selling out” to ‘Big Tech’ – I had no idea that there even was such a thing. What a world!

I’m excited to move forward with this blog and see what the terrible humidity of this concrete jungle will bring. I want to try to write one to two new posts each week on anecdotal topics, unless the summer is kind to me in which then I want to continue to do some research.

The Brooklyn Museum still has so many exhibits in which I have questions.

I still haven’t been to Smorgasburg and it went outdoors weeks ago! I can’t wait to have some uniquely flavored ice pops followed by Korean BBQ on a stick. Its clearly the perfect Sunday brunch.

The Brooklyn Historical Society taught me a lot about the variety of things that went on in Brooklyn from the Revolutionary War (still need to get over to Prospect Park to learn more about the Battle of Brooklyn) and Plantation Era Brooklyn to the Warehouse Era and then so much of the change of the 20^th century. There is a lot of info there! Inventing Brooklyn is up and coming and I’m excited to learn and talk about it.

I don’t feel like such a yupster anymore. A year in with some dutiful research and specific practices trying to learn about this borough makes it seem like I fit in a little more.

I’ll be tweeting through @bklyntenant still, and actually already have an Instagram account for it which I will start using next weekend. Feel free to follow me – @bklyntenant to see pictures and interesting finds throughout my stay here in this borough.

This may be my permanent home. Or I may be transient. I’ll be writing about it until I call somewhere else my home.

Sam’s

This weekend I did not waste the 50-degree and sunny weather.

I walked a bit, I thought a bit, I researched a bit, snapped a bit and ate a bit. I could feel myself reacquainting with that old #cobbled feeling and all I could think was “Thank god I didn’t forget how to type properly formed sentences because of perpetual darkness”.

I am realizing as I look more into Cobble Hill, I am finding one dominating fact – “Historically an Italian neighborhood.” Having a community with a common cultural identifier is not unique to any one city, but some have stronger roots than others.

Why is Cobble Hill historically an Italian community?

There are certainly other neighborhoods that blare their Italian roots in all five boroughs; from Little Italy (obviously) to Staten Island, their origins as cultural enclaves are pretty clear.

I want to find out about Cobble Hill.

Long story short, I didn’t get any immediate answers this weekend. But I did start somewhere fun.

Sam’s.

I wrote about picking a pizza place so I decided to use my list and pick a pizza place. Except I didn’t actually get pizza, and I got distracted by a very talkative bartender.

Sam’s is old school. The waiter knew all the little kids sitting at the booths, chatted amicably with the parents about a variety of things from church to soccer (or football; even though I’m pretty sure the parents had no idea he was talking about European football). The bread was put on the table with a warning not to eat it – you better make sure you have room for the pasta. A phrase and warning I had only ever heard from my friend’s Sicilian grandmother. I loved every minute of it.

I went for comfort. I went for meatballs. No regrets.

Sam has been around since the 30s and it shows; years of history could be felt on its walls. It’s one of the last comfortably warm and low key Italian places on a street that is slowly filling with trendy upscale restaurants; but it was a start for me to see why Cobble Hill is a historically Italian because it’s historically Italian.

So starting the search, figured some historically Italian food could only inspire me.

Pizza? Pizza. 5 Steps!

How to pick your perfect pizza place in South Brooklyn in 5 easy steps:

A. Know your neighborhood. What are your options? Make a check a list of each place and its various attributes:

How old is the pizzeria?

-Is it brand new with a gourmet style pizza chef de cuisine?
-Has it been family owned and has a secret sauce you would need to marry into to find out the ingredients? (Think Sam’s, in Cobble Hill)
-Or are willing to try the neither “highly” reputable nor old place but has a several different options.
-Or is Dominos an acceptable choice? – No judgment, but you are at the end of my checklist.

Does it deliver?

-Is it cold out? Will they come to you?
-Can you get a seat in the restaurant if you are trapped in a polar vortex?
-How long are you ready to wait for a table or conversely wait for it to be delivered?
-What is the risk of take out in terrible weather related conditions if the situation is that you have to leave to get your order?

Knowing the various styles and types you can find in Brooklyn is important. You have your pick of the litter here; knowing your brand is the only way to begin. You always have to know yourself, what are you willingly to do to get the pizza? Otherwise you’re opening yourself to a wormhole in which you will not be able to escape and end up eating Ramen for dinner.

B. Know what you like. This one is very important, and may seem like style/type but is actually drastically different. Once you have made a choice from the four variables above, you then will have a multitude of options in which to choose. Here they are!:

1. Are you a sauce person?
2. Are you a cheese person?
3. Are you a toppings person?
4. Are you a bread person?

Now granted some of these categories overlap, I’m leaving it up to you to prioritize. Personally I hate cheese, white pizza is never on the table for me, I know many of you will think I’m crazy for this; but I can only change so much about myself. Lets move on.

C. Crust. You can never have too many crust varieties, but your choice can change everything. What sort of cheese you put on, or how much sauce there is -your options:

1. Thin – generally more calorie friendly. This choice lends itself to a sub-choice:

– Thin and crispy, more often than not using a coal oven in Brooklyn; you need to think about if you like burnt edge
-Thin and chewy

Both respectable but both have different sauce and cheese distribution.

2. Regular, speaks for itself, New York style pizza
3. Deep dish, this Midwestern style pizza is harder to find in New York. Realistically you’ll find it at Dominos or a specialty pizzeria.
4. Sicilian, Grandma or any other such styles demand a completely separate check list and will not be discussed here

D. Know what you want. Is pizza your only choice? This isn’t about picking the perfect pizza; it’s about picking the perfect pizza place. I could even abbreviate that to #PPP.

Do you have any Vegans?
Some of you may think this a strange thing to consider. But those Vegans don’t want any of your dairy. Not on their pizza, or salad or anywhere else for that matter. It’s your choice of company, but Vegan pizza exists, and it does deliver. That being said this is still number 3 because dairy is more than welcome in my apartment.

Do you want a salad?

-Will house salad be acceptable with a mild and rather bland dressing? Loosely thrown olives with maybe an awkward cucumber on the top? This is once again is a household based decision.
-My household prefers a rich creamy Cesar that is in no way good for your diet but tastes amazing. If it’s a pretend diet day in my apartment, we like to choose the place with a rich Cesar salad. The more Parmesan cheese the better!

Are any other sides on the table?

Wings? This one is tough because wings can range from unseasoned frozen Purdue chicken nuggets posing as wings to smothered delicious meaty Buffalo wings.

Garlic bread?
-Parmesan Garlic Bread?
-Bruschetta Garlic Bread?
-Truffle oil Garlic Bread?

Pasta dishes? –If you have a family (or group of friends) full of young gentlemen, you may need more and different types of Pizza related foods.

E. Are you the only one ordering? The process I described above is my personal checklist for both my mood and setting. When you involve others, my list can be helpful – but it also takes some thoughtful negotiating. My personal advice for group ordering:

Choose your (one and only) priority [see #2] and stand your ground with it. Don’t ruin the pizza for everyone, and don’t let anyone ruin it for you. Pizza should only be a joyful experience.
Always order more. This nonsense is fine cold or fine after a fast broil in the oven.
Toppings realistically should only be discussed amongst closest friends. Don’t be that guy who comes in strong with the anchovies, unless you know your peers.

Pizza is some of the best stuff we got – go in bite first and just enjoy the ride.

———-

Purposely played with formatting. Wanted to look at for a bit and see what I liked. As always, let me know your thoughts, suggestions or rationale. It’s all about the experience.

To Argue

I was called a ‘Yuppie’ for the first time when I was 17 years old. It was the first time I had ever heard the term outside of a John Hughes movie, and I literally had no idea of the connotation behind it. Was I being insulted? Or just routinely labeled? At the time I let it go, the social situation was a new one to me and I wasn’t about to bring more attention to the fact that I didn’t fit in. I was surrounded by people who came from a place I hadn’t experienced before and used terminology, such as ‘flatlanders’, that I had never heard before. I came to realize they were not particularly fond of my ‘flatlander’ background or so-called ‘yuppie’ culture. For those of you who missed the 80s, with the knowledge from only watching movies, I figured out it means “Young Urban Professional” or something similar to that. It’s applicable to those who survived their hippie, conservative, veteran or other Baby Boomer stereotypical parents to then move to the “Big City” and garner fast paced monetary focused jobs – generally (or so I thought) in the 1980s. I learned then that this is a term still alive and well.

I have no opinion on yuppies, nor will I disclose if I may or may not actually be one. Perception is everything.

Where am I going with this? Gentrification*. The 1980s meant a lot of things for New York City. After the cusp, with some social issues still thriving, of the race riots, civil rights protests, porn in Times Square (can I, a millennial imagine such a thing?!) and the AIDS epidemic, the Mayors of New York City made some drastic changes. These changes led Manhattan to becoming a tourist destination and a family friendly city again. Neighborhoods which once would have been dangerous to walk through now had attractive apartments, food and culture looking to serve a new generation who hadn’t fully experienced the 1970s in NYC.

Now that speaks for Manhattan. Which is only partially the subject of this post, and maybe occasionally in this blog, but it gives a very general introduction as to why New York City and its boroughs began to change. Brooklyn is experiencing a similar revamp, although slightly later and varied heavily by neighborhood. Queens is experiencing some remodeling as well, and to be honest the Bronx is so far north I forget about it sometimes – so I focus on Brooklyn. Brooklyn is what I know right now.

I’m here to talk about how the face of Brooklyn is changing. Maybe occasionally talk about why some neighborhoods get focused on more than others, and maybe why some neighborhoods lose their identity while others keep it completely in tact.

I have some fun ideas about food – both new diverse infused dishes and ones that have been native to their neighborhoods since their inhabitants stepped off the boat at Ellis Island (Yum!), how the a burgeoning art scene can bring in socioeconomic ranges of all sorts of people and in general how architecture and construction in a few years can change the economics of a neighborhood.

So its food, art and cool buildings (and realistically copious amounts of photos) – occasionally some fiscal nonsense but hey, it can only be expected.

There is also me – the so-called Yuppie. Those of us who have flooded various neighborhoods since the first round of gentrification in the late 80s/early 90s (I’m a baby Yuppie in this case; maybe second gen. Yupster – so much more fun than Hipster! Which probably makes me sound worse. And oh shoot, I admitted it!).

I’m here and talking about it, and I’ve got my eyes on a couple of different neighborhoods. Because in Brooklyn you walk a couple blocks in a certain direction and might as well driven 30 miles to a new state.

*Definition of GENTRIFICATION
: the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents

A fun photo article to get started

-bklyntenant

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