This is from the Brooklyn Banya website. Full disclosure: most of the women in bikinis I saw were not wearing hats.

I tightened my towel and slithered along the wall, trying not to interfere in the conversation between the proprietor of the Brooklyn Banya and another man (which was perhaps a friendly disagreement or perhaps just shy of coming to blows—it was hard to say), but before I could inch out of sight, the owner grinned at me happily, pumped his fist in the air and said, “Yaaaah! Americaaaan!” I took this as some sort of ebullient welcome to his house of Russian-ness, so I sniffled and weakly raised my fist in return.

A summer cold is an insidious affliction, sneaking up on you with its chills and fevers while everyone else is still frolicking happily in the sunshine. And so when one hit me this past weekend, I decided to fight fire with fire—I was going to sweat the thing out of me.

It’s true that, at least for most people, the main attraction at the banya on Coney Island Avenue is not the food, but I had sound reasons for considering this a PitchKnives excursion. For one, even the non-edible portions of a bath house have a hint of the culinary. Where else can you simulate the experience of baking yourself (dry sauna), parboiling yourself (steam room) or poaching yourself inside a eucalyptus leaf (wet sauna)? But more importantly, I figured that any people who included Siberia within their borders would boast some powerful cold-battling vittles. Continue reading →