Author Archives: Shannon

Lunch at the End of the Line: Roller Coasters and Rotary Clubs

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painter

Touching up the boardwalk signs for the mermaids

Nathan’s was already selling many a hot dog when I stepped off the F train at Coney Island at 11:30 a.m. They did not, however, sell coffee, so I got some at the clam shack next door and asked the man at the cash register whether he was looking forward to the Mermaid Parade the following afternoon (the official kickoff of the summer season) or if he was dreading it. He smiled at me kindly. “Dread,” he said, without a moment’s hesitation.

Coney Island is one of those over-the-top places that seems as if it has been dressed like a movie set specifically for your benefit. It has the frenzied carnival feel of amusement parks everywhere, mixed with the anything-(and-anyone)-goes mentality of New York. I doubt if there are many places on Earth where can you see Buddhist monks strolling on the beach and Orthodox Jews waiting in line for the Wonder Wheel. But with all the tattoos and swimsuits, it’s easy to forget that this is a real neighborhood where real people live and eat. I wandered down off the boardwalk to look for some of them. Continue reading →

The Allure of the Secret Ingredient

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Chartreuse bottleWhen I was working my first job out of college, my boss Cathy and her husband Ken were a charming and sophisticated and unfailingly cheerful couple, the kind of couple that it is easy to envy, the kind of couple that one suspects of stumbling upon some hidden secret to a happy life.  If there was, indeed, some magical key to their happiness, they never told me what it was. But Ken did once tell me how to make amazing mashed potatoes.

“Do you want to know how to make the best mashed potatoes in the world?” he asked me. He had a glow of office-party wine and benevolent wisdom about him.  “Do you?”

And I did. In fact, I was dying to know. There is something alluring, maybe even thrilling, about the idea that just one simple component has the power to utterly transform the whole.

There are, in my opinion, a few different categories of secret ingredients. Continue reading →

Independence Food: The Contest

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Independence Food!The Fourth of July is approaching fast, and we know that our PitchKnives readers can do better than just a ho-hum Frankfurter on the grill. So send us your recipes for your favorite Independence Food and tell us why you think it’s patriotic. Is it red, white and blue? Is it a favorite dish of one of our forefathers? Does it remind you of amber waves of grain? Write to us at submissions@pitchknives.com and tell us all about it. And don’t forget the photos to document your genius!

We’ll feature some of our favorite submissions here next week, so prepare yourself for the tastiest Fourth of July yet.

Lunch at the End of the Line: From Jamaica to You

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Tastee PatteeI really wasn’t sure what neighborhood lay at the end of the L line, but I figured that everyone would know about it soon enough. After all, the L is like the frontier train of creative cool—Williamsburg became the new Lower East Side, and then Bushwick became the new Williamsburg, so I was off to see what was probably already on it’s way to becoming the new Bushwick.

When I got off at the Canarsie stop and walked a few blocks down Rockaway Parkway, the busiest restaurant I saw was McDonald’s. My Woodlawn odyssey had given me new faith in my orienteering skills, though, so I decided to just wander around for a bit. I kept my eyes peeled for signs of trendiness. Art galleries? Expensive bars? Strange mustaches? Hasids? I saw none of these things.

100% Playground

All playground, all the time.

Salle du Royaume

Jesus est bon, oui?

Here are some of the things I did see: The mammoth Breukelen Houses projects, the offices of congressman Edolphus “Ed” Towns, a sort of elepahant’s graveyard for MTA paraphernalia, the 100% Playground, a place selling “human hair and African movies” and a Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall for Francophones.

Almost every restaurant I saw was a chain fast food place, but then I spied Tastee Pattees and realized that maybe it was time to introduce our readership to the phenomenon of the Jamaican patty shop. Continue reading →

Egg Quesadilla with Strawberry-Chipotle Sauce and Kale Salad

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Egg QuesadillaWe know you’ve all been waiting for our solution to last week’s three ingredient challenge. Here’s how we combined strawberries, garlic scapes and Russian kale into a tasty dinner for two. The sweet-spiciness of the sauce makes a great complement to the eggs, and the citrus dressing on the salad keeps the flavors bright.

In addition to the three central ingredients, you’ll need to pull together these items: eggs, cheddar cheese, flour tortillas, scallions, canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, dried barley, limes, salt, black pepper, chili powder, and cumin. Continue reading →

Lunch at the End of the Line: Bonnaroo Edition

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Andrew at Solar CafeThere is a lot of good food at the annual Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tennessee. Much of it, along with dozens of good bands giving it their all, can be found in the central area of the festival, but for a perennial favorite of my brother-in-law Andrew (of Andrew Leahey and the Homestead), we were going to have to venture out into the great beyond. We were headed to the end of the line, and we were on the hunt for a mean tofu scramble.

A little background here: because both Andrew and my husband write about the festival for various publications, I have become an exceedingly spoiled Bonnaroo-goer over the past few years. They had once again managed to land us in “guest” camping, which boasted benefits like free showers and actual trees to shade our tents from the broiling Tennessee heat. (“Oh, no! This weekend, we’re like the one percent!” Andrew said, with a tiny bit of genuine class guilt.) But to get a taste of a particular dish that Andrew and his wife, Emily, had come to crave in Bonnaroos past, we needed to wander into the melee of the general camping area, where the great ninety-nine percent were partying in every conceivable fashion.

It is almost impossible to describe the verve, conviviality and downright filthiness of general camping. “I bet the best food is somewhere out here,” Andrew proclaimed with authority. Continue reading →

Road Harvests and Vulpine Unmentionables

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foxNot long after I was writing on this blog about cavemen and stalking the wild tortilla chip, I had the chance to sit in on a primitive skills class. Since many people are gradually coming around to the idea that it might not be such a bad idea to have the knowledge to grow one’s own food, why not go one step further and learn how to really cook from scratch?

My teacher in this pursuit was Patrick, a representative of the Sequatchie Valley Institute. Patrick had long hair that looked not terribly unlike the brush he was using as kindling, and he wore a tank top that said “Extinction is Forever” tucked into a sort of hippie version of a fanny pack. His eyes were round with an earnest sweetness. Patrick was a believer.

Before we got around to the whole fire-starting thing, Patrick explained to us the fundamentals of “road harvesting.” All sorts of useful things, he assured us, could be found dead by the side of the highway. Continue reading →