Brooklyn, I Love You...

When I first moved to New York, I hardly ever ventured into Brooklyn. I was such a Manhattan snob. A PJ Harvey song called, "You Said Something", changed all that. I moved out to the Wilds of New York City and fell in love. I left my heart in Brooklyn and there it remains.

Cynthia, Greg and Azalea are here for a couple of days and we're going around and having fun in the City. Today was a good day. Mostly because we stayed in Brooklyn.

Cynthia and I are crazy about scents and smells and the olfactory sense. For a long time we've been fascinated by the artistry of perfume-makers and have long sought to do it ourselves one day. We dropped in I Hate Perfume in Williamsburg to indulge in our love for all things that smell good. I Hate Perfume is the love-child of Christopher Brosius. (You have to read the manifesto and parts of his journal to understand the name.) Here you'll find the custom blends he's concocted like smoky Burning Leaves or fresh and green In the Summer Kitchen. You'll also find the accords he uses as staple ingredients in his blends, anywhere from the more traditional smells like violet or rose, to the more unusual ones like ice cream or roast beef. It was quite fun to smell my way through a store and surprising at the memories that would be conjured up simply by wafting a fragrance under my nose.

After we got out of the perfume store, we stopped in for a cool treat at Penny Licks. The prices were excellent ($1.00 cones and $2.00 Recession Specials) and the products all organic and/or vegan. I'm not vegan, but I can appreciate a good dessert when I see one! Above is a shot of Azalea with her cone that's "just the right size."

We wandered around Williamsburg for a while exploring different shops and sidewalk stands. We popped in Spuyten Duyvil Grocery to check out the beer selection, Spoonbill & Sugartown for art books, Verb Cafe for iced coffee, and the Bedford Cheese Shop across the way. The selection of chocolates, honeys, olives, and of course cheeses were all mouthwatering and ever-so-tempting. (And you can't beat those humorous descriptions!)

For dinner, we went to a different part of Brooklyn: Park Slope. We stopped in at the Chip Shop for some traditional English fare that was DELICIOUS! Above is a picture of the battered haddock (doused with malted vinegar) and chips. I washed it all down with a tasty oatmeal stout.

For dessert we dug into a treacle pudding. Oh, how I love treacle pudding! If you've never had it before, you're definitely missing out. Treacle pudding is a dense pound cake that has been drenched in a warm vanilla pudding. We took great pleasure in sopping up out spoonfuls in the velvety and creamy sauce.

Oh, Brooklyn, how I love thee... let me count the ways.

(Unfortunately Twitter has been acting up, as I've recently discovered. Otherwise you'd have enjoyed play-by-play texts from the various locations. I apologize.)