Oil Can

A four year sabbatical from writing news or feature style articles will make a lady pretty rusty.

Eating Greenpoint: Peter Pan Doughnuts and Pastries

It's a shame that for the last four years, anytime someone mentions Peter Pan I think of this and not this. But now, thanks to a long walk down Manhattan Ave, when someone mentions the boy in tights who won't grow up, I can think about Bavarian creme and hyperglycemia.

The window at Peter Pan Doughnuts and Pastries works hard to pull you in. Early on a Sunday morning, the racks are stacked full with donuts, twists and muffins of all varieties.



The case also happens to espouse Miss Stacia's mantra about eating, in general:



When I passed the glass this morning, the shelves were due for a refill, but there were still plenty of appealing options calling out to me. I took out my camera to capture a few shots of the fried dough, slathered in glaze, dipped in chocolate and garnished with enough toppings to appease Michael Scott on pretzel day, when a woman stopped in front of me, looking confused.

"Are you taking pictures of the donuts?" she asked.

"Why, yes I am." Is that not normal?


The donut I ended up selecting for myself was the same one I eyed the very first time I passed the bakery - a chocolate glazed number with a generous dollop of custard in the middle and half a spoonful of jelly crowning the whole affair. Put a tri-color cookie on top of this sucker and it's everything I've ever wanted out of life in a four-inch circle.


You are my destiny

I brought this baby back to my apartment and consumed it in between sips of Earl Grey tea, an attempt to balance this disc of sin with something prim and proper. Seven bites later I felt ready to explode. Seven hours later I'm ready for another.

Before the Dunkin Donuts franchise overextended itself - promising the delivery of stale, underglazed donuts at every location - I was a regular consumer, mainly of the marble frosted and Boston creme varieties. And nothing excited me more than the day I got to taste the Doughnut Plant donut that beat Bobby Flay. (Their signature tres leches cake donut is kind of worth it, but their yeast peanut butter and jelly one is better.) I even seriously considered making zeppoli after watching Giada Di Laurentis - who I usually can't stand - coat a batch of her homemade donut holes with powdered sugar on The Food Network.

The point is, I have eaten a lot of freaking donuts in my day. I am a qualified judge and can vouch for the validity of the following information regarding the Peter Pan donut I housed this afternoon:

Superlative this donut won in high school:
Best Dressed

5 Adjectives this donut would use to describe itself:
Sweeeeeet, Loaded, Airy, Decadent, (Fucking) Badass

Warning: Consumption of this donut may result in side effects including:
Heartburn. Sugar high. Sleep deprivation. Sunday Morning Pastry Addiction.

Peter Pan Doughnuts, I give you my hearty endorsement, but to the future consumers of your lightly fried, heavily iced wares I do advise: Proceed with caution.

Eating Greenpoint: An Introduction

So glad I got the Diet Coke

There's never been a time when I've doubted my devotion to potato and cheese-filled dough, eight-inch long sausages, or meat-stuffed anything, but my obsession with hearty Eastern European cooking has reached new gut-busting proportions since my move to Greenpoint two months ago. I now live on the cusp of Brooklyn's largest Polish-American community, which means I can pull up a chair in one of twenty homestyle, pierogi-slinging restaurants before you can figure out how to pronounce "Żywiec." (Zhi-vee-ets.)

It's not my fault nothing gets me hotter than a potato pancake or a big kielbasa. Most of my grandparents originally came from Poland, so the Polish Comfort Food Fever is most likely a genetic condition. Whatever the case, I seriously can't get enough of the stuff, and my buttocks are slowly becoming as round and full as stuffed cabbages.

My latest obsession is red borchst with dumplings (pronounced more like "barchst" according to a Polish acquaintance of mine), something I had only tried once before moving to the new hood. I've been sampling the RBwD in just about every Polish eatery I've wandered into, and it's a dish that has changes very little from place to place. A super thin broth, that's deep magenta in color, served piping hot with three to five meat tortellini that often soak up the color of the liquid bed in which they bobble. The purple color of the borscht, for those who don't know Polish food, comes from the beet, which is the main flavoring for this soup, though I believe other vegetables and seasonings are used in the cooking, and then strained out before serving. Either way, the resultant flavor is warm and rich with just a touch of sweet spice to it. The earthy meat of the dumpling is a perfect contrast to the sharp flavor of the broth and is a nice change from the often over-flavored ground meat of Italian cuisine. Overall, the soup is simple and tasty - a reason to look forward to cold sleety days.

As I continue to eat my way through my neighborhood I plan to report on Polish food and other neighborhood delicacies, so stay tuned. In my recent experience I've found a restaurant's decor and vibe can really intensify the enjoyment factor of the eating experience (for example, the picture above was taken at a place called King's Feast, a restaurant that has two full suits of armor guarding the front door, and a soundtrack of Polish, 90's-style dance jams playing on full blast at 3 in the afternoon), so I will try to capture images of the defining environmental details when I can. And when I get through the easy staples and move on to pig's knuckles, you better believe I'm reporting it here. If I make it back alive.

But for now I will leave you because it's starting to snow, and I have to go dream of the dark pink soup I will consume as a result.

Mixed Messages

My Hot Saturday Night

It's 8pm on a particularly mellow Saturday night when I take my book to my favorite Greenpoint polish spot - my sanctuary - and prepare to relax, uninterrupted. I order red borscht with dumplings, the kielbasa and white sausage plate and a big bottle of Lech premium brew, and proceed to eat a long, slow meal, alternately turning the pages of my book and carving my meat into bite size pieces. Forty-five minutes later my is table is clear but for a half-empty beer glass, and I recline cross-legged, engrossed in my novel.

This book of mine is my first-ever Danielle Steel novel (which I am reading for a writing project, I swear), and it has proved an unbearable assignment. I am just beginning to hit my stride when I look up to see the waitress holding a second enormous beer bottle and a fresh, tall glass. "From the gentlemen at the bar," she tells me. I know well enough to be nervous. Slowly I turn my attention to the banquette in fear, curiosity, and to reluctantly give thanks.

My benefactor is grey-haired and probably sixty years old, smiling sheepishly from his stool. "Of course," I think to myself. "Who else takes themselves out to dinner on a Saturday night? Little Miss Stacia and desperate old men." This is a harsh and probably inaccurate appraisal, but the truth is, I have been approached many times by much older men while dining alone, especially on weekend nights when twenty-five year-olds who are expected to be out doing exciting and irresponsible things with their young lives must seem like easy prey. Here I am, gorging myself on pickled cabbage, reading romance novels like I'm eighty-seven. I am probably asking for it.

The grey-haired man beckons me over. His alcoholic donation makes me feel guilty enough to oblige. He tells me his name is Kazimir, but that I should call him "Kaz." Kaz tells me he moved from Poland to the United States twenty years ago and that he hasn't been back to Poland since. He tells me his mother still lives there and won't come visit him in the States because he's without a wife and kids. His quick declaration of singlehood signals to me early on that I'm in trouble, but for a while our conversation passes without incident. He asks me what I'm reading. I show him "Passion's Promise" and tell him how shocked my grandmother was to hear I'd never read one of Steel's novels before. I'm not sure how much of this Kaz understands, as his English is a bit shoddy, but he tells me his mother reads Danielle Steel in Poland and his sister reads her in Canada. "Everyone around the world reads this," he tells me. Then he holds the book up in prayer position between his two flat palms and says, "Whatever is in this book, it is life." This man has obviously never read any Danielle Steel. I am also hoping for his own sake, he's drunk.

"What are you doing this Friday night?" he asks me. "You will be here, no? "I'm having a birthday party here, Friday night, and you will come." It is time for me to get the check.

I ask the waitress to total me up, but Kaz has insisted he will pay. I just want to go home. Kaz won't accept that I'm not coming to his birthday party on Friday. He tells the waitress, apparently a friend of his, that he has "a situation," and that she should talk to me "like girls talk," about coming to his soiree. "I think I'm the one that has the situation," I tell her.

I thank Kaz for the drink and for dinner and wish him a happy birthday. He gets up from his stool to help me into my coat. On my way out the door I shake off the shadow of unwelcome advance, tuck my romance novel into my bag, and for the first time understand why women have ever wanted to read the damn things in the first place.

Free Cal

I just looked at my G Cal (Google Calendar - the means by which I run my life), and was shocked to find blank square after blank square of unplanned days, evenings and weekends in January. In fact, my calendar is completely empty for all of 2008. As of this moment I have zero future commitments (birthdays, holidays and other recurring events aside), and I can't remember another time in my life where I felt so liberated from extra work duties, family functions, and social obligations. This year's new year's resolution: Spontaneity!

Now who wants to make some plans?

A Mother's Resolutions For Her Daughter

1. Wear your retainers/rainboots/snowboots/hat/gloves/new thing instead of the same old thing.
2. J Date/ 8 Minute J Date/Attend temple singles parties.
3. If you're going to go to Dunkin Donuts, use a coupon. Here, it's two-for-one.
4. Listen to your mother.