Jersey City on Two Wheels: Lincoln Park

Another (rain-free) Saturday morning to cycle about my fair city equals another installment of my series on the best places in Jersey City beyond walking distance of my apartment. (The only truly great, blog-worthy places within walking distance include the Landmark Jersey Loews Theater, and our local churrasquiera.) This time I bring you photographs from Lincoln Park, a valued patch of greenery on the West Side of Jersey City. I first stumbled upon this park on an exploratory walk one evening during my first summer here. Enamored with my discovery, I have returned frequently since then, whether on foot, on a bike, or behind the wheel of a car. And finally, now I can show someone other than Walter what a great park this really is: where joggers and cyclists circle cricket and softball players sharing the inner fields, where tennis and basketball players hit the courts early, where families stroll through the passing seasons, where birds and other wildlife find safe haven, where monuments commemorate chapters of the city's history, and where a solemn statue of a clean-shaven Abraham Lincoln presides.

Return of the Food Market!

Welcome back, Madison Square Food Market—the bane of my budget and waistline (just kidding: I really don’t expect my budget to shrink or my waistline to widen, since both are perpetually small and fluctuate rarely.) It’s been such a long winter in the Flatiron district without. Was it really back in October when I first wrote about your many culinary delights? My, how the time does fly … and this blog sucks just as much as it did then. Oh well … Evidently, the month-long fest was so popular last fall that the organizers brought it back for the spring, with the addition of a few stalls of indie handicraft manufacturers. And along with the surprise of discovering the market’s return a couple weeks ago came the inevitable dread of having to decide what to select from the many options available—and how not to eat everything at once. (Oh, how lucky am I to have an expendable income, general lack of responsibility, and absence of dire life issues. That is why I write this blog after all—so I can gloat over any readers in the Third World who may stumble upon this.)
           
At lunch on the opening day, rather than be experimental with my selection, I decided to go with a sure thing and bee-lined to the Calexico grill cart on the south side of the market. 

Calexico began a few years ago in the early days of the gourmet food-vendor scene by dishing out Cal-Mex on lunch breaks downtown. I’d read that they were turning out some of the best burritos in the city, but never could make it to their cart for lunch. But once, on a trip to Brooklyn, I managed to stop by their recently-built storefront. I had a good pair of tacos, before I became aware of the breadth and diversity of NYC taco scene. This time, however, I chose a carne asada burrito to fill me up for the day—with a dose of their trademark chipotle “crack sauce.” Now, as much as I like Americanized Mexican food and the traditional stuff, I dare not claim to be a connoisseur. I cannot even compare this burrito to one from Chipotle, or that of Dos Toros (an NYC purveyor of Mission-style burritos). But let’s stick to what I do know. Would I have liked more gauc on the burrito? Sure. But, the pressing urgency of the cart’s line did allow for me to go back and request an extra "fwop". But—was the meat both well-seasoned and well-grilled? Yes, and that counts for a lot in my book. And, the crack sauce was definitely worth the extra cost. This would be the point where I include a photograph of a burrito, but I am: a) trending away from being a food pornographer, and b) sorry to report that the awesome delicousness of said burrito did not allow me time for a photo or a spare with which to take it. Moving on …

Last Wednesday, since I had an extended lunch break, I invited my aunt to the market. Last fall, the long lines at Roberta’s had prevented me from getting personal pizza from their wood-fired oven, but now that I had someone to share with, it made sense to order a pair: the SpeckenWolf, and a Bee Sting.  We grabbed them, as well as some sodas concocted from home-made syrups, and found a seat on the lawn in Madison Square Park. A pizza fresh from the oven is something to relish, but we were both too damn hungry—so no pictures! Besides sating me, these pies also inspired me get back to my own pizza-making hobby. (Among my favorites from last summer: a “smoke & fire” pizza featuring soppressata, roasted red peppers, and a touch of liquid smoke; and a dessert-like pizza of arugula and figs with a touch of honey and balsamic vinegar.) For me, the Speckenwolf did not feature enough speck—but it did hit home on the onions and mushrooms. The spicy/sweet flavors of the Bee Sting was more to my liking, and leads me to believe that a combination of my “smoke & fire” pizza with the fig one might just work … Although I’ll probably need a damn thick crust to support all that.

Speaking of fascinating flavor combinations, I discovered more at the goat’s milk ice cream stand. After the pizza, I got a scoop of their salted caramel, which suited me perfectly since my palate enjoys salty/sweet more than spicy/sweet or even sweet/sweet. A couple days later I stopped by for a cone of the flavor my aunt had gotten: bitter chocolate mint. Where my caramel had been a punch of saltiness finished off with a potent sweetness, this ice cream possessed depth and a subtle complexity I did not think possible. Rather than tasting like traditional mint chocolate chip or Thin Mint cookies, I tasted fresh mint—not overpowering, but reminiscent of mint tea, or chewing on mint leaves while playing left field during my family’s annual wiffleball game. And the chocolate had an intricate flavor profile akin to that of a good coffee, good beer, or good wine.

And finally, I treated myself to a pair of hot dogs from Asia Dog—a restaurant that combines two NYC trends: putting Asian condiments on non-Asian food (i.e., Korean tacos), and adorning hot dogs—a sacred New York culinary icon—with a plethora of toppings that make them resemble the dogs served in that “second city,” you know, that one in the Midwest or somewhere. Anyway, I ordered a Thai-style and one with kimchi and nori (seaweed) flakes. The Thai dog (of chicken meat), came with a mango, cukes, onions, cilantro, and, of course, crush peanuts. This was the kind of heft and variety of textures that should appear in a good sandwich, or hot dog for that matter. The kimchi—fermented spicy cabbage—on my beef hot dog wasn’t as tongue-burning as I’d assumed it would be (which is both good and bad), and the nori were too few (granted, this critique comes from someone who has been known to snack on seaweed flakes.) However, I did realize two things: first, kimchi, combining a cool relish with a spicy sauce, is my ideal hot dog topping (sorry, sauerkraut and spicy mustard—we’ll always have the ball park), and second, I could probably make my own kimchi easily, and enjoy it on my hot dogs all summer long. So, the next time I blog on food, it will likely feature my experimentation with jars of fermenting cabbage and a journey in search of Korean chili powder. Bring on summer, and keep the good food coming.

     

Spending time with family in the present ... and of the past

Whenever I manage to escape the city (Jersey City, that is; I escape New York City daily, and yawp triumphantly in the PATH station every time I do.) and visit my family (besides the benevolent and bedeviling aunt and uncle I reside with), I try to split my time evenly between three simple activities: sleeping, eating, and hanging out with my sisters. Often, I manage to do all these quite well, ie. with little time for doing anything else. This was almost the case over the Easter weekend.

First, my grandfather’s insistence on serving meals both larger and more frequently than I am used to deliciously achieved my “eating” goal—and may have actually added a pound or two to my stickly frame. And second, my littlest sister’s endless enthusiasm and glee to have me home ensured hours of playing games and eating Easter candy, studying U.S. geography and checking out her award-winning project on Arizona, or just loafing around watching River Monsters—and even a Lindsey Lohan movie (one I’d never seen before—can you believe that?!). However, the first pillar of my long-weekend plan—sleep—suffered doubly from my proclivity to stay up late and my grandparents’ proclivity to rise with the sun. And amid all this, I cavorted with several young girl cousins, took a nature walk with my lone male cousin on this side of the family (whereupon he told me about all the dangerous creatures that inhabit the southwest United States—including the dreaded chupacabra, so this six-year-old definitely knows his stuff), and participated in an embarrassing Easter egg hunt for the older children (me, my eldest younger sister, and her boyfriend)—embarrassing not only in principle, but in the fact that I couldn’t manage to find a single egg on my own. All in all, pretty much what I expected and desired from such a weekend. But the most profound and enlightening experience was an enjoyable surprise.

 
After lunch one day, my grandmother and her sister sat at the dining room table, leafing through one of their mother’s decaying photo albums. Attracted by the seventy-something-year-old snapshots and an opportunity to learn my family’s history, I joined them for a lesson. The photographic collection from my mother’s mother’s family is surprisingly large, though it has not been kept in the best condition or state or organization, ie. dates and identifying captions. But, between my grandmother’s and great aunt’s recollections and the dozens of black-and-white images, I could grasp a better sense of one quarter of my family tree: a Slovak-Hungarian tribe from in and around Youngstown, Ohio. But let me share some particularly endearing and curious anecdotes from my forbears.
                                            
From one series of photographs, I discovered that my grandmother was as fond of dancing as many of her young granddaughters—and that, as a four-year-old, she eerily resembled one of those cousins. On another page, I learned that there was a penchant for nicknames back in the Thirties and Forties, including one of my grandmother’s great aunts, who went only by “Nanya”—her proper name forgotten and replaced by the word for aunt in Hungarian.

Also in this vein, I learned that the man appearing throughout in the Army uniform was called “Uncle Russian,” despite that fact that he was of Hungarian extraction. And, according to both my family’s account and a newspaper clipping, this man (who was really my grandmother's uncle, named John) became such an avid golfer after the war that he hardly ever took a break from the game for winter—and actually grew a thick beard to both protect his face on the course and to hold his tees.

 I just love these kind of stories and eccentricities, just as much as looking at the photographs themselves—viewing lives so distantly past, yet captured on paper and in memories; lives connected to my own, in ways I’m only just beginning to understand. Like that of my great-grandmother Helen, whom did I know when she was living, but who I now saw as a beaming nineteen-year-old posing with brothers and parents, with no hint of a thought in her head of the two women sitting next to me. And fortunately, those two are not satisfied with the incomplete knowledge of their family they have carried with them from childhood. Speaking about this just last night with my grandmother, she mentioned that she would be contacting some cousins of hers next time she found herself in western Pennsylvania, and might be able to elicit from them the forgotten name of her great aunt. And some of her preliminary research has proven that her father’s father (my great-great-grandfather) had already arrived in this country from Slovakia by 1910. And after she completes the genealogy of her side of the family, then it’s on to my grandfather and his Polish forbears. Oh boy, now there’s a project …

Jersey City on Two Wheels: Liberty State Park

Hello, my avid readers (and those random strangers who may have stumbled upon this site while looking for tips on arranging your own 100 monkey/100 typewriter set-up in your basement). Welcome all!  Since I have recently discovered that my digital camera does not encumber me while pedaling about my fair city, I plan to share with you some of the sights and attractions that make Jersey City just about the greatest city around. Sure, it can be rough for a place to be in the shadow of NYC and to be ridiculed as part of every Jersey joke or slur, but I’ve come to embrace all aspects of the JC: its convenience and frustrating lack thereof, its beauty and rampant ugliness, its history and modern woes. But where else would I live? Brooklyn?  Ha … haha … bwahahahahahaha!

First stop on this virtual tour, the crown jewel of Jersey City’s waterfront redevelopment: Liberty State Park (Okay, okay … any golfer would say it’s actually the adjacent country club that deserves such a designation, but that place is private and extremely exclusive, ie. I cannot shoot a round or bike there. Hence, it will never be mentioned again, and boycotted forthwith.) These photos can only provide a small sense of the wide expanse of rolling parkland and harbor vistas adjacent to those iconic New Jersey landmarks: the Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. (See what I did there? You might think those islands are part of New York State or something like that. Well, that misconception has just been corrected. BOO-YAH! Tell your friends—you’ll seem smart. Or just a snarky know-it-all. And if that’s the case, then you’re better off without those friends anyway.) Thus, the best way to experience the park is to visit yourself—preferably on a bike, and never as part of a half-marathon. Now, I’m no J. Moskowitz or M. Crenshaw when it comes to capturing gorgeous snapshots of my travels, so please bear with the results of my photographic endeavors, and (if you can) enjoy them.

from the center of the park you can see Manhattan, and ...

 ... Ellis Island, and ...

... the Statue of Liberty.

the Goldman-Sachs building in JC, with the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings in the background

the nature center

my bike and the view

the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connects Brooklyn (left) and Staten Island (right)

gulls, piers, and the port of Elizabeth, NJ

 

 

what lives in the water?

one of my favorites

and another

 a river monster?!

Brooklyn Bridge!

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

lower Manhattan

Jersey City, new and old

inside the former terminal for the Central Railroad of New Jersey

exterior of the CRRNJ building

farewell Liberty State Park

Driving Mr. McDermott (Further Adventures with Parallel Parking)

Last Monday, I went with Walter for my first drive since before Easter. Apparently, those weeks off were not kind to my driving skills or comfort behind the wheel; I’d hardly retained an iota of my parking knowledge—it was as if I’d never attempted to parallel park before. And when Walter had me park between the barrels down at Liberty State Park, if felt as if I was relearning everything I’d been taught. Now, I was stymied by over-thinking the situation: my angle of approach, speed, turning, and timing. Everything you’re supposed to consider and calculate without thinking, I tried to do by thinking—and that’s not how it works.

So, slowly and surely, I parked again and again; or else, got myself partially into the spot—stuck in ways I’d never been before. And, naturally, even when I did park successfully, I was never satisfied with the results. Of course, Walter reassured me each time that the parking job was fine—the tires were equidistant and acceptably close to the curb—but acknowledged that the process could still use some work. And if that wasn’t enough, among the dozen or so people who biked, jogged, or walked by me as I parked, one guy gave me an “Awesome!” and a thumbs-up when Walter asked him for an assessment of my parking job. And yet, I spent the majority of the lesson relearning with the barrels, building back my confidence and comfort—just in time to have it razed by practical application.

As we drove back across Jersey City to my apartment, Walter and I parallel-parked our way down a few side streets—much to the chagrin of my fellow drivers. This is the situation I have dreaded perhaps the most: embarrassing myself in front of honking, impatient drivers. Nervous and flustered, I too often rushed my approach into the spots I found. But with each successful parking job, I wanted to find a smaller and smaller spot with which to test my skills. This, however, does seem to betray the notion that I may actually possess a cool, calm, and collected pool of confidence residing in a chamber deep in the recesses of my being—a resource I seldom tap, both because I forget the route to its hidden location and because I lack any belief in its existence. This time around, let’s hope I retain this knowledge and belief better then my parallel parking skillz.