Travel Planning: What to Do – Page 12 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Roosevelt Island

It took a lot to convince the Dr. to take the tram to Roosevelt Island with me–like a homemade lunch and dinner kind of a promise–but he finally relented one hazy Saturday. From 59th Street and Second Avenue, we boarded the tram using our Unlimited Metrocards. The tram runs on a much slower schedule on weekends, but the ride took less than fifteen minutes.

We stopped by the visitors’ center to pick up a map to help us canvas the surroundings. From there, we walked south through the park and stopped in front of the Renwick Ruins, also known as the smallpox hospital constructed in 1856 when the epidemic was responsible for a lot of deaths in New York City. (James Renwick was its architect, the same architect responsible for St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan.) Because of the highly contagious nature of the disease, the island setting was considered ideal. It was turned into a nursing school residence when they transferred the patients of the hospital to another location. Today it is the city’s only landmarked ruin, covered in ivy, gated to keep trespassers off and lit at night.

We passed the Strecker Lab next to the ruins. It served as the pathology building for the hospital. We continued our walk to the southern tip of the island where there was, surprisingly, a bed of daisies. The Manhattan skyline was hazy from there, so we turned back and walked towards the north where the view of Long Island City in Queens was more pleasant.

A working hospital now stands behind the Roosevelt Island park where we saw a lot of patients on wheelchairs enjoying the view of the Manhattan skyline. The scene was a little eerie to me because, even though they have a nice view of the city, I felt that they were still isolated from the rest of the Big Apple. Residents who are more mobile live in some of the newly-built condos on the island. If not the tram, they take the F subway to get to Manhattan.

An interesting tidbit: Roosevelt Island appears in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby as Blackwells Island when Nick and Jay drive into Manhattan via the Queensboro Bridge.

Fishing in Sheepshead Bay

I opened my eyes when the subway crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. The sky had that blue morning glow tint with the sun rising behind one of the old warehouse buildings. I wondered how many New Yorkers have not seen this sight. I checked my phone and saw that it was only 5:15am. We’ve been on the subway only since 4:50am and yet, we were already halfway towards Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn.

The Dr. had the weekend off and he really wanted to go fishing. The last time I met up with Sean and Jane in Staten Island, she mentioned that she wanted to go fishing for the first time. I told her about our last-minute trip on Friday night, and by 6:30am, the four of us were sitting together in the Brooklyn VI boat ready to fish for bluefish.

We spent the next eight and a half hours on the boat dropping our sinkers and lures and reeling in. In between boat stops to look for the perfect spot to fish–we were following the sea gulls–we would go inside the boat and nap. We bought several beers and a hamburger from the kitchen when it was time to eat lunch.

It was a beautiful day to fish. We had our sunblock on, but it wasn’t too hot to be outside the boat waiting for the fish to bite. Once in a while, someone would scream that they got something and the deckhands will go around the boat announcing that there was one aboard. There was a lot of pep talk and rah-rahs to encourage all of us to keep fishing. Even though it was Jane’s first time to fish, she caught four. The Dr. followed soon and contributed six. Sean had a few bites but none wanted to become dinner. I had one exciting moment, but I panicked that I probably helped the fish unhook itself. Before the day was over, we paid a dollar each for our fish to be cleaned. Everyone ahead of us just wanted their fish filetted. I was so horrified when I saw the deckhands dump the pail of fish heads and bones back in the ocean. These burly men have never heard of fumet! When our turn came, we asked only for our fish to be scaled and gutted out, head and bones intact.

I didn’t have beginners’ luck like Jane, but I had an awesome time hanging out on someone’s boat and thinking of our dinner prospects.

You don’t need a reservation to join the Brooklyn VI boat. Just take the Q subway to Sheepshead Bay, walk towards the water and go to Pier 6. The boat leaves every Saturday at 7am. In July, bluefish is in season, but you can also catch sea bass and porgies. It’s $45 to get on the boat and an extra $5 to rent a rod. You keep all the fish you catch. Each fish is $1 to be cleaned.

The New York Public Library Map Room

I’ve wanted to visit the library on 42nd Street ever since the map room was renovated. I finally got a chance to stop by one Saturday. Past the security guard and to your right in Room 117 is the Lionel and Princess Firyal Map Division. The entire library is already quiet, but walking in the map room is a completely different experience. It doesn’t feel stuffy inside even though the room holds some 400,000 maps and at least 16,000 atlases, books, periodicals and CDs about carthography. The New York City collection alone consists of maps from the 16th century. Maps cataloged after 1970 are all accessible via the library’s online CATNYP.

From a Henry Hope Reed book, I got the architectural details of the map room. The doorway is made of blue gray Fermosa marble from Germany while the perimeter of the floor is made of dark cream Hauteville with an inner band of Red Champlain ‘Oriental Variety’ from Vermont. The heavily-trafficked areas of the floor are made up of red Welsh quarry tiles. I have to admit that I didn’t even notice the doorway and the floor until I started reading about the room’s details because as soon as you walk in, the paneling strikes you. Eight patterns repeat in French walnut: satyrs, cherubs, lion heads, dog heads, birds, sphinxes, cornucopia and acanthus. The lowered plastered ceiling hides two east-west beams which allows for the six semi-domes around the edges of the map room. There are PL letters in gold on the domes for, what else, Public Library. The chandeliers are bronze with ornaments of acanthus, bayleaf wreaths with ribbons, bearded lions and carved scrollworks. There are shelves that hold a lot of books, but the long walnut tables dominate. The trestle tables are on pedestals decorated with the arms of the city of New York. The bases end in dolphin heads and rest on blocks of Verde Antique marble. Every little bit of detail is impressive. The librarian allowed me to take photographs as long as I kept my flash off.

The New York Public Library is open everyday except Sunday from 11am to 6pm; Tuesdays and Wednesdays until 7:30pm.

Related post/s:
Map Room photos on Flickr

Searching For a Good Taco: Staten Island

For non-New Yorkers, here’s a quick lesson about my city. New York City is made up of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and Staten Island. In my quest to eat more often outside of Manhattan, Staten Island is the least represented on this site. Although it has the most suburban feel in all of the five, it has been experiencing a large growth of Mexican immigrants in the last 12 years.

The Mexican community–documented and undocumented–have contributed to the diversity of Staten Island, especially on the north shore. Staten Island has historically been known as the “whitest” borough in New York City, but now, almost 2% of its entire population is composed of Mexicans. According to the 2000 Census, Mexicans were the second largest foreign-born group in Staten Island. Besides more affordable housing, the mighty Verrazano-Narrows Bridge helps connect the borough to Brooklyn, Long Island and New Jersey, so a lot of contractors seek out workers there to fill jobs.

I visited to seek out the best taco. I started this food project last year and it’s gotten hot enough outside to warrant a continuation of my search, so I enlisted Staten Island locals Sean and Jane, and of course, Cameron’s stomach, to help me find the best tacos in the neighborhood. I had a few stores in mind from a few Google searches, but we let them walk us to the neighborhoods where the Mexicans live and hang out to find the more authentic tacos. When available, we always bought the chorizo because it was the easiest to compare. I’ve had so many chorizo tacos in the last year and a half that I think I know a good one when I taste one. When the offal kinds were on the menu, though, I gravitated towards them since I didn’t have a lot of them the last three times I went around Manhattan.

My favorites were the longaniza and chorizo from La Conchita, the suadero from Tacos La Abuelita and the cabeza from Tulci-Mex.

Here’s the complete rundown:

1. Taqueria El Gallo Azteca, 75 Victory Blvd., 718/273.6404

We were famished when we arrived in Staten Island via the free ferry ride from downtown Manhattan. We walked past the Taco Bell and made our first stop in St. George. (Who is by the way, not a real saint, but someone who was treated like one because he bought all the land the community at the time needed.) Even though we knew we had to make room for a lot of tacos, we still ordered one apiece from El Gallo. With the semi-chewy bistek, the spicy and salty al pastor and two of the lengua, or tongue, we were off to a very good start.

2. El Campesino, 718/447.1215

The cecina taco was the best. Cecina is a traditional cut of beef in Mexico, sliced thin, salted, and then laid out to dry under the sun. It’s like their version of jerky, really. We also had the lengua, the overdone bistek and of course, the chorizo. Everything was deliciously salty which is why I love simply-prepared tacos–they bring out the Filipino in me.

3. La Mixteca Poblana, 104 Victory Blvd.

They only had the al pastor kind here which is skewered in a vertical rotisserie. Like any gyro store, it slowly spins while cooking. The meat is seasoned with adobo and sometimes pineapple or avocado. What I liked was their brown tomato sauce. It added a toastier taste to the tacos.

4. Tulci-Mex, 108 Victory Blvd., 718/720.1221

They had the most offal selection here, but no one spoke English so it was hard to get a translation. I ended up ordering the only ones familiar to me. The cabeza was a favorite, or the head, because the gelatinuous stuff melted in our mouths. We had the orejas, or the ears, which had some crunch to them. Oh, those little earlobe bones!

5. Las Jarochitos, Port Richmond, 718/876.9090

Finally, a barbacoa kind, or goat! Like any goat stew I’ve had, this one was stringy and gamey. Unfortunately, tiny sharp bones were included. They are really difficult to separate when you’re stewing a goat for several hours and everything falls apart. The cecina and the chorizo were included in our order but they took a while. Thank goodness for cold Coronas.

6. La Conchita, 244 Port Richmond, 718/448.0154

In the Philippines, we use longaniza and chorizo interchangably, but both were available here. We didn’t really care which was which because both were the best we’ve had all day even though at first look, all you can see was cilantro. They were crunchy and the tips were a little burnt, which made a lovely snack when Mexico scored a third goal against Paraguay.

7. Tacos La Abuelita, 229 Port Richmond, 718/273.4648

The tacos here were a dollar each but they had the “especiales” for $2 and $3. We didn’t ask what made them special but the dollar ones tasted good enough. We ordered the buche, or the stomach, the cueritos, or pork skin, and the suadero, which is like stewed beef with all the fat included. The buche was a little unnerving to some of us because it obviously looked like chopped up intestine. The pork skin wasn’t as cripsy as I would have liked, but the suadero reminded me of lechon paksiw without the sour taste.

The best part of this trip to Staten Island? Ralph’s ices after all those tacos!

Dutchess County

We woke up early on Saturday to catch the 9am Metro-North train from the Harlem stop up to Poughkeepsie. I bet it was a beautiful two-hour ride, but I was catching some Zs the whole ride up while the Dr. studied for his board exams next to me. In the Poughkeepsie station, we stepped out to board the Loop shuttle bus. The other six people with us all had tickets to give the bus driver–we didn’t know we had to buy a package from the station clerk. It didn’t matter, though, because two round-trip tickets cost us $52 which was the same price of two Farm Fresh Link weekend getaway packages.

Our first stop was the Plankenhorn Dairy Farm, part of the Hudson Valley Fresh Cooperative. I’ve seen their labels around the city: Think Global, Eat Local. We were welcomed by the owners in their yard. They told us about the history of their dairy farm, their prized cow, Lizzie, and how happy their cows are. When we finally met the cows, I was surprised at how big they were. I guess the cows I see on pasture are not necessarily dairy cows. I thought dairy cows just had milk in them, you know? I had no clue they all have to give birth first before they can produce milk. All of Plankenhorn’s cows are artificially inseminated by different bulls all over the country to make sure that they produce nice calves and good milk. They milk them twice a day, one in the morning and later in the afternoon, after a day of resting in the barn equipped with a giant fan and tire mattresses to keep the cows comfortable.

My favorite part was, of course, tasting the farm’s milk. The regular milk was thin and tasted so fresh, while the chocolate milk was thicker and tasted like melted chocolate ice cream. Both were good with the chocolate cookies the farmers passed around. Because they are part of a cooperative, they can’t sell their milk at the farmers’ market. But you can get Hudson Valley Fresh milk from Zabar’s in the upper west side.

Our next stop was the town of Millbrook for the farmers’ market. I didn’t want to carry fresh meats in my tote bag all day, so we left with only a jar of garlic pickles and an apple turnover. We walked to the main street and checked out one of the antique stores before we sat outside Slammin’ Salmon to eat a hearty lunch of their “garbage” Angus beef burger and haddock fish and chips. We walked around the Millbrook park and playground before we got on the shuttle again for our last stop: Barton Orchard.

The original plan was to stop at Secor Farm and pick our own strawberries. Apparently, the farm is running out of fresh strawberries because it’s been popular the last few weekends. We were dropped off Barton Orchard instead to pick cherries. I’ve never seen cherry trees before, so I was amused to see real trees. I thought cherries hang from tall bushes the way blackberries grow. So I climbed one of the trees to reach the ripe cherries on top. After we filled two buckets, we went to the store to pay for our harvest. Our eight-pound yield cost us about $23.

It was the perfect day to visit the farms upstate. We were so spent that we passed out on the train ride back home.

Take advantage of the Dutchess County Farm Fresh Weekend Getaway with Metro-North:
From Grand Central Terminal or the Harlem stop, take the Poughkeepsie train that will take you to the last stop by 10:57am. Buy the $25.75 Dutchess County package which includes the shuttle bus ticket or call 1-800-445-3131 to reserve a seat at least 48 hours ahead. Outside the Poughkeepsie train station, look for the bus labeled “Dutchess County Farm Fresh Link”. There are three stops and the driver will stay with you until he has to drop you off the train station to catch your train back to New York City.