When it’s time to vote I prefer a no brainer.

Tags

best deal, dumplings, new york, prosperity

Go ahead and laugh.. I voted today.

I went to check my mail which is at an office on 5th at 28th st in Manhattan. I originally got that mailbox almost 9 years ago when I first came to the city. I wasn’t sure how much I would be moving around but figured a static address would be good. I have only had four places the entire time I have lived in New York.

Three months at 116th and Lex in Spanish Harlem; three months at Graham and Metropolitan in Williamsburg, three and a half years at Bedford and Dekalb in Clinton Hill, and five years at my current place in Bushwick. I have to admit having to go to Manhattan to check my mail sucks at times, but I like that it brings me into the city..I think. I remember, I like the fact that all mail, all information everything goes to an office in Manhattan. Passport, auto insurance (when I had it), bank info, debt collectors, etc.. all go to somewhere other than my residence.

Either way..checking the mail today I noticed something telling me to vote. I didn’t think much about it until after I left the office and even though I could care less… I guess I secretly don’t, and knew that It couldn’t have been far. My polling place was at 14 east 28th st, which was only half a block away from where I already was.

When I walked in the polling station I realized the only form of ID I had was my California license. Well that was the end of that. Or at least so I thought until I ran into a friend who worked at Tekserve. They asked if I had voted to which I told of my lack of ID. I was informed that if I had not registered anywhere else, and my polling station was still the same, then all I needed was my signature.

Wait a minute… that’s it, my signature.. this is crazy, but fuck it… I guess I am going back.

When in line it took about 5 minutes to find out where I need to go. The scene was a mess. People were cutting in line, people next to me made brutally mundane small talk, all the pens were missing, and then there was this shit.

What party do I pic, I just want to… ugh, guys come on. Do I pick both parties Obama is with? Why is both Obama and Romney represented twice? It’s always something.

On my way out I noticed that they were out of ballots. It’s only 6pm.. are they serious? I almost walked out of there before I voted, just going thru that zoo made me embarrassed to be participating in the whole process in the first place.

I needed to get something to eat and my friend mentioned getting a slice at that dollar pizza shop, stating that for a dollar it was the best deal in town.

Hmmmmmm, I mean there isn’t much decent food you can get for a dollar. Let’s exclude fast food chains, because while 2 bros pizza isn’t health food, I don’t feel that eating there strips me of my dignity, unlike going to McDonalds or Burger King. I mean what else can you get for a dollar that will fill you up like a slice. I’m not stuffed after a slice, nor am I hungry anymore. There is an alternative for a dollar, and thats down on Eldridge st just south of Hester.

The is a little hole in the wall I mean it’s a closet…called Prosperity Dumpling. 

I remember I 1st heard about this place from clients of mine who owned a clothing shop called Proper Fools. All they said was for a dollar, you get five dumplings, and it’s bangin. The closer I got to this place the more I saw Chinese folks walking around eating sesame sandwiches.

When I arrived I realized that my closet was bigger than this place, but Chinese don’t fuck around, you give them a bowl of rice and come back 5 minutes later and it’s a restaurant. I just went to the counter, and this is exactly what I said: “um yea 1 dollar”. That was it, broken English was good enough right… I mean lets be honest, how many times have you been been in Chinatown and had a shop owner correct your grammer.

So I said “1 dollar” and she handed me a styrofoam take out box. I pulled up to a stool, opened it laying the top down, put soy sauve and hot sauce mixed together on the top grabbed a plastic fork and proceeded to have at it. After the first bite I placed my vote once again, for best deal in town: Prosperity Dumpling.

The sauce was red, and the girl golden

Tags

crack, erotic, golden, novels, pipes, sauce

You’d think this would have been the first post. Whenever I cook red sauce, I always envisioned it being so poetic to write about, and the process in which I go thru to make it. It’s nothing special I guess, or maybe it is. Maybe it’s been so long since I made it that I have forgotten how magical it really is. But this clearly can’t be the case because I know that I still find the whole process magical… just not in the David Blane sense either.

Becky and I went to the store to get the ingredients. She had plans of her own, she was along for the ride, she knew my sauce and the mystique that surrounded it. She couldn’t help herself, she was Jewish, and Jews are powerless to the flavor of authentic Italian food. Not that fake gumba slop they served in so-called-Italian Restaurants out in Long Island, or as my Chinese friends say “Ron Irand”, and definitely not Olive Garden or as my Chinese friends say (Awriv Garden).

How obnoxious is that, bottomless pasta, like you really need more than one bowl you fat fuck. Yea, what better to wash down nasty ass greasy white trash pasta than with breads sticks. Whenever I trash Olive Garden the 1st defense I always hear is how good their breadsticks are. Breadsticks are the hallmark of White Trashville U.S.A.. That’s how you know you live in a place with no class, someone somewhere is serving breadsticks. Well I guess I just cancelled out the entire continental U.S., this is obviously a difficult topic for me, lets move on.

Shopping is simple, you get two big bunches of fresh basil, two bulbs of garlic, about twelve links of sweet fennel sausage, and tomatoes. Some people brag about using real tomatoes, but I could honestly care less. I prefer to use Pomi. They are the ones in box. They are imported from Italy, and when you look at the ingredients, all it says is “Tomates”. I don’t want salt, oil or anything else, I’ll ad those things myself.

I used sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, extra virgin olive oil, and cayenne pepper, because the spice must flow. In goes the tomatoes, salt, pepper and cayenne to taste, olive oil you can use liberally. Pomi will require 2 boxes of chopped, 1 box of strained, 13 cloves of garlic pressed right into the sauce. I know some people talk about grilling the garlic, or throwing in grilled onion, but I prefer to press fresh garlic right into the sauce. As for the basil, I go heavy, so wash thoroughly, chop as fine as possible and throw it in.

If you’re vegetarian you can leave it as is and slow cook it on a low flame for three to four hours, and remember to constantly stir. I hate going to restaurants tasting sauce that has clearly been burned, if you keep stirring on low heat, you will avoid this. However if you like meat… now is the time to put it in. Any meat I put in I like to grill or broil first. I’m going to broil the sausage links till the skin is lightly crisp, then I’ll put them in the sauce. If I make meatballs, I am going to grill them on the stove top, other wise, spare ribs get a light broil, along with braciole.

You always need something to do at this point, because you shouldn’t leave the kitchen; the sauce needs to be stirred. I poured some Schweppes, and Becky opens her laptop to read an ebook she just download. Becky has discovered an underground scene of erotic fetish novels, the latest that she is reading is about a girl who chronicles her sex-capades among unsuspecting men whom she seduces. Everything seems pretty tame till the woman reveals her true intentions. For the woman in the book leaves a stain after having seduced the the men she meets.

The stain being that she likes to wet the mattress of whomever she seduces. First waiting till the men are asleep before she does this, until she progresses into doing it during intercourse. She lies to the men, tells them that they excite her so much that she is spraying. This makes the men fill full of machismo, but the last laugh is on her, because in reality she is merely pissing on them. The book was titled “Golden Girl”, however I felt it should have been called “P-notes from the underground”.

The book occupied us enough in between testing and sampling the sauce. When you cook it’s easy to get carried away testing. By the time it was ready all we wanted was a couple of sausage links, or as my Chinese friends say…rinks.

After dinner, Becky packs a bowl and asks is she can borrow my pipe. Pipes, books, cd’s (anyone still use these) are all things I have learned never to loan out.Nine times out of ten they never come back. I tell her I bought mine at the gas station, she doesn’t believe me so I go with her to the gas station to prove it. The plastic container in which I bought my pipe from is still there, however now it is just filled with lighters. So I ask the guy behind the counter if they have any pipes. He give me a strange look as he hesitates. Finally he reaches behing the counter and pulls out something that look like a clear pen. Then I realize it’s a crack pipe.

I laugh, and tell him no, that wasn’t what I was looking for. I am shocked, really, a crack pipe? I thought for sure that craze was over. Crack just seems really retro and passe. Do people really go to the corner store to but a pipe?

Just out of curiosity I asked how much for the pipe, the man told me two dollars, I should have bought it as a momento. A sign of the times.

The end product

Becky reading “Golden Girl”

When your mouth craves balls. (ongoing segment)

Tags

arancini, ball, chelsea, donut plant, Locatelli, manhattan special, meatball obsession, rice, yankee

I was heading home tonight when I came across it. A freakin hole in the wall just off the corner of 6th ave and 14th st. I have seen it before, and I have wondered, but here I was, with a slight appetite, and this was a place that served meatballs.

Meatball Obsession

That’s it..meatballs. I walk up to the counter and notice that behind which couldn’t have been bigger than four square feet. Two kids behind the counter with a couple of La Creuset pots filled full of meatballs and red sauce. I ordered a meatball, just one..in a cup, which came with cibatta bread and topped off with a cheese of your choice. They had Locatelli pecorino romano cheese, which is what I use religiously.

In fact if ever I am in the house of an Italian who is a native New Yorker and they offer me food, like cheese, it’s not uncommon for someone to say “I got Locatelli”, like that’s it, it seals the deal. Not only did this place have Locatelli, for drinks they had Manhattan Specials, and not just the coffee or Gasosa, they had every damn flavor Manhattan Special produced.

Manhattan Specials are made in Italian/East Williamsburg of Brooklyn, by the same family for over a hundred years already. They are mostly known for their coffee soda, but they have branched out to a number of other flavors. Manhattan Special aren’t just awesome cause they are local, they use only pure cane sugar, no corn syrup, and it’s served in a glass bottle. I know I harp on about this, but if you’re gonna carbonate, carbonate right.

So lets break this down, they only serve meatballs, with every flavor of Manhattan specials known to man…AND they have Locatelli cheese… Whoever owns this place has got to be not only be Italian, but a native. It is just a walk up window but there is a little counter to the side you can eat at or folding chairs located over the subway vents on the sidewalk.

in Khazakstan this is fine dining.

Call me crazy, but I smelled a theme tonight. I wanted food of a spherical form, and this town could easily accommodate that. So I hopped on the F-train and took it one stop north to 23rd sheet, and headed to the Chelsea hotel where Donut Plant had a store front.

You know right across the street used to be the only Krispy Kreme in the five boroughs you could get em fresh. I remember being bummed when they closed it down, but now that Donut Plant is here, fuck Krispy Kreme. I ran in and got the donut god’s gift to me… a creme brûlée donut.

Look at it…you can have diamonds, you can have pearls, but I take the donuts bitch!

Oh yea, god-head on a napkin… It’s a little bigger than a golf ball, filled with french cream and somehow they got the top to be all nice and crispy. All ingredients are all natural, everything is made on site, even the jam, and it’s all made fresh daily. No eggs, no preservatives, no fucking bullshit cheap ingredients. I mean I love the Grand Mission in San Francisco, those Buttermilk Bars are the shit. But Donut Plant is on a whole other level.

They have two types of donuts, yeast or cake. Yeast are fluffy and airy but still rich. Examples being Coconut Cream, or Peanut Butter Jelly, The cake donuts are denser, almost like a really moist pound cake, and richer with flavors like Carrot Cake or Devils Food.

PROCEED WITH CAUTION. This spot is dangerous, and quite honestly I will just order two maybe three donuts, take one or two bites of each, hand them off to anyone I can and then just take off running as fast as I can, to get away. If I hang out too long… that’t it, game over for skinny J, hello fat fuck.

So then I decided to head back to Brooklyn and I still was hungry, all I had was one meatball and one creme brulee ball. I knew exactly where to go. Down the street from my house was the Arancini brothers. This spot was down on Flushing and Central, pretty much built into the Wreck Room. All they served was Rice Balls (and Manhattan Specials). Arancini translates to little oranges, which is how they look when you pull them from the fryer, but this isn’t fruit. This is a Sicilian specialty which is a ball of rice stuffed with what-have-you. A traditional rice ball is a ragu, meat sauce with peas. But here they have over 10 types. Carbonara with cream and pancetta, fennel sausage and broccoli rabe, three cheese, they even had a Nutella one for dessert.

I had a baller card, that they stamp every time you buy one. You buy ten you get one free. So I decided to use it. I got a ragu and a special one they had made that day called a The Yankee. It had baked beans, hot dog and cheddar cheese. Kinda wrong in my book, but also in a grey area where a wrong can be right.

 

The flavor of racism

Tags

country, dining, food, hickory, hollow, Houston, kate's kitchen, racism, republicans, restaurant, san francisco, texas

This is Jerome. He is one of my oldest friends. Him, Fernand and Jason, I am not sure whom I became close with first. Anyways, I have this picture on the mantle in my bedroom, everyone usually thinks a got it from a garage sale.

Actually I stole it from Jerome’s house one night whilst on acid. The story behind the picture is that one day Jerome’s mom asked him about the neighbor’s daughter. Jerome didn’t hang out with her, nor did he care about her. Jerome’s mom informed Jerome that the girl did not have a date to the dance; Jerome was still unfazed… until his mom told him that she told the mom that Jerome would take her. They go back and forth and finally come to an agreement. Jerome would take the girl to the dance and in return his mom would buy him $100 worth of cd’s.

Apparently this picture is the only time during the dance that the girl even said a word to him. You should have seen me with a head full of acid just laughing hysterically. I didn’t even realize it was him. Jerome didn’t dress like that, I mean where were they headed after the dance… to a Kid n Play concert?

Either way, so I got a call from him this morning. It’s been a few months and I was just in Houston six weeks ago, and I didn’t call him. I tell him whilst there I ate at a place called the Hickory Hollow. Place had bangin brisket and link sausage. Last time I was there I asked if they shipped and they said no. Wow…no shipping eh.

I ordered two pounds of hickory smoked link sausage to go, which I brought back with me to New York. While on the phone with Jerome I mentioned that I just had my mom ship me another three pounds of sausage and a pound of brisket. The place is an old BBQ spot that my Mom’s wife’s parents used to go. This is republican turf, not just any republicans… these were Texas republicans. Long sleeve dress shirts with the top two buttons undone with blue jeans and their hair parted to the side.

Jerome mentioned going to the one over in the Heights just a few weeks earlier and said he was getting stares like he was the scum of the earth. This is old school Texas country, and racism still goes strong. But more than that I always wonder if that has something to do with the flavor of the food. Hatred and flavor, I have a theory that there is a link between the two.

I remember working at the cornershop on Sixth and Howard in SF, and in there we had these two dyke girls, Angie and Marylene. Angie did most of the cooking, beef ribs, pork ribs, smothered pork chops, collards, neck bones, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, She had it all down pat. One thing I remember noticing is that the angrier she got, the spicier the food got. There had to be a link.

There is another time in which I remember talking to hippy dippy friends about how there was no such thing as country food in California, and definitely not in spacey flakey SF of all places. One place my white stoner friends always mentioned was a spot called Kate’s Kitchen. “oh J, they got country food … you can get biscuits and gravy, its good.”

Kate’s Kitchen was run by a bunch of white, free-sprited kids who wanted to make healthy country food. God that sounds terrible, but I went. I am never above being wrong, and honestly would love to be wrong more than I am. It’s not easy being right so much of the time, but I can’t help it. I guess I will have to live with it.

I go to Kate’s with a few friends and order grits with biscuits and gravy. Our waiter is some black dude. The environment is relaxed, the food comes out swiftly, and it taste like garbage. I take a few bites, decide I don’t like. It’s fine, I’m not one to make a stink, I just send it back. He notices I haven’t eaten it and ask’s if there was a problem. I just say I didn’t think it was very good. We talk for a sec and I tell him I’m from Texas, yadda yadda yadda, and my friends swore the place was legit and so I figured I would come give it a try. At one point the waiter looks at me and says “well if you were black, I would have told you so”. Thank you. My friends laugh, and I appreciate his honesty. He has just validated my position.

Nice people, lame food… Where does he eat I wonder. He must know where the good country/soul food is at. I look for these places, and you know the best one’s are the one’s that don’t serve white people. That’s when you know you’ve hit the jackpot. Here’s the test: if you walk in during the middle of the dinner rush, say seven o’clock. You go up to the counter and they look you dead in the eye and say “kitchens closed”, that’s it, then you have found a place thats legit. Just call one of your black friends to pick up some food for you.

The Hickory Hollow

The Islands won’t come to you, but you can go to Flatbush.

Tags

adetimirin, aziz, best, chicken, flatbush, frosty, greco, iphone 5, jamaican, jerk, peppas, roti, wendys, west indian

Lily told me I needed to work on a remix for Skrillex/Damian Marley. So after a couple of hours cranking away, Aziz and Des stop by to pick up Des’s brother’s computer which I repaired. We get to talking about this and that, my birthday passed on the 6th, Aziz was coming up on the 12th and he was having his annual “Virgo Affair” on the 14th.

Was I gonna go, or would I just say I was gonna go… and then find something more interesting? I mean, who the fuck wants to go to Manhattan on a weekend and fight every degenerate in the street, out screaming bloody murder with their repressed friends. Get to the bar, filled full of bridge and tunnel assholes because lets be honest, people who live in Manhattan don’t go to the village or SOHO, and definitely not on a weekend. Fifteen dollar drinks, lame empty conversation with people you’ve never met and god forbid you actually meet someone you want to talk to… you can’t hear a word they say because every bar keeps the music on blast. Only someone who truly hates their life submits themselves to such an ordeal.

Either way, the conversation moves to what Aziz & Desire are up to now. Des is hungray! RAWR mothafucka, get out the way. They have plans to get Roti out on Flatbush from a spot called Ali’s, just a couple blocks way from Peppa’s jerk chicken. Not only do I ask to tag along, I ask to have him drive me home.

First stop is Ali’s, we each get a curry goat roti and Des gets a second one, curry shrimp. Aziz wanted boneless curry chicken, but seeing how they had none, he just decided to get some Jerk from Peppa’s. I figured I might as well buy some for breakfast the next morning.

Peppa’s never disappoints. Everyone comes here, I was talking to the owner once, he said Japanese tourists are all over the place. I remember going to see a friend who worked at a bar a few blocks away where they too served jerked chicken. She told me not to order it and that the jerk salmon was much better. I then asked if she had tried Peppas up the street to which she replied no, but all her coworkers talk about Peppa’s. If everyone where you work talks about someone else’s restaurant, that’s not a good sign.

I bought a six dollar order of jerk, and Aziz got a nine dollar for him and Des. Before we could head out of there, Aziz wanted a macaroni pie from this west indian spot, and then to Wendy’s for a Frosty to cleanse the palette. Damn son.

We get back to his place, he rolls a blunt, and we eat. My curry goat roti was bomb, but I really felt that even though it wasn’t a problem for me to dig thru the bones, it felt a bit tedious. Desire had the curry shrimp, and the shrimp were cleaned and shelled. Thats what I’m getting next time.

When we finish Aziz lights the blunt and we pass it back and forth. Doing this is such a rarity for me, it always makes me rather spacey. Yes I know thats the point. Anyway, Aziz puts on a commercial for the new iPhone 5 and I’m so over that hunk of shit.

I’m over the hype, I’m over the company, the operating system, the complete bozo employees at the apple store. I’m over the fact that Apple is the new Microsoft, Steve’s Jobs public feud with Adobe, or Samsung, or Google. I’m over the shitty service I had with AT&T, and now that I’ve switched to Verizon, it’s gotten even worse. I’m over how the iPhone constantly asks if you want to give out your coordinates. I’m REALLY fucking over how it will automatically capitalize any word that is the name of corporation or brand, yet it refuses to remember that fuck is a word I use quite liberally. If I mistype whilst writing fuck, lets say fick, or fivk, it does nothing.

And other than the fact that I found it humorous that I have Siri address me as daddy, or that I had her (how do I know Siri isn’t a really fem sounding dude) make a reminder for nine in the morning on september 6th, 2025, I’m still over it. Watch, Apple is gonna remember my “reminder” long after I forget it, and when that morning comes, in 2025, some fucking robot will be at my door to deliver it to me. Other than the juvenile fuckery I pull with it, I only seems to turn me off.

People ask me bout the iPhone, and that it looks so nice and how it is. I always say the same thing… it’s the nicest piece of shit out there, and thats the truth. The reception, is a joke, Siri has the mind of a retarded two year old, and sorry I don’t talk to retarded machines. It’s a machine and I don’t have to feel compassion nor a sense obligation to look past its poor performance.

I toss it around, I refuse to get a case for it, and that seems to bother people. You should be careful with it. BZZZZ, WRONG, guess again dumbass. It’s a machine, and while people might look at it as a marvel, I’m not impressed. It’s just stuff, and my stuff doesn’t own me, I own my stuff.

Whats fucked up more is this commercial Aziz put on. The ad sort freaked me out: just an instrumental version of a Kanye West with this vibe like it knew that you needed it., and in the background of the song a sample repeatly saying “I can’t stop”. I’m sure Siri won’t just ask questions, she’ll give commands like “don’t put me down Daddy (“she” calls me daddy)… just hold me for another five minutes.”

I’m waiting for the day you can custom order the persona of your phone. Alpha males will want some subservient phone preferably with an asian accent. Bottom boys will want some total dom agro phone to bark orders at them. Hood rat chics will want some smooth talking phone to make up excuses whenever the call is dropped:”nah baby, that wasn’t me, that was your service provider, they be slipping”. The possibilities will be shamelessly endless.

When I get home I realize I need to work on this remix yet I’m still buzzed from that joint. I cannot produce on this shit, so I’ll wait it out, cause I ain’t sleeping either.

Looks legit…. is legit.