Savvy New Yorkers get the ingredients from the kimchee stall in the Farmer’s Market in Union Square, which is where, in 2019 when I was last in the Big Apple, dedicated foodies go for their Saturday fix. Which is how I acquired New York kimchee know-how by hanging around and asking questions while sketching the market-traders and their customers. As an interview technique, works every time. Additional information: no need to keep it in the fridge - just stick it out on the window-sill in the freezing winter air. Why wouldn’t you?
Which was also when my two New York granddaughters (late-teens at the time) decided their granny was in urgent need of an update on what and where to eat in New York. Get with the programme, gran.
We started, grandaughters and gran, with an overview of multi-cultural snacking at UrbanSpace, a food-court in an industrial railway-siding alongside Grand Central Station for katsuo-chicken tortilla-wrap (Mexico goes to Japan) ordered at the counter and eaten in a hurry at wooden tables shoulder-to-shoulder with fashionable Manhattan office-workers, also in a hurry (it’s catching).
Breakfast fortification acquired at Abraço in anticipation of Union Square’s Saturday market, always a challenge, for strong Portuguese coffee and a thick slice of ginger cake or olive-oil madeira* still warm from the oven. Why wouldn’t you?
It’s not beans and greens. Vegetarians were heading at the time (still are) for uber-glamorous, all-white, chandelier-lit abcV, star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s diffusion line (you can buy the whole kit - chairs, tables, lifestyle just round the corner). Anyone for roasted whole cauli with lemon tahini and pomegranite; roasted heirloom carrots with chilli and nibbed almonds; fermented lentil-flour dhosa with spiced yoghourt; beetroot seviche with capers and toasted seeds; coconut panacotta with berries. Perfection. I’ve never looked at a cauliflower the same way again.
Er…that’s it, folks!
*Beloved paid-subscribers (you know who you are!) will shortly be in receipt of a recipe for the perfect olive-oil madeira cake.
What fun you had. I do miss Union Sq Market. Bought the best bestest honey I've ever had there one summer day. From up-state NY. Now there is kimchi. Inspired drawings...
This is PERFECT! Exactly what I needed these days that I get tender cabbage and cabbage leaves from my neighbors broccoli!!!