On the corner of Ditmars Boulevard and 33rd Street most days.
These folks live quite near us. We always see them out on their balcony during their off hours. They live right down the street from their cart. I often see the grandmother (maybe she’s even the great-grandmother) pushing a shopping cart filled with kebabs up to the cart to restock it.
Pregnancies, of course, are full of prenatal doctors visits, ultrasounds, and the like. For most of these my wife, Claire, took the subway into Manhattan from our home in Astoria. Her doctor was one stop in. But sometimes she had to go to the hospital she’d be delivering at, up in Washington Heights, and that meant taking a car service.
In Ditmars-Astoria, you either call a car service you like or you walk over to the elevated subway stop, where drivers tend to congregate and pick up street hails (even though legally they’re not supposed to). For anything other than airport trips we tend to get a car on the street.
By coincidence Claire ended up getting the same driver, Ahmad Roka, on a couple visits to New York–Presbyterian in Washington Heights—and on one unfortunate trip to Beth-Israel in the East Village the time I had a fainting spell and ended up there for a few days.
It must have been on that trip that Claire got his card, because when it was time to call a car for the birth, we made arrangements with Mr. Roka to pick us up early in the morning (Margot was a C-section, so we knew the date and time in advance). We thought it was fitting that the guy who had driven Margot around while she was in the womb be the one to drive us all in on the big day.
The day after Margot was born, I got a call from an unfamiliar number. I picked it up, and it was Mr. Roka, calling to wish us well—and offer to make arrangements to bring us all home. I found that small gesture unusually touching, and now when we’re out and pass impromptu car-service staging area, we always look for him. (Funny enough, we’ve only seen him there once since then. Most of the time we’ve seen him down by Ralph DeMarco Park or at some random intersection while we’re out for a walk.)
It’s just another reminder to me the kind of the community connections you make accidentally in a city like New York, just by going about your life and the of surprising moments of kindness in an otherwise busy metropolis.
Iteration No. 5 was made with less semolina flour. I believe that’s why there are more numerous “pizza bubbles.”
What’s different this time: I backed down on the amount of semolina flour in the dough. This time it’s a 3:1 ratio of AP flour to semolina flour. Still using Bob’s Red Mill SF. The change, I believe, is responsible for the “pizza bubbles,” as AP is a softer flour. The texture was softer overall yet still crisp enough to stand up with no “tip sag.” It was almost a little flakey or crackery in the way Midwestern/Chicago thin-crust can be. Read more on Famous Original A’s »
Bar Pie No. 4 has a shortened dough. I replaced the oil I normally used with Crisco, to see if it would tenderize the dough.
Tried some shortening in the crust to see if that would tenderize it a bit. Didn’t really. Still chewy. Going to try backing down on the amount of semolina flour in the dough. This one was a touch thicker than No. 3, and it has some pizza bubbles, more than I’d gotten before. I kind of like them, but docking the dough is also an option to consider. Read more on Famous Original A’s »
I’m happy with the pockmarked cheese and the sauce but feel the crust could use a little more work. Still, it’s close in appearance to Colony Grill’s bar-style pizzas.
I don’t have all that much to say about my third attempt at bar pizza (first two attempts here) except that I’m getting closer to what I want in a pizza. For visual comparison I give you my target pie: Colony Grill’s pub pizza. That’s a trio of the joint’s pies above. What follows are more pictures of Colony before I reveal my own creation. Let’s go! Read more on Famous Original A’s »
Today my coworkers surprised me with pizza-themed cupcakes. My coworker Joanna is known around the office for making elaborately decorated cupcakes based on the celebratee’s interests. Naturally I got tiny pepperoni and sausage pies.
This cross-section shows how thin this style is. I sliced it into a grid, known as “tavern cut” or “party cut.”
The best bar pizza I’ve had has been from Colony Grill (my favorite) and Star Tavern (a close second). Since I have a purported recipe for Star Tavern pizza, though, that’s what I went with as a target. (The truth is I haven’t had Star or Colony often enough or recent enough to accurately compare and judge whether my aim is true. That said, I’m not so much concerned with accurately replicating them than with making something in the bar vein that tastes amazing. That is my goal.) Read more on Famous Original A’s »
This is from last month’s month-birthday photo shoot. Somehow these shots with and without the pizza lined up almost perfectly with no manipulation. So I made an animated gif from them.
Tonight I watched the short documentary Candyman: The David Klein Story. It’s about the guy who invented Jelly Bellys. I came to it through a Talk thread on Serious Eats that got a bit contentious.
Like a lot of the people on that thread, I thought it was some kind of joke. We get a lot of numbskulls coming on SE Talk and hawking their wares. But then I Netflixed the movie, watched it, and was impressed by the tale. The story is at once joyful, melancholy, sad, infuriating, and hopeful. It starts a bit slow, but it pulls you in.
I truly think Mr. Klein is just sort of eccentric and found SE somehow and didn’t realize what he was doing was not standard practice on the site. But if you watch the movie, I think you’d come to like him and then realize how neat it is that you’ve got a pipeline connecting you to someone who invented one of the most iconic candies in the last 30 years. The INVENTOR OF JELLY BELLYS is pretty much doing an AMA in SE Talk. And that’s kinda neat when you think about it.
After my previous attempt at 60% hydration Detroit-style pizza, I did some grousing about the result on Facebook. Norma saw my complaining and gave me some advice. First, that this style really does have to be made at a higher hydration, and, second, that all-purpose flour works best. You want a lower protein count for a softer crust that she says, “almost melts in your mouth.” Anyway, tonight? SUCCESS. Read more on Famous Original A’s »