Nablus cookies (via Paterson)


I’m so old I remember “taco trucks on every corner” was supposed to sound like a threat if a lady Democrat were elected president, so I’ve been watching how Halal Guys dishing up “street meat” have broken down so much Islamophobia in NYC (my own nephew-in-law comes in from Boston to indulge). Food is always a bridge. And that’s why I feel pretty fortunate I got to finally shine some light on a farmer couple who have never tried to hide their faith. I still remember being in their tent right after October 7 and customers coming up and hugging the wife because they worried a Palestinian-American was in for some blowback. But it turns out this is not Rudy’s New York anymore. And food helped. 

Say “verde,” damn it


Not everything is terrible: I read in Edible Jersey on our liberating Ironbound outing to Newark that scallions will regenerate if you put the roots in a glass of water. And it’s true. Given that I throw out countless scallions after just cutting off the greens for cream cheese for my former consort’s bagels, I could have a whole new business, considering a bunch goes for $3 to $4 at Greenmarkets. But it’s all such a sad throwback to Covid lockdown in #trumpandemic, when everyone in isolation was growing arugula etc. on countertops. Hashtag American Amnesia… 

Cattails are edible?

One defense against collapse of world order is reorganizing your own shit. Our linen closet is now a pleasure to open. I have all my cooking and baking ingredients on turntables in cabinets now. And I’ll be able to quickly find the canned peaches when we’re in/on “The Road.” 

And the restaurant is Greek-Mexican 

My former consort and I watched Eddington the other night, and while it’s a mess, it’s a mesmerizing mess. Especially as a reminder of just how crazy lockdown was early in #Trumpandemic: Masks made everyone nuts as they were trapped at home (while essential workers kept calm and carried on). Along with the uncertainty, everyone was also packing on the L.B.s from stress-eating and boredom and lack of exercise. Which is how I got sucked into baking weekly for a free-lunch program, as a way to scratch the baking itch but not wear the consequences. Every Thursday I would churn out at least two dozen cookies to bag up and seal with “Bakers Trust” labels. I swore I would never quit until I could find someone to replace me, but after five long years I had to acknowledge: Nothing is immune from the saddest COVID-in-America rule — what didn’t kill us made us meaner. 

Daily chapatis. With cardamom.

This was an only-in-New York experience: We were walking back from the Greenmarket at Fortress Columbia on our way to our “if it’s Thursday, it must be Mama’s Too” experience when we passed a fascinating-looking couple and my former consort said: “Did you see who that was? [Former NYT editor.]” I turned fully around to gawk and a guy on a bicycle rolled up to say, “Hi, remember me?” And it was a restaurateur I have known casually for many years (and via many restaurants). 

We kept walking and he circled around in Straus Park to say “I noticed your Mamdani button and wanted to say that he’s gonna put a lot of small restaurants out of business.” I heard him out, even though that was news to me, and he did toss out a lot of numbers on front-of-house V kitchen pay, but my conclusion, probably not heard clearly, was: “So you’re in a rock-and-hard-place spot — do you vote for crooked Adams or resigned-in-disgrace Son of Mario or Curtis F. Sliwa?” (paraphrasing). 

Oh. Kay. Then when I got to our building a neighbor and the elevator guy were on the sidewalk chatting and she noticed my button and I told her what had just happened. And he jumped right in to articulate Mamdani’s position on raising pay for all workers. Which is proof that a clear message lifts all boats. 

Also, too, what I didn’t say to my restaurateur pal was: A: Wouldn’t better pay for all workers give more workers money to spend in restaurants? B: Remember when congestion pricing was gonna destroy(!) restaurants in the clogged zone? How’s that working out? 

Let ’em spurn halibut & Champagne vinaigrette

I was actually eating awesome kittybagged naan from the great-addition-to-our-neighborhood Rudraks while reading Fox in Print when I came to this line in the report on Bobby Junior traveling to Alaska to “bring his message of healthy food”: “One idea is letting people use food stamps to pay for gun shells and other hunting equipment.” And I literally had to stop chewing and just marvel: How far gone are we? But then I remembered it can always get worse in this last gasp of white supremacy. He could be prescribing gun shells as health care. Final solution, you could say. 

Brined ferret

Every weirdness is gone in 60 seconds, but the Ghouliani “crash” reminded me the fud life is truly stranger than bad fiction: Rudy’s second wife once interviewed me on the teevee and we talked kolaches. Even before he was sold as “America’s mayor.” And then their son went on to deliver Big Macs for photo stunts in the WH in Trump 1.0. We are living in a simulation…

Sayonara

Lured by a newly validated relative, I went back to the “fancy” food show again for the first time since the dispiriting “revival” after lockdown. And came away convinced that one way to track #TrumpSlump would be to measure attendance at conventions like the Specialty Food Show. Seemed quite sparse to me. & all the booths hyping international deals looked just sad with a serial bankrupt running tariffs.

One good thing I learned, though, was that caviar producers are turning all those egg-bearing fish into other products, like smoked sturgeon and smoked sturgeon paté. Which is eco- and economically smart. But I just keep hearing the drunk old at a press lunch like 30 years ago who stood up after too much Champagne in the middle of the day and started singing “caviar is virgin sturgeon.” At least that fish is not getting fucked over anymore. (And if you think too hard, you really start to shake your damn head over how all the pro-lifers will pay megabucks to consume certain eggs.) 

Sayonara, Rose Garden (and rule of law) 

We were just on an another eating expedition to the city where our consortium began and got a good lesson. Rittenhouse Square was mostly blocked off for our first two days while workers installed a tent etc. for a big, rollicking fund-raiser, but when we walked through to the farmers’ market on Saturday morning there wasn’t a trace of the ritzy venue to be seen. Which was an excellent reminder in these terrible times that it’s so much faster and easier to destroy than to build. As anyone would know who has watched a meal they’ve labored over all day be gone in 30 seconds… 

Sometimes Assassin’s Handbook is just a cocktail 

We had quite a few great eavesdropping experiences on our little getaway to the city where the consortium began. One was overhearing a guy on his phone bitching that “they line up for groceries and then turn around and sell them.” Did no one tell him this is how end-stage capitalism is designed to work? SNAP enriches farmers and grocery stores. As lobbyists intended. 

Federal jail plywooded up like a Sephora

As always, we learned more history in Phila than the Founders intended, not least from the great street signs everywhere documenting where it all began. One of two illuminating exhibitions at the African American Museum of Philadelphia was on Pearl Bailey, who, it turns out, was also a cookbook author and once attempted a cooking show on the teevee (which was not picked up). What we also learned was that even Richard Nixon had more class than the white supremacist now squatting in the house built by enslaved people. He had Bailey and her husband, Louis Bellson, perform there — and he appointed her “ambassador of love.” Clearly he was hammered, tho: Signage on the wall sez he started playing “Home on the Range” and she stopped him with “I want to sing a song, not ride a horse.” 

Posole will set off TSA alarms, tho

 I was only half-joking when I said I hoped we didn’t have to walk home from LA after setting off on a trip to the Southwest around the date Project 2025 called for the felon in chief to declare martial law. Our trip back turned out to be almost that bad, though, and I’m just glad I had “Parable of the Sower” to distract me. Things could be worse than an eight-hour delay just 18 minutes from Newark — no one was eating bodies on the runway, after all. But I’m so old I remember every airline once would provide two meals and a snack on a nonstop from LA to NYC (or EWR). In the year of our hell 2025, United passed out one .75-ounce snack packet and a (nonalcoholic) drink and then, only after we had sat on the tarmac for two hours, a packet of Biscoffs. And the Allentown airport was clearly not prepared for all the diverted business: the vending machines didn’t work. Could have been worse, though: Even first-class passengers couldn’t get extra food or drinks cuz shareholders must drink blood cuz we are living in cataclysm capitalism. Trust me: It was not just air traffic controllers who needed trauma leave after that radar outage. “Doged” is the new “fucked.”