In the interest of honesty, let me say that I was not in the best of moods when I arrived at the end of the B line in Brighton Beach, and I desperately needed a cup of coffee. But though I found a steaming vat of pierogis inside of a minute, a coffee shop was oddly difficult to locate. I started to feel keenly how little I knew about Russian food in general and this neighborhood in particular. Don’t the Russians drink coffee? Or tea or something? What are they doing with all those samovars in the Chekov stories?

Coffeeless, I ate half of a poppy seed pastry and felt a little better, so I headed to the boardwalk to put my new strategy into action. Since last week’s anxious canvassing of Flushing’s sidewalks did not do the trick, I had decided to advertise with a sign my intention of taking a stranger to lunch (see below). This lower impact approach would be perfect, I thought, and have the hungry hordes flocking to me in no time. Continue reading →