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Barnes & Noble Tribeca

Essex Market and Porchetta, with a bonus screed

What to do on a blustery fall Wednesday? Drink coffee, eat lunch, and see a movie, of course.
First stop: Rainbo's Muffins in the Essex Market for a kitchen-sink muffin. Who knew that mango, raisins, walnuts, and banana could share the same muffin without conflict? I go out of my way to come here once in a while, and every time I do I am reminded of the lame state of NYC's markets.
Compare the Essex Market, Union Square Greenmarket, or any other market in NYC with the Jean Talon Market in Montreal or the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia and you wonder what the local market organizers are thinking. For those of us who aren't interested in cooking - I daresay a big chunk of New Yorkers - these markets hold very little appeal. I want a market I can eat at, one where I can grab lunch or graze or stuff my face with sweets or baked goods. Compare the prepared food options at Essex or Union Square to Jean Talon or Reading Terminal, and it's joke. At Essex, you can buy cheese, fruit, or prepared sushi - whoopee! The Paradou sandwich shop there was closed today (permanently?) so forget that option. Shopsin's? Even if you want to give your business to someone who doesn't seem to understand that the merchant serves the buyer - not the other way around - it's a sit-down restaurant, which violates the spirit of market eating.
The Union Square market is great is you're a locavore-loving chef; otherwise, it's just a parking lot full of tourists and mediocre baked goods.
Another thing about the Essex Market that burns me: It's closed on Sunday's. Give me a break. How can you be a serious market and be closed on Sundays - one of two days of the week that most people have the time for leisurely eating or shopping?

Porky pork


No, I didn't eat the whole thing. This is a porchetta, and it's what is served at the Porchetta sandwich shop on 7th St. near 1st Ave. If you like porky-tasting pork larded with moist fat and studded with crisp skin, you'll go for this place. Check out this post on Serious Eats, which has everything you'd ever want to know about this place.
Down 7th St., at 1st Ave., is Abraco coffee nook, which like Porchetta has been blogged about within an inch of its life. The cortado was fine, the drip coffee strong, and the folks who run the place cool.
The movie? Never made it. Buzzed on caffeine and chilled from the hawk, I figured I had done enough for one day to justify an afternoon on the couch.

First try

So I figure at some point I'm going to want to blog. Maybe it will be private, maybe for public consumption. I'm not even sure what I want to blog about, but - what the hell? - I figure I can just mess around here and see how it goes.