I had the pleasure of attending this year’s West Indian Parade in Brooklyn this past Labor Day. While scoping out the island fare I came across a man laboriously juicing sugar cane stalks. I inquired about this supposed refreshing chilled juice and was given a bit of a sample. One swig later and I was left with a not so pleasant taste in my mouth. It wasn’t sweet as I had expected and as for refreshing, I think I’ll stick with lemonade on a hot day.
I got to thinking, all that work has got to amount to something worthy of a drinker’s palate and then it hit me — sugar cane juice cocktails. Alone this drink may be less than desirable but use it as a base or even garnish to a refreshing cocktail and they may just have something here. Chewingcane.com, a north Florida based company that sells ornamental sugar cane plants for the home, offers this list of sugar cane cocktail recipes. more…
Looking for a quick lunch in Queens? Try the quesadilla cart located just one block from the 82nd Street/Jackson Heights stop from the 7 train. These crisp tortillas, folded in half and stuffed with a variety of fillings, make a fresh and quick lunch on the go.
This food cart is parked near the corner of 82nd Street and Baxter Street with a simple menu – quesadillas just $2.00 a pop.
The tortillas start as dough and are pressed between two pieces of saran wrap with a wooden tortilla maker. The uncooked disc of dough is filled with the chosen filling, folded in half and placed on the grill. Choices for fillings include chicken and cheese, zucchini with pork, mushroom and cheese and mushroom and corn. Customers can add an additional topping for an extra $1.00. Once the tortilla is crisp with brown spots visual all over the surface they are plated and topped with a choice of lettuce, sour cream, salsa and/or cheese.
I had the opportunity to sample a spicy chicken quesadilla, topped with lettuce, sour cream and cheese. One makes the perfect snack/light lunch, but I noticed that most people purchased the delicious half circles in pairs. I was drawn to this neighborhood in search for a market that sells Peruvian foods and was delighted to find this cart as well as several inexpensive Peruvian chicken restaurants.
My previous post explores one of the 30 vendors that occupy the Brooklyn Terminal Market. Check out this multimedia package that I put together with Heather Chin and Robert Voris. It’s been featured on NYCitynewsservice.com Terminal Eyes New Beginning
A&J Wholesalers is one of 30 vendors at the Brooklyn Terminal Market in Canarsie. Despite the name, A&J operates both wholesale and retail businesses. Once an Italian specialty market, A&J has adapted with the immigration changes in the neighborhood. Now they offer a combination of West Indian, African and Italian products. Though the Italian products are diminished to one little corner of the shop.
Jay Nespoli has been working at the market for a quarter century and for A&J the past 10 years. He says that many of his Haitian customers buy palettes of products such as flour, rice, dried beans, even bottled water and paper towels to send home to Haiti. The food prices are so outrageous in Haiti that it is actually cheaper to ship food from New York. Check out this article from last year on NPR about the problem of food prices in Haiti: Spiraling Food Prices Buffet Poverty-Stricken Haiti
Mangoes and cod fish are among A&J’s best selling products. Check out this photo collage of some of A&J’s offerings…
Just before the lunch rush hits, the Kati Roll Company has the makings for their signature dish sizzling on the grill in anticipation of the hungry passersby. Steaming skewers of grilled chicken, cheese, and beef top the grill and on an adjacent grill there is a huge mass of a spicy potato and peas mixture. These are the main ingredients that can be found in a Kati Roll, a mixture of meats, vegetables and cheeses, marinated in a blend of spices, and rolled in an Indian flatbread.
The exterior of the flatbread is slick from oil and brown grill spots are scattered all over its malleable surface. The achari paneer roll, a spicy cheese roll, is filled with large spongy cheese cubes and mixed with green peppers, tomatoes, red onions and a cilantro chutney.
When I was walking home with my fiancé Patrick last night, I happened upon a new banh mi cart on St. Marks and 2nd Avenue. Banh mi is a Vietnamese sandwich prepared on a soft baguette with a hard outer crust. Each sandwich came with one meat–either Vietnamese meatball, chicken, roasted eel, tuna, beef or pork– and sweet pickled carrots and cucumber, cilantro and optional jalapeños for an added kick. more…
In Indian cooking the combinations of spices are often what make the dish. The word masala translates to a blend of aromatic spices. The cookbookClassic Indian Cooking says that garam masala is the most important of all of the spice blends. It is possible to do the leg work and make the masala ones self, but much easier to find a spice store that carries these ingredients already blended together. At Dual Specialty Store on 1st Avenue in the East Village, they have the entire gamut of spices, dried beans, dried fuits, nuts, rices and chutneys someone would need to make any Indian dish.
Garam masala in a blend of cardamom pods, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, cumin seeds and coriander seeds. For recipes that use garam masala or other masalas, check out Sailus Kitchen, an food blog on Indian recipes, Andhra food and flavors from around the world.
