Prospect: A Year in the Park

Crowd sauce

The opening weekend of "Smorgasburg" in Prospect Park lived up to its New York Times' description as "the Woodstock of eating" if by "Woodstock" you mean "muddy mob scene." As we ascended Breeze Hill, we passed about 70 people waiting on line for some kind of cult French fries. "There's no French fry in the world worth waiting for," groused one passer-by, in a minority opinion.

The "Raindrop Cake" was one of this season's novelties. I have no idea what it is, but it's "Instagram-ready." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My only purchase was a nice little cherry pie from Noble Pies of Warwick, N.Y. and a smooth, intense iced coffee from "Ministry of Kaapi," made from beans from southern India in a novel little filter system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lines were so long at almost every stand that you couldn't tell who was waiting for a ramen-burger versus a "calamari cone." 

 

Prickly-pear lemonade was a gorgeous color, but we ditched the whole thing and got some pleasant, if less exotic, fare--and a seat, with little waiting--at the park's own nearby Bluestone Café.

 

 

Nearby, ice skaters sailed around the Lakeside rink in the spring sunshine. Other activities underway: hula-hooping; hip-hop/capoeira fusion dancing; drumming; skateboarding; paddleboating; pot-smoking; and somewhere, to judge from the smell of charcoal starter, some early-season grilling. 

And just hanging out on the shore, far from the madding crowd.

Foraging at Dead Horse Bay

Does that sound faintly menacing? It's marvelous. On the first Saturday in May, a cool gray one, I signed up with the doyenne of urban gourmet foraging, Marie Viljoen, for a spring forage walk along seaside paths across Flatbush Avenue from Floyd Bennett Field. I love this wild fringe of Brooklyn, and I knew that strange things awaited us down on the beach. Our small group gathered, bags in hand, to pick nature's neglected salad greens (invasives only, nothing scarce or endangered) under Marie's sharp eye.

 

Marie is that gorgeous girl in school, the total original with the seemingly effortless style, but so incredibly nice you can't hate her for it. Tall, ginger, erudite about botany and with a sharp sense of humor, she could be a lifestyle guru (just see her blog 66 Square Feet (Plus)) if she were just less intelligent, quirky, and nuanced. She introduced us to the mysteries of pokeweed, whose young shoots are relished by Southerners (and, in this case, a South African), but whose mature plant parts and berries are toxic.

 

 

 

We gathered lots of tender garlic mustard tips; this pesky weed made a delicious, broccoli-di-rape-like green for my pasta that night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dead nettles--edible despite their dreary name--rose above a fairy-forest of violets and other wildflowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Young milkweed--or maybe it's dogbane, a poisonous look-alike. They both have milky sap, but only milkweed has hollow stems. Butterflies eat it, too, so Marie recommends only foraging it in areas where it is plentiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we headed toward the water, I nibbled the bases of phragmites (didn't care for them) and some resinous immature bayberries (delicious). Marie uses bayberry leaves like bay leaves, infusing gin or vodka with them, and the buds like capers. We emerged onto Dead Horse Bay, with the Marine Parkway Bridge rising in the distance. At our feet: sea rocket, a salt-loving little green with the kick of wasabi.

 

 

 

 

 

Also at our feet: the surreal washed-up detritus that has made Dead Horse Bay a famous mecca for beachcombers and bottle collectors. The currents turn up an unceasing harvest of glass, ceramic, shoe soles, and other urban imperishables, along with the occasional horse bones--remnants of its past (as a home for glue factories and slaughterhouses) reflected in its memorable name. I've been here before, and it's always fun to watch the incredulity of a first-timer at this dystopian harvest.

Some of the bottles are clearly recognizable, and as you toss them back you wonder, Whose nighttable did that Noxema sit on, and when? What family, after a pancake breakfast in some other decade, consigned that maple syrup bottle to a watery limbo? And, is "Miracle Power" strong enough to overcome the evil of an ancient crushed dollhead?

  

Next, we climbed up a low bluff, where Marie laid out a superb picnic: Vietnamese spring rolls, translucent wraps around bouquets of spring nibbles; pokeweed-sprout finger sandwiches; and a refreshing homemade cordial brewed from various natural elixirs gathered on her walks. And a buttery loaf cake scented with almond-y mahleb, or cherry pits. Coots and geese provided background music, along with the surf. Nearby, nestled in a dune, I found a little art installation that some previous visitor had left behind.

 

 

 

As we headed back, we found a big mushroom that Marie saved to identify later. (You don't guess with mushrooms.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I caught my Blurry Bird of the Day, a redwinged blackbird, harbinger of spring in all places marshy and reedy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we headed back up to Flatbush Avenue and ordinary life, having feasted on the foraging fringe of Brooklyn.

 

For a deep dive into Marie's beautiful matrix of New York, food, plants, life and beauty, you can buy her book 66 Square Feet: A Delicious Life, One Woman, One Terrace, 92 Recipes. And for her take on this walk, including her gorgeous photos, go here.

Porky Plateau

There was no breeze to be found on Breeze Hill when we headed up for the opening day of Smorgasburg, the oh-so-Brooklyn phenomenon of all things curated and artisanal, in Prospect Park. We had despaired of the fair's recent incarnation in the new Brooklyn Bridge Park, which we renamed "The Sun's Anvil"; it doesn't feel right to "fork over" big bucks for fancy chow and then have to eat it squatting on a dusty curb or juggle it on the hoof. With the vast acres of Prospect Park, we figured, the hungry hordes would fan out--bringing both the possibility of new audiences discovering its treasures, and pigs turning it into their personal trough.

Breeze Hill is a somewhat neglected plateau overlooking the gorgeously restored Music Grove area; in my few visits there, it has been home to dumpsters and such. It's somewhat isolated and not readily seen from outside, but the hip folks found it, following their noses to the smell of barbecue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bam! We'd barely made landfall when we encountered two manbuns and a quilt with fey young ladies weaving $10 flower crowns (an activity we deemed "very Zooey").

 

 

 

The sun beat down mercilessly, but the crowds were undeterred. Biggest draw seemed to be the "Ramen Burger." I counted 32 people waiting patiently to obtain this delicacy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The vendors are a perfect kaleidoscope of all current "new Brooklyn" obsessions: irony, meat, no meat, etc.

   

"Lawless Jerky" came in mango and curry flavors, but I opted for the classic. I am ashamed to say I paid $6 for a bag of it, but I had to reward the guy for listening to me tell him how I had a granduncle named "Lawless Loadsman." It is awfully good, but not that much better than the gas-station stuff.

As for the garbage situation, it was spiralling out of control at several locations...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...but a representative from the Prospect Park Alliance assured me that the Smorg team had been sworn to a total clean-up by day's end. (I haven't gotten over there since to verify.) These guys were trying their damnedest to keep up with the tide of cups, troughs, and plates cast off by the gourmets.

 

 

 

 

As for Where to Eat Your Stuff, the answer yesterday was: Right there. In a park of more than 500 acres, it seemed the entire crowd had jammed themselves under 3 big trees in the center of the vendors, like a herd of cows in a blazing pasture. "I guess they want to be where the action is," Spouse observed.

 

But if they'd only skibbled down a steep, uneven granite stairs to the Music Grove, they could have basked on a bench in the shade, surrounded by busts of great composers (and now, alas, overlooked by a bloating condo at the park's eastern edge).

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few folks, like these quaint corn-nibblers, did take up the option, but the glade was surprisingly empty. Park newcomers may not even realize it's there (although the Alliance was earnestly providing maps at the chief Smorg entry point).

That's a shame...because anyone who wanted to walk off their roast-pork-and-pepper sandwich (yes, I indulged in half of one from Federoff's Roast Pork) could have been here in under five minutes.

And if they'd kept going five more minutes, they could have paddled off those porky calories on the lake itself, on the fleet of new boats in bathtub-toy blue.

And if they'd walked all the way to the Grecian Shelter, as we did on our way home, they might even have snared an "inbitation" to Serenity's spooky birthday party. We declined, and headed home to digest and rehydrate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Borgasmorg on Breeze Hill!

The juggernaut that is Smorgasburg is coming to Prospect Park...to Breeze Hill, specifically. The quintessential new-Brooklyn bazaar of all things artisanal, cured, smoked, pickled, and curated will abandon its Sunday digs at the Brooklyn Bridge Park starting August 30; details here.

The family and I have a longstanding love/hate relationship with Smorg; we used to enjoy trying a few tasty noms when it was encamped in the old Tobacco Warehouse, followed by a ride on Jane's Carousel; there, at least, one could find a bit of shade while nibbling a $7 mini-slider or a $10 teeny sampler of dumplings. We'd each get one nibbly thing and split it three ways; if we really went to town, we could have easily spent $50 on lunch. Then we tried again at Brooklyn Bridge Park, but quickly retreated after trying and failing to find one of the rare seats with an umbrella. The site was "the sun's anvil" as they said in Lawrence of Arabia, and something doesn't sit right with me about paying a fortune for tasty noms and then having to eat them on the hoof, juggling paper plates and sweating bullets, or while squatting on a dusty curb. And the crowds!...like everything else in the New Brooklyn, a victim of its own success after the first blast of viral publicity.

Breeze Hill has been historically underused, despite its lovely location...I recall making my way up there a few years ago to find some gravel and sand heaps and a few dumpsters. I just hope it doesn't mean that the ways in and out will become a scorched earth of pounded-down turf and dumped containers. (Remember the bacon-fueled monstrosity that was Googa-Mooga?) And it sure would be nice if there were a few stands that served something cheap but tasty--Festivus for the Rest of Us. But that wouldn't be the New Brooklyn, would it?

Here are some ideas for the 100-plus vendors:

 

 

Cold heart, hot soup

The weather warmed to 50 after last week's "polar vortex," but the lake was a patchwork of open water and ice, swirled among the lovely little islands by its southern shore. The question is, What kind of idiot busts up and casts off an ice rescue ladder? May he (probably a he, methinks) never know what it is to need one that isn't there.

 

The phragmites and the winter-white sky lay reflected in the melting top layer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hungry from a winter walk? Stride for 5 minutes to the section of Church Avenue just south of the Parade Grounds (i.e. "our neck of the woods") and you'll find a burgeoning restaurant row: the pizzeria Wheated, a nouvelle-Southern spot called Dogwood, Am Thai, the kid-friendly cafe Lark, and now a bakery outpost of The Farm on Adderly (that star of the fragile gentrification hub a few blocks still further south on Cortelyou Road).

 

 

 

 

This newest spot, between Stratford and Westminster Roads, has no sign yet but is apparently named Nine Chains (above). There, Daughter and I enjoyed a succulent brownie, coffee, and this gorgeous beet soup with potatoes. The scant four sitting spots encourage meeting and chatting with neighbors (which happened). If spots this trendy had been common on this side of the park 28 years ago, we never would have been able to afford the Crazy Stable...and they're still too pricey for our routine patronage. But they're delightful to have nearby for the occasional treat or meet-up, and along this particular corridor (for decades, close to a retail dead zone), the most gentrification-fearing stalwart would be hard-pressed to object to good hot soup and bread, even the artisanal kind. I wish them luck.

Gold, standard

At today's Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, a soft November sun turned so much to molten gold. It was like a child's picture-book version of Thanksgiving bounty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peppers, incredibly, are still abundant, although one has to pick to avoid those with soft wrinkly cheeks; eggplant and zucchini from southern Jersey were also remarkably good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I gave the summer veg one last chance, deciding to wait on things like this golden cauliflower that peeked from its bonnet of leaves. These and the other cruciferous guys will be around a good while longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apples are still at peak. The Honeycrisp variety is more expensive, but has an extra flavor note that I think of as "gingersnap."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On hand today were Emily and Melissa Elsen, the enterprising young ladies behind Four & Twenty Blackbirds, a superb pie establishment I have haunted down near the Gowanus. Their new cookbook, The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book, looks phenomenal and has the magic instructions for making Salted Honey Pie, my current addiction. I enjoyed a wonderful conversation about all things Pie (although I stopped short of an exposition of my theory of the Pieness of Pie). and assured them that the book will shoot to the very top of my Christmas list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The backdrop for today's market was a scrim of gold, russet, and a bit of green. This tree is one of the park's brand-new youngsters, a sapling with the mighty task of replacing some of the countless trees lost to Sandy and Irene. It sheds its leaves onto the history-rich soil of Prospect Park for the very first time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE DAY

Moses is a 7-year-old English bulldog who was born in Pennsylvania. His human says Moses likes chilling on soft blankets. I would love to join him in that.

 

And flights of bacon sing thee to thy rest

Once was enough for me after last year's "Great Googa-Mooga," but Spouse was keen to go, since we had scored two of the coveted free tickets as members of the Prospect Park Alliance. And I was lured by the well-publicized "flights of bacon" in the foodie festival's central "Hamageddon" area, devoted to all things trendy and porcine.

 

 

 

Under a light rain, mostly young folks streamed onto the Nethermead, unrecognizable under its carapace of booths, stages, Port-o-Sans, fencing, and security apparatus. The mighty metal pig was back, although not a functional cooking device this year (the smoke was for show). Crowds were lighter than last year thanks to the weather--plenty, but not a crushing mob. Tent space and seating were scarce; some took shelter under the snout of the Pork Idol.

















I headed straight for the Flights of Bacon. They consisted of 7 li'l pieces from various Exquisitely Artisanal Purveyors, the sort of folks who probably grow and hew their own apple trees for smoking wood and make their own brine from reclaimed Coney Island waves. The price? $12.

 

That put me to flight.

 

 

 

 

 

However, those who did indulge attracted bacon groupies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a mere $10 I got a tasty little pulled-pork sandwich on a bun, but it was no better than supermarket Lloyd's. Spouse got 2 petite Dumont Burgers, which looked like hockey pucks but were super-rare and exquisite; under field conditions, one could almost convince oneself they were worth $5 each.

Here were two alliances I didn't want to try.

Everybody says they're great, but I'm not tempted...at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here we see some sort of tipping point, Brooklyn-wise. Into self-parody, or beyond it?

(The dark-grey knobs are presumably the snails. "Snail and Rabbit" are two words that should only go together in a children's book about two little friends who learn that varying speeds of locomotion needn't preclude a lovely friendship.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And speaking of self-parody, these two guys from Central Casting actually seem to be excited about their only-sort-of-ironic Googa-Mooga Trading Cards. Perhaps they were saying, "I'll trade you a Daniel Boulud for a Dale Talde!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

We left after licking out a tiny $5 cup of Blue Marble ice cream; the rain and beer were producing a damp, subdued Woodstock vibe among the celebrants, who had begun to huddle under blankets with their maple cotton candy and grilled oysters. My highlight was meeting some easygoing non-Brooklynites: Charlie Smith (right), the sculptor who fabricated the Mighty Metal Pig (and various things for Burning Man and the like), and his girlfriend Sweet Stuff and his buddy Hot Stuff (or so their labels said). They're from Atlanta and seemed to be enjoying the show; for the maker of an idol to Ironic Decadence, Charlie was a nice, down-to-earth guy.

UPDATE: RAIN AND WRATH

Sunday's dismal rain has prompted the cancellation of Day Two of the GGM. Meanwhile, the ongoing, acrimonious blogosphere debate over the "pimping out" of the park to the GGM promoters--including accusations of de-facto racial exclusivity and the discomfiture of green herons--has cropped up in the New York Times here. I can't vouch for the numbers being thrown around (the park's alleged $75,000 take from the event is decried as paltry), but the broader debate over the use of parks is heating up.

Color wheels

The biggest news at yesterday's Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket: peaches are two weeks early. And they're good ones. Daughter and I devoured them on the spot with juice running off our chins.  We have eaten a sack of them in 24 hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was struck by a series of vibrant color matchings in the clear June sunshine, starting with yellow and dark chocolate bouquets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blueberry and tomato must be the flag of some country where it's always summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green or yellow? The eternal dilemma for summer squash...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...as well as beans. (Solution: get both.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seduced by some grilled samples at the information booth (doled out by a young lady who admitted being a vegetarian), we picked up some kielbasa from Flying Pigs Farm for Fathers' Day breakfast (and made it fly across the arch). It was wonderful, as smoky as a campfire. As long as this exists, I will never be a vegetarian, especially since the Flying Pigs are humanely raised and happy ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE DAY

She can haz cookie. Her owners were in a hurry but said her name was Ducky. I'm not sure if she's a Bichon or a poodle but she loves sprinkles.

Ball of confusion

A forest of pale and youthful legs on the march, heading for Day 1 of "The Great GoogaMooga."

The hidden heart of Prospect Park, fenced off and submerged under a sea of the hip and hungry.

Messaging on a melon, part of a wall of fruit near the "UrBarn," an installation (visible in the background) by Pratt students and others to promote farm-to-table-ish, sustainability-ish things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was, however, mostly about the beer. A line of apocalypse-refugee proportions snaked away from a stand distributing some sort of proof that you were old enough to drink. At my age, I think my face should be my passport.

 

The "line talkers" held a variety of perky signs intended to mollify the line waiters. With music within earshot most of the time, the crowd seemed fairly mellow about it all. Spouse waited almost an hour for fried chicken, but enjoyed "Holy Ghost" during the wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a perfect spring day, the sun's intensity put shady spots at a premium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was what restaurant critics often call "an attractive young crowd." Many seemed to know one other or to have descended in groups. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the "Hamageddon" section, a heavy metal band tore it up while a whole pig rotated on a spit inside this gigantic porcine idol. You have to give the founders of this feast credit for thinking big.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was fairly painless to score a "Dirty Duck Dog" with lemon-scented sauerkraut from the Craft stand, and a plate of three "fried cheesecake bombs" from a Prospect Heights restaurant called Robert. (Dog, delicious; cheesecake fryballs, kind of like fried ice cream, weirdly compelling.) At all the concessions, the workers were cranking the gourmet chow out frantically; doing this again all day tomorrow would kill me.

By 4 p.m., lots of places were running out of their esoteric specialties. Apparently, this also happened to the folks who forked over $250 for "Extra Mooga" tickets in an ultra-exclusive enclave of foodiness. Our endurance event, at least, was free (well, $12 for two duck dogs and $6 for three cheesecake balls). Altogether, Spouse and I concluded that restaurants had much to recommend them...and that we were probably about 20 years too old to truly appreciate the event. 

 

 

 

Girding for Googa

My hip and happenin' Spouse! Through his alertness and vigor, we have secured 2 tickets to The Great Googa-Mooga Festival, a free-but-sold-out extravaganza of food and live music in Prospect Park this weekend. The line-up of chefs definitely overshadows the musical acts (including Hall & Oates, the underwhelming* headliners).

The entire affair is starting to scare me, based on its wild hype (including this reverently snarky account in the New York Times calling it part of a "gastronomic summer of love"). It sounds as if Williamsburg will uproot, like Howl's Moving Castle, overshadow the Long Meadow, and touch down. In one particularly disturbing development, we have been alerted that "Line Talkers" in purple, Barclay's-Arena-sponsored T-shirts, will be on hand to tell us about menu choices up ahead. Are those like Navajo code-talkers, only for banh mi and panini? Dear Lord, what kind of apocalyptic lines are they expecting for foie-gras donuts and duck rolls?

 

 

 

According to the event's organizers (the merry pranksters at right), "Approximately 75 food vendors, 35 brewers, 30 winemakers and 20 live music performances will be on hand to help us relish some of life’s greatest pleasures—gathering with friends and neighbors to eat, drink, talk, laugh, dance, linger and just . . . be together." Personally, I can't wait to see the prices for all these artisanal noms and craft microbeers.  

A MICRO-RANT: If I am shelling out $20 for an al-fresco lobster roll with organic endangered wildflower sprouts and a touch of lavender foam, I want to eat it at a nice table with a clean bathroom nearby, one with running water and, preferably, a set of previous users smaller and less...free-spirited...than the population of Burning Man. The whole groundlings thing, with mobbed Port-O-San visit followed by lots of hand sanitizer, just doesn't jive with the exquisite haute-cuisine picnic angle for me.

In a slightly discordant note amid all that mellow vibe, for an incredible $250, you can get exclusive "Extra Mooga" tickets, including lectures on "Molecular Mixology" and "Textures of Rhubarb," along with the chance to worship at the shrines of Ruth Reichl, Anthony Bourdain, and other luminaries and, for all I know, personally butcher a heritage pig or a fast-food executive. (No word on whether this ransoms you out of the Port-O-San scene, however.)

But I quibble. Perhaps tomorrow you will see me crowd-surfing with a sprig of cilantro hanging off my lower lip, waving a draft lager brewed from hummingbird tongues and sobering up with some shade-grown, dolphin-safe macchiato. If you failed to score tickets, let's agree on a spot near the fence, and I'll toss you over a $40 sausage or something.

'READY FOR MARTY'?

* Hall & Oates belong to a category of act that we call "Ready for Marty," in reference to Borough President Marty Markowitz's long-running series of free summer concerts featuring well-loved but often fading pop acts. Markowitz, who relishes his role as B-list impresario, once mused aloud before a concert, when a crowd member shouted a suggestion for the line-up (Kenny Loggins, if memory serves): "Yeah...he's about ready for us."