Sometimes you can't sleep

So you go around your neighborhood with your camera counting the bakeries...right after sunrise. I mean, that's what I do when I can't sleep. This is just on Court Street alone, I didn't even venture to Henry St, or Smith St. or Columbia. These are all within a couple blocks of each other. Gosh, I love my neighborhood! (apologies for the shaky camera...I had sleepy hands)

This is Court Pastry Shop, where Donna, who works upstairs, tells me that they have the most amazing bread in the world, and that I have to get gelato there during the summer. This is also where I got cannolis for Nick's family and the 13-year-old girl behind the counter with the thick Brooklyn accent called me honey.




This is Sweet Melissa's where they always have samples out. I have abused the samples a few times. They also look to have amazing cakes.
276 Court St. at Douglass





This is Marquet Patisserie.
221 Court St Brooklyn, NY 11201
Robin, Nick and I walked in here one day. Everything looked amazing.






This is Caputo's, which was surprisingly one of the only two bakeries open at 6am. I thought that's when bakeries were supposed to open, or earlier even.
329 Court St. (Sackett-Union Sts.), Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn

This is the last one that I had the energy to take a picture of, but I assure you, there are so many more....and who's going to try them all? Me!
I didn't even include pictures of the Italian Meat Markets/Delis and the amazing coffee place, D'Amico's.

Look what someone special got me

Flowers!!!! And they smell even better than they look. Ignore the book about steriods sitting behind them...I'm working on a doc about that.

Peanut butter and bananas!!!

Check out this hot little post at NY Mag:

On April 29 the IFC Center will screen the documentary The Burger and the King: The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley, followed by a Q&A with director James Marsh. Via interviews with Elvis’s cook, personal assistant, doctor, and the Denver restaurateurs who once delivered to his personal jet no less than 22 gigantic peanut butter, banana, and bacon sandwiches (each containing 42,000 calories), the film tells how Elvis ate fried squirrels as a kid, Sloppy Joes in junior high, creamed beef (a.k.a. Shit on a Shingle) in the army, and eventually hot dogs smuggled into the hospital. Nothing beats the big screen when it comes to watching PB&B sandwiches being fried in butter, but you can also see the whole thing on YouTube.

Yep, guess who just happens to be working with this very same director on another film? That would be me! So guess who is getting an autographed copy of this film which promises to be fascinating? Also me.

Graceland

I've been trying to scam my way into this Paul Simon retrospective at BAM, and the program that I really want to see sold out almost immediately...which is terrible, because it's the Under African Skies program and they are going to do all the songs from Graceland, which is the undisputed best album ever...so yeah, I'm working the system and trying to get tickets. For some reason just thinking about the song "Graceland" makes me want to go to Graceland and visit Elvis. It's a song about salvation and redemption and it's so good and I love it! Its a great album for someone who recently moved to NY. So many great references to NY on that album and a few songs that perfectly capture that feeling of how you can be surrounded and still be lonely sometimes.
So I have loved the album Graceland since my dad made me listen to it in the car as a kid, but my love, and I wouldn't even call it love, more like my strange interest in Elvis (and not even the man himself, mostly just the memorabilia of the man) started much later in my life.
One day in a second-hand store in Hollywood I saw an Elvis bust with a chipped nose and a bad paint job. It was $1. It was just so funny that I wanted it, and even though I was at pretty much the poorest time of my life, I forked over that $1. I was living with someone at the time, and when I decided to move out that bust and the air hockey table were the only two things we fought over. In the end I traded that $1 Elvis bust for the full-sized championship air hockey table. For me, at that point in my life, it was the right decision. Elvis was small, he was portable, and now he was mine. I moved 9 times in the next four years. Elvis went with me everywhere. Now he's a symbol, a mascot if you will...I perservered, I overcame, me and Elvis...all the way.

Since the bust has gone with me everywhere people have come to think that I really love Elvis and have given me tons of Elvis-related gifts. I have Christmas ornaments, a wine bottle holder, greeting cards, a belt buckle, a necklace, and tons of other stuff. The only Elvis thing I ever bought was that one bust.

Now I really want to go to Graceland.

The Little Things

So, if I haven't already established, I live in the awesomest neighborhood in Brooklyn. There is a bakery on every corner, and despite the fact that I know I shouldn't visit them all, I just can't help myself. Last night Robin and I went to Margaret Palca Bakes at 210 Court Street. Apparently she (Margaret) is often written up as having the best rugelach in NY. The dude there let us try them. Delicious. It really was the best I've ever had. It was moist, and a little flaky, with the perfect amount of filling.

My Heros

When I first moved to NY I dediced I needed to know what was going on all the time, so I signed up for every mailing list known to New Yorker, Thrilllist, Daily Candy, UrbanEye, even MyOpenBar. Besides just becoming part of the routine of crap I do every morning before I start my actual work, these mailing lists rarely serve to tell me anything that new or amazing. Blah, blah...this show is playing, and tickets are $200, or this designer just opened a boutique and everything is over $500...it's not that fun to read all about stuff you can't afford. Today's email from Thrilllist made all the wading through these emails for the last year totally worth it. They sent out the following email on April Fools, and it just made me so happy, I only wish it were true.

THRILLIST New York

Tuesday Apr 1, 2008

Punch in the Face

An NYC man's delivery options are nearly unlimited, from food, to pot, to governorship-ending poon. Add bitter retribution to that list, with Punch in the Face.

Thrillist - Punch in the Face" title="Thrillist - Punch in the Face" style="border: 1px solid rgb(153, 153, 153); margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 6px;" align="left" border="0" height="110" width="110">A performance piece turned alarming side-project, Punch comes from a squad of urban-agitator bike messengers who believe in two inviolable truths: people want to punch people in the face; people are cowards. Like when begging a DJ for Summer Jam tickets, you must first plead your case, by submitting a plea on Punch's web site for why the prospective punchee deserves violence, e.g., "he's always taking credit for my work" or "she never breast-fed me". If Punch finds your job worthy, challenging, and up to their peculiar sense of fair play, they'll set up a brief phone consultation (gleaning target's name/place of business/daily routine, etc), then stalk your quarry, place them in a headlock, and deliver exactly one shot to the face (if you want two punches delivered, you clearly have anger issues).

Given their project's obvious legal issues, Punch takes several precautions, e.g., they never meet clients in person, and, shockingly, they don't accept payment -- so no matter how poorly you tip your Pad Thai deliveryman, he can still afford to gift you with the sweet nosebleed of revenge.

Punch is extremely picky. See if your cause merits a beatdown at PunchInTheFaceFrom.us

When pets go wrong.

Someday you may be walking through a pet store, and see a cute, tiny little turtle who fits nicely in the palm of your hand, and you'll think...gee, that would make a good pet. Nope, no it won't. It will make a giant pet that will one day attack your father and bite part of his lip off (granted your father is one of maybe 3 people in the world who thinks that getting the turtle to take food out of his mouth is a really neat idea..but that's beside the point, it's still an animal attack).
Yeah, so, bad idea.