Mermaid Parade 2011

So its not every day that ones wife and a number of her beautiful friends say to you, "We are going to get dressed up as mermaids and walk through the streets of Brooklyn in shell-covered bikinis and fluorescent wigs and we want you to come and take pictures of us." I said yes ... and while it was a little intimidating to papparazzi a group of gorgeous mermaids parading up the street and onto the beach, I was able to tough it out :)

All of the girls looked spectacular in their great mermaid costumes (which of course they made themselves) and apparently had an incredible time .. it was probably the best bachelorette party that I have seen ... having said that, I don't make it to a ton of bachelorette parties, but it still looked like a great blast.

But you can judge for yourselves, here are a bunch of the pictures from group #134 in the mermaid parade 2011 (my favorites are above the text).

Di Faras

For over a year now, when Aviva and I have talked about pizza, the conversation has turned to DiFaras, the pizza place that we were told was the best in the city. This small restaurant, located at 15th and Avenue J in Midwood, is kind of legendary. It has been written up in every New York publication imaginable, from The New York Times to Time Out New York to Zagats, and in all of them it is considered one of the purest, best examples of pizza there is. So when our friend Ilana was in town visiting from Boston, we figured dragging our fellow foodie out for a ridiculous pizza experience would be perfect. (Another example of how good the pizza was - Ilana does not often eat cheese and we ordered her slices without cheese, but when then came covered in cheese and she tried them they were so good that she had not issue wolfing the cheese down without a thought:)

Initially, we had heard about DiFaras from Koffman, and had wanted to go last year, but Dom broke his hip and the craft of pizza making there is such that only Dom, who has been running this pizza place alone or with his sons since the 1960's, makes the pizzas. He has been doing this so long that he can take the 600°C pans holding the fresh pizzas with still bubbling cheese and crust out of the ovens with his bare hands. Then, with a care that belies the layers of calluses on his palms, he shreds fresh basil onto the hot pies. Dom uses the finest ingredients, the flour, extra-virgin olive oil, San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese are all brought from Italy, and the basil is from Israel.

Now that Doms hip was healed, we finally made our pilgrimage. We got there at about 1225 and it was already mobbed, with about 40 people packed in watching Dom and one of his sons make the pies. The lucky few who had pies were greedily downing them at the few tables scattered around the restaurant. We quickly placed an order for a full pie and two pieces of the square pie. The squares came quickly, after about 10 minutes, and we found some space in the back corner and wolfed them down. But the whole pie took another hour and a half, time which we filled watching Dom make pizza and reading the many, many articles about DiFaras all over the walls. Also during this time, Koffman spent a lot of time describing how spectacular the pizza was going to be. When our pie finally came we were ravenous, and wolfed it down in about 20 minutes. And I gotta say, it was completely worth it. Fantastic pizza, perfectly greasy and cheesy, with just the right amount of spice on the top. Incredible. We ate each piece with relish, sopping the extra grease up with the crust, and then licking the pan. As you can see I am shocked and dismayed when I realize there is nothing left. However, as an added bonus, the girls next to us couldn't finish their sausage and pepper pie but didn't want to waste the extra, so we helped them out and finished it off.

After cleaning the pan, smiling at all the other satisfied customers and generally basking in the glow of the greasy deliciousness we just finished, we made our way out of the place, saying thanks to Dom on the way out. We picked up a black and white and some ruggaluch at the kosher bakery across the street, got in the car and headed back for a long walk in Prospect Park, a perfect way to settle ourselves after such an orgiastic eating experience.

My awesome friends

So I have not seen a lot of my friends recently, as things have been really, really busy for me, but one of my friends, a certain Mr. Koffman, has been far less available, so much so that I was beginning to doubt he still lived in New York. However, it turns out that he has been that busy doing something really amazing and admirable, securing funding for a cool, green (solar panels) affordable housing project in Brooklyn. You can read about it here, and this is what it will look like,

As crappy as reality seems sometimes, it is always inspiring to me when people give up as much of their time and energy as Koffman has to make something worthwhile a reality. Huge props dude.

Racquetball, finally ...

So it has been years since I have last played racquetball. Literally. I have not played since I left San Diego, but while I lived there I was playing 2 or 3 times a week. And since I moved to New York, I have been looking for for a place to play ... but had not been able to find one until recently, when I found the one New York Sports Club in the city with racquetball courts ... which happens to be in Brooklyn, right by the Belt Parkway. This is a bit far from me (not in terms of distance but in terms of time, this being New York driving 13 miles takes 45 minutes), but not too far to go for racquetball.

So last Saturday I drove through Brooklyn to pick up Koffman, and then we headed down to the Belt. The NYSC was pretty big actually, and a bit nicer than the one we have in the Bronx, and most importantly, it did have 5 racquetball courts. Oddly, the racquetball courts were not fully enclosed, there was some netting instead of plastic on the upper back wall. This wasn't such a big deal, although we did end up spending a bit of time waving at the people upstairs to pop our ball out of the netting.

So finally, after a relatively long warm-up, we got to the playing ... and the whupping. We were both pretty out of practice, and the games were a bit sloppy, but despite this, I pasted Koffman five games to none, no game particularly close. In Koffmans' defense, the games were a lot more competative than the score. And more importantly, Koffman had not played racquetball since the last millenium.

I love racquetball. I did not even know how much I had missed it.

So the games were fantastic and will need to be repeated. And soon. And after the 2 and 1/2 hours of racquetball, we were, as expected, righteously hungry ... we had planned on going to Di Faras, the incredible pizza place in Brooklyn. Because there is nothing as good a gorging on pizza after a serious workout. However, Dom, the owner of Di Faras, recently broke his hip and the place is currently closed down. So we went to another incredible pizza place nearby, called Spumoni Gardens. The place was a kind of chintzy Italian place with a separate oven area devoted only to pizza. That area was full of a half-dozen guys bustling around behind a long counter, yelling and serving some of the best thin-crust pizza I have ever eaten. We got a full pie, with sausage and mushrooms, and tided ourselves over while it was being made by splitting a piece of the ready made square pizza they had at the front. After about 15 minutes, the pie was ready and we settled in to eat.

By the time Aviva and her cousin showed up 45 minutes later, we were stuffed and there was only one piece left. They got some more of the square pizza, finished that, and we went next door for some fantastic homemade ice cream ... Koffman also got an eggplant hero to warm his nether regions. Sated and happy, we headed back to the Bronx, stopping off at the Fairway in Red Hook on the way to pick up the groceries for the week.