Arsenic and Old Lace

Video posted to YouTube by davinci5152
This is a Halloween tale of Brooklyn, where anything can happen and usually does.”among the opening titles to the Frank Capra movie, Arsenic and Old Lace.
Set in Brooklyn, New York (the center of the universe) in 1941, this Halloween movie is the funniest of all time.  The [...]

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Atlantic Avenue and Stuffed Grape Leaves

Photograph courtesy of PD Photo.org

Among the brick pots, buckets, and rakes
A row of inverted grape leaves climbs to a pale green
“The Sea-Garden, “ Fanny Howe,  Selected Poems
My grandmother and my Lebanese aunts did lots of traditional cooking, but my mom didn’t.  So we made periodic trips to Atlantic Avenue to eat at Julia W’s Lebanese restaurant where we’d [...]

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Lasagna, Best Brooklyn Food Memory

Photograph by PD Photo.org

Lasagna is both a noodle and a dish and is derived from the Greek word lasanon. Popular all over the world, lasagna is made in many different ways. From meats and vegetables, to different kinds of sauces and cheeses, lasagna is a favorite dish for many people.” Jace Shoemaker-Galloway, in the July 17, 2009 issue [...]

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Roman Egg Drop Soup, Gluten Free

Photograph of chickens from PD Photo.org

Photograph by M. Chambers via Wikipedia under GNU free documentation license.

Yet another luxurious farmers’ market haul with a few veggies from a friend’s garden.

The finished product, La Stracciatella (Roman Egg Drop Soup), wheat-and-gluten free and chock full of vegetables. 

From time immemorial, soups and broths have been the worldwide medium for utilizing what we call [...]

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Homesick For Brooklyn?

Welcome back, 
Your dreams were your ticket out.
Yeah we tease him a lot cause we’ve got him on the spot, welcome back, 
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.
Who’d have thought they’d lead ya (Who’d have thought they’d lead ya) 
Here where we need ya (Here where we need ya)
Well the names have all changed [...]

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Chicken Hunter’s Style, Bklyn Italian and Gluten-Free

Public Domain Illustration via Wikipedia.

my brain light;
tossing this and that
into the pot;
seasoning none of my life
the same way twice; happy to feed
whoever strays my way.”
Poem at Thirty-Nine by Alice Walker, Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful
No one made a Brooklyn-style Italian meat-and-tomato sauce for pasta like my Aunt Mildred. Her sauce was heavy with meats – pork, [...]

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Billy Joel Got It Right

rickyperson, a young aspiring filmmaker in Sweden, put this wonderful piece together from some old, public domain footage.  Good job!
Some folks like to get away
Take a holiday from the neighbourhood
Hop a flight to Miami Beach
Or to Hollywood
But I’m taking a Greyhound
On the Hudson River Line
I’m in a New York state of [...]

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The House In Watchung

Photograph from the Borough of Watchung, New Jersey official website.
“The Borough of Watchung was organized on April 20, 1926 and covers an area of approximately 6.2 square miles.  Watchung was settled in the early eighteenth century and grew slowly until recent years.  In 1960 the population was 3,312 and in 2000 it was 5,613.” 
Trips to New Jersey [...]

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GF Chinese: NY Cantonese-style Shrimp in Lobster Sauce

Photograph of grocery in Chinatown, Manhattan by Momos via Wikipedia under GNU Free Documentation License
Recommended reading: Chinatown, A Portrait of a Closed Society by Gwen Kinkead

“An ancient Chinese saying goes like this ‘Food is the nearest thing to Heaven’”. 
Cooking Secrets of the Oldest Civilizations in the World, The-ChineseFood.com
Soy sauce, which is ubiquitous in Chinese and other Asian cuisines, [...]

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A sweet find . . .

  

Public Domain Photograph via Wikipedia
“I have no use for humility. I am a fellow with an exceptional talent.”  Jackie Gleason
From his role as Reginald Van Gleason, III to The Hustler to the guest spots he made in his maturity, we loved this guy – Jackie Gleason – who came from a hardscrabble life in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, [...]

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