Showing posts with label peoples pop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peoples pop. Show all posts

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Marching with the Bloggers, A Broken Oven and Dinner for 15

Yesterday was gay pride here in NYC, the annual parade and celebration of the Stonewall Riots which happened 41 years ago, kick starting the LGBT movement.

Over the years I've gone from being very involved (the ACT UP days) to being totally disinterested. This year when I saw that there was going to be a gay bloggers group marching that it would be a good opportunity to meet some fellow bloggers so I had an Urbanfoodguy
t-shirt made up and off I went. Not, I have to admit, without a little bit of trepidation. I'm horribly self-conscious and oddly awkward in situations where I don't know anyone and am walking down Fifth Avenue with thousands of people all around cheering. As it turned out my anxiety was for naught, it was a friendly group of people and by the half way point I was even helping hold the banner. It was a lot of fun and I was particularly thrilled to be able to chat with Joe Jervis whose blog JoeMyGod is an inspiration to me and a daily read in our house.

The gay rugby team walked in front of us.

The scene below the Empire State building.

Joe Jervis.
Christopher street.


There is a great missed food opportunity here, at the end of the parade everyone is thirsty and peckish, but there isn't really any good food. Sure there are the usual street vendors selling water, ice cream and mystery meat, but it seems to me to be a perfect opportunity to have some more interesting, local foods, like maybe: People's Pops or a MIL Kimchee and Cheese Curd Sandwiches on Ciabatta from Saxelby Cheese or maybe a little Porcetta on a bun or a Lukes Lobster Roll? At the very least couldn't we have interesting, humanely raised, local, farmed meat sausages and hot dogs from the Meat Hook? Just a thought.

So after my exhilarating walk down Fifth Avenue I got home and was busily doing all the last minute preparations when I turn the oven on to toast some sesame seeds, about 5 minutes later I check the temperature on the stove and see it's not getting hotter. I wait and I wait only to come to the panicked realized that our fancy ass Bosch stove is broken.

Excuse me while I sound my age and go on a brief rant about built in obsolescence.

Never in my life have I ever lived anywhere or heard of anyone who stove broke. Our neighbors who saved the day by letting me use their stove have the original basic non electric, small, cheap stove that the unit came with and was installed in 1959, it works just fine, it doesn't have n interior light or even something that tells you the temperature, but you know what? It works and works and continues to work because it's not dependent on anything other than the gas connection and the pilot light to work. So my recommendation to any of you out there who think you want to get the fancy ass stove with all the bells, whistles, computerized electric doo hingy's? Don't waste your money, buy an non computerized basic stove.

OK thanks for putting up with that.

All in all it was a great day and I have two new recipes to post, a spinach pizza that is all creamy bechamel and local cheesey melted goodness and a sour cherry crumble that's served with chocolate sauce! Yummy.

Friday, July 31, 2009

People's Pops


On a totally unrelated note, last night Neil and I went to see Grace Jones at the Hammerstein Ballroom here in NYC. She is 60 and as fierce and fabulous as ever! If she performs near where you live go see her! She's amazing.

OK, back to food.

A while back I read on Tasting Table about these intrepid entrepreneurs who were making gourmet popsicles and selling them at the booths in Fort Greene, Dumbo and Battery Park called People's Pops. They have a very amusing blog where they say they are community supported, which I am going to interpret as lots of friends help out.

The People's Pops folk are just another in the long list of clever, talented and indefatigable food artists who are making artisanal products and bringing them to market on their own. Brooklyn has become such a hot bed of creativity and ingenuity, especially around food. It's very exciting and suggests to me a move away from corporate prepackaged corn syrup treats that these same people were probably brought up on. This food revolution will be...frozen!

I'm going to write these folks and find out when and where in town I can find them and will report back.

They also will deliver to your home or office if you order 15 pops a week or 10 pops biweekly, you can go to their blog for more info or just write them at: peoplespops@gmail.com

This is such a fun whimsical idea, I just love it and the flavors all sound great, a wonderful mix of childhood memory and adult sophistication, oh and did I mention they also do ices? Here's their flavor list:


Popsicles

Sugar Plum and Tarragon
Roasted Peaches and Organic Cream
Sweet Blueberry & Cardamom

Shave Ice

Organic Lemon
Organic Lemon with Ginger
Organic Basil & Thyme

Not sure why, but I keep wanting to add a "d" to the word "shave" so it reads Shaved Ice...? Anyway that's how they want it and they should know!

Finally, here is a recipe for Blueberries and Cream Pops. On Wednesday when I was at the market they had a sale on blueberries 3 boxes for 10 bucks!

Blueberries-and-Cream Pops

Recipe adapted from People’s Pops. Makes about 40 Popsicles and generously provided by the folks at Tasting Table

3 cups water
3 cups sugar
4 bags of black tea
8 pints fresh blueberries, washed in cold water
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup organic heavy cream
Popsicles molds or paper cups
Popsicle sticks

1. Make the tea-infused simple syrup: In a saucepan, bring the water and sugar to a boil
and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the tea bags, remove fom the heat and let steep
for 4 minutes. Remove the tea bags and discard; let the syrup cool to room
temperature.

2. Puree the blueberries in a blender and immediately stir in the tea-infused syrup and
lemon juice. (The mixture will be very sweet, which will later be tempered by
freezing.) Stir in the heavy cream and pour the mixture into molds or paper cups that
have been outfitted with Popsicle sticks.

Freeze overnight, remove from the molds and serve.



 
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