“This is the best lobster roll in New York, I can promise you that,” she said, handing me a warm, crunchy roll brushed with butter and filled with chunks of lobster within, scallions on top, a little celery beneath, seasoned just so.
The roll is reason enough to visit the Brooklyn Flea in DUMBO on Sunday afternoons (and do try one of Mari’s caramel-salt brownies while at the lobster stand), but I also found vintage Lanvin and a Mark 27 with a “hideaway flash” that I think I can use with the same film the Brownie Hawkeye uses (my wonderful friend Eric is inducting me into his army of Brownie photographers).
I considered colored glass,
before spying Stevie’s album title and walking off to find music (the drum circle at Prospect Park) on a very warm July day…
I heard a knock at the door, and opened it to find one of the homeowners handing me four mangoes–two that are ripe, two that need another day or so.
We started talking about the coconuts that he harvests from the street, and that led to a machete and a handmade, welded striking implement cracking open coconuts on the porch, draining the milk, admiring the meat (which you score and then scoop out), and an explanation of how to make coconut milk—blend quite a bit of coconut water, a little coconut meat, a date and a dash of cinnamon for sweetness.
As a storm rages outside, intermittently lighting up the cottage, I am drinking it all up and in, sipping the milk (fresh coconut water tastes infinitely better than the packaged product, as you can imagine) and shaking my head at all the years I let a terrible cake experience with sweetened, shredded kind of coconut hold me back.
I prescribe fresh coconut.
If we can imagine meat—the word itself, without its weighty moral baggage and simply referring to these hairy things that hang from tropical trees—as a delightfully firm, silky white layer hidden inside a shell, perhaps spritzed with a little lime, we may all feel a little better…
It’s been a week, and I’ve missed writing here, so this is a longer post below. I hope that all of you are having wonderful days—
Last Wednesday, my friend Dianna showed me the community garden in South Beach. With retro signs (community gardens are quietly beginning to be called Victory Gardens again across the United States) and a convenient location in the South of Fifth section, the garden boasts a waiting list years long and acts as a quiet hub for energetic locals.
An ideal way to find people who share your concern for thoughtful food,
in a way that Dianna’s Mr. Cecil approves.
Thursday night I flew toward another community garden in Portland, Oregon.
After Friday morning pastries from Boulangerie in the Northwest section (skip the croissants and tend toward the more complicated offerings), I unwrapped a pork belly banh mi off the Bunk Sandwiches board—
with perfectly toasted bread, melting pork belly, the right sort of red sauce, cilantro, and julienned carrots, perhaps the best sandwich of my life.
And so I fell silent for part of the Friday drive with my beautiful sister Kat to the Erath and Ponzi vineyards near to Portland,
where even Erath’s Pinot flight (the Reserve Pinot Gris that is only sold at the winery is lovely) was no match for Kat’s homemade cherry kombucha, and we headed out the next morning for other healthful local food at the Portland Farmers’ Market with Reid and their friend Nathania,
Full of families visiting, eating, laughing, the Pickelopolis stand awed younger market shoppers,
baskets of rhubarb waited to be stewed, roasted, and baked into crumbles and pies, jams,
and Ranoculus and purple flowers carried the day.
Close to purple flowers, bundles of purple asparagus waited,
though we opted for local fried asparagus from Burgerville, the In-n-Out chain of the Pacific Northwest, (pick off the batter and dip the spears in the included aioli,)
and crossing the St. John bridge, we picked lettuces and onions from Kat and Reid’s plot in the community garden (I resisted picking dandelions).
The two explain what they’ve planted:
and we peered closer at the potato plants,
peas on a trellis Reid has devised,
soft lettuces glowing in the sun that hits parts of their plot,
and then Reid appreciated the smell of the freshly-dug onions in the backseat all the way to the Oregon coast, where even toddlers skate,
and the trees stand tall,
covered with moss,
and we waded over to the side where smaller waves washed into the shore,
and held forth with a picnic of crusty market bread, herbed chevre, wine, olives, and strawberries,
Sunday, I visited Kat working at Cacao (where she introduced me to a fabulous new chocolate bar that tastes of blood oranges) and sipped drinking chocolate,
and after she closed the shop, we shared a spicy avocado sandwich with bread that did taste alive along with a bowl of beans, quinoa, and kale at Blossoming Lotus.
As yoga practitioners emerged from class in the adjoining studio, we joined them in breathing deeply as sisters and even closer friends…
Yesterday began in a freezer. Well, really a Bikram yoga studio of 105 degrees, but after that a freezer full of farm eggs and tropical fruit at Bee Heaven Farms in South Florida, where I picked up my order:
Another red custard apple for the road—to eat in a few days, as these become very soft when they ripen (the beautiful inside):
and I looked up at the branch above my car at these fruit-like objects of interest.
Driving quickly, lest tree roots grow over my wheels as they had overtaken fences,
white flowers on parts of the stretch made me pull over,
and then my friend Jess and her friend Maya arrived at the cottage with cupcakes. Influenced by icing, we took Jean Marc’s good advice and headed over to Cinco de MiMo, a celebration of that area of Miami.
Recognizing him by his twirling umbrella, we greeted Gene Kelly,
toasted with Tiki punch to local designers in the Upper Eastside Garden:
Then, we wandered to nearby Divine Trash and found same,
secured a vintage getaway vehicle,
to fill with new treasures,
and Jess kept the flower from the garden tucked behind her ear,
as she contemplated a new furniture project,
and baked goods.
Across the street, we took in Vagabond Market
forgoing Indian cuisine inside
to walk past pink flowers,
pass Elvis on stilts,
and sit outside at the Buena Vista Bistro with identical orders of spinach, declaring our intentions to explore other new areas of south Florida as the thermometer goes ever higher…
