Shop & Eat in Boston: 5 Randoms

popcorn in the underground - cute!

The week before our Boston trip, I was so swamped with work and pulling together the MacDella Cooper Foundation’s annual gala that I had no time to Google and yelp the city. Maybe my lack of direction was for the better — we wandered around with open eyes, observant of Boston’s cute quirks, like its self-compacting street trash cans and popcorn stands in the underground T (subway) stations. Landmarks are lovely, but in the end, isn’t a city all about its details?

If you were going to Boston on a budget, here are 5 lesser-known stores and shops I’d tell you to pop into:

1. Bodega (6 Clearway St.)

Sammy outside Bodega

Someone must do a marketing analysis of how this store is a viable business. I guess it proves what Sammy always refers to as “the Tipping Point” –- Malcolm Gladwell’s term for things that rise in popularity, simply due to word of mouth. The façade is a modest bodega on a side street, its windows filled with faded toilet paper rolls and laundry detergent bottles. Go inside and it still looks like a bodega, except then a secret door opens and leads you into a hip sneaker store! Even the web site is mysterious: www.bdgastore.com.

2. The Other Side Cafe (407 Newbury St.)

This cafe is staffed by struggling musicians, who are well-tattooed, spike the coffee with alcohol, and make a mean bowl of yogurt, fruit, and granola. Just look at the masterpiece one of them created for me! I watched him carefully slice and dice the fruit from our seats on the second floor, which overlooked the kitchen. The menu is known for its healthy, vegan options.

3. Johnny Cupcakes

First heard of Johnny Cupcakes when Katy Perry endorsed it as one of her favorite places to shop in LA, but come to find out, he’s based in Boston! Johnny Cupcakes has a fascinating story — he started his brand of screen-printed t-shirts, marked with cupcakes and bones, as a joke. The store is set up like a mock bakery — the t-shirts are encased like desserts. The clothes are pricey ($30-60 for a shirt) but go to counter and look for the $1 pins in cupcake tins so you can add a little Johnny to your life. I bought the “make cupcakes NOT WAR” pin.

4. Anna’s Taqueria

Our Boston native friend Diana recommended this spot for the best burritos ever, and I think she was right. Go for a good cheap eat ($4 per burrito and 75 cents for guac).

5. When Pigs Fly

We talked up the boy behind the counter to get free samples of the old-world style artisan bread here. Stop in after Anna’s (it’s on Beacon St. in Brookline) and try Mango, Pineapple, Raisin, with Toasted Sesame and Ginger bread. Carbs with a kick of citrus — delicious.

Wanderlust in Boston: Part I

Wanderlust goes to Boston! I’m blogging all this week about my weekend in Boston with Sammy and Lauren, starting with how Boston cream pie is a dessert gone extinct. Sammy and I were on a touristy quest to eat Boston cream pie in Boston, and we figured we’d find it encased at every bakery and diner, much like you would see New York Cheesecake in New York. Well, we were wrong. Not even the New England grocer Shaw’s carried it!

Boston cream pie: the most evasive dessert in Boston

So what is so Boston about this cream pie anyways, I wondered? It’s actually a misnomer because it looks like a cake (it was probably named as such because colonists baked pies in cake tins). The pie became popularized after a New York newspaper printed the recipe in 1855 – it consists of two layers of sponge cake, sandwiched together with creme, and topped with chocolate. Maybe someday I’ll bake it.

Minus this letdown, I found Boston to be a beautiful city of other sweet surprises and charm…more to come!

NY Cares Day: Meet Alfred

I forgot how fun it is to paint, especially when you’re bringing cartoony characters to life on the blah walls of an elementary school cafeteria. This Saturday, Leah and I painted murals at PS84, an arts school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for NY Cares Day. 8,000 New Yorkers came out to spruce up schools around the city. There was a huge team effort at PS84, led by my wonderful co-worker Gloria and her boyfriend, Sam. Leah and I can take credit for bringing this creature to life - I surmise he was a cross between a goose and a moose? We declared him Alfred.

Alfred, keeping watch over the lunchroom

To get involved with NY Cares, click here for Upcoming Events. I bet you’ll be surprised at the variety of opportunities that exist. Next weekend, if you’re free and feeling festive, you can even guide kids through a “haunted” walk at Prospect Park.

So go out and volunteer! It’s even more fun when you’re not doing it for the sake of your college applications.

Brooklyn Fall Festival: The Prequel

In my last post, you read how Sammy and I took on Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood for cheap fall fun. The New York Times may have written about “Frugal New York” this weekend, but that’s how we live every weekend…NYC is an insanely expensive city, but free stuff is all around you. Take for instance Union Square on Saturday morning, where we met up before hopping on the F train to Carrol St.

1) Free Fashion Advice at the Union Square Green Market.

were they for real?

Two women who claimed to be stylists were giving free fashion advice to anyone who lined up at their booth. Sammy and I eavesdropped and tried to ask them the business rationale for setting up here — was this for a TV show? A book proposal? a web site? A magazine prank? (Yours truly used to do that for JANE magazine…remember the infamous street spa in Times Square for the March 2006 issue?). They avoided non-style questions and only gave out a paper with this web site, which looks pretty hokey…plus, these bloggers caught some cameramen hanging around the girls, so I’m betting it’s candid camera for a reality show. Another reason to love NY: Where else can you get locally grown produce and good, free fashion advice in one place?

2) Free Mini Crumbs Cupcakes!

You know it’s your lucky day when a woman stands on the street corner with a pink baker’s hat serving free mini Crumbs cupcakes, of the M&M, Oreo, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup variety. This plate was cleared in less than a minute!

cupcakes are bliss

See, freebies abound you when you have wanderlust and open eyes.

Fall Festival @ Brooklyn’s The Yard

butternut squash soup, mm mm good

You may have noticed my beloved New York Times chose “Frugal New York” as its main travel feature this weekend. Had I written the article, I wouldn’t have considered a $29 burger & beer meal at the Parker Meredian ”frugal” traveling (instead, try beer with FREE pizza at the Crocodile Lounge on 14th St.!). But whatev, that’s why you have Rachel and I to share all the cheap secrets with you.

On Saturday, our friend Sammy (of awkwardiswawesome.com) and I took a tip from Time Out New York and checked out Brooklyn’s fall festival at the Yard. It was a benefit for Just Food, a non-profit that aims to develop a sustainable food system in New York City. Admission was only $12…kids 5 and under were free, which explained the stroller derby, but hey, they gave us something to awwwwat. The event also attracted twentysomething Brooklyn hipsters, who sat on bales of hay and sipped their seasonal beers.

For $4, we snacked on honeycrisp apples from upstate New York and each devoured the creamiest bowl of butternut squash soup we’ve ever had.

But what we REALLY wanted was pumpkin pie. How can you celebrate fall without it? With none to be found at the Yard, we walked back to the Carrol St. subway stop (take the F from Manhattan) and from there, wandered down Smith St. It was less congested than Manhattan and tourist-free, lined with trendy clothing boutiques and cozy restaurants representing all types of cuisines, from Latin to Indian and Thai. I spotted the Fall Cafe and our eyes lit up — they must have pumpkin pie, right? Wrong. The wanderlust-deprived dude running shop couldn’t even tell us where there would be a nearby bakery! Ah well, the cafe still had a nice, intellectual vibe, making you want to pen your novel or read The New York Times there. 

Second try: a French bakery, where they didn’t seem familiar with the glory that is pumpkin pie, but they tried to sell us on a porcupine ball of chocolate mousse (yes, the chocolate ball had quills…do the French eat that?). No thank you. Pumpkin pie and pumpkin pie only.

my my miss American pie

We were almost ready to give up, taking our hunt just one block further. Sammy spotted a graphic novel shop and suggested we browse, but then she grabbed my arm and started pulling me in the opposite direction — she’d spotted a beacon of hope: a Met Foods grocery store. And there, right by the deli, we found the selection of packaged Entemanns’ desserts…which included, lo and behold, a pumpkin pie for $5.49. Score, third time’s a charm.

We left Met with our pie, realizing we had no “cutlery,” as Sammy put it. So we revisit our French bakery buddies. We showed them our pie, flashed bright smiles, and asked if they knew where we could find some plastic knives and forks with which to enjoy it. They gave us some and assured us that they’ll be carrying pumpkin pie by the end of October.

Mission accomplished, we met up with our LES friend Leah at the Gowanus Yacht Club and Beer Garden, which wasn’t the least bit as pretentious as it sounds…it felt like hanging out in someone’s backyard at a barbecue. Lights were strung overhead, a Tom Petty CD played, and the menu of beer, hot dogs, and burgers is chalked on hanging boards (even the bathrooms have chalkboards encouraging you to be a graffiti artist). It was so laid-back, even a beagle sat on a bar stool to order. Hey, come to think of it, Matt Gross, the New York Times’ Frugal Traveler, is from Brooklyn. Wonder if he’s been?

Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

Mmmm fall foods… I’m thinking toasted pumpkin bread, hot apple cider, stacks of Saturday morning pancakes. I had never realized how much autumn treats are associated with warmth, until I stopped by Shake Shack this week. On Sunday, I had my first taste of warm comfort food transformed into creamy, chilly custard when I ordered Shiraz poached pear. It must have been really good, because I was back on Monday night to order custard mixed with pumpkin pie. But I got distracted by the flavor of the day, pumpkin spice. Going for customization, I mixed it with spice bread and roasted apples in a gift to New York called the concrete. It was like Thanksgiving turned into a 4th of July ice cream cone—my brain and taste buds were slightly confused at first, but then gave in and savored. Now I just have to work my way through the whole list. It’s a tough job, but luckily I live in the neighborhood and am conditioned for rigorous testing. And I hear the heat lamps are coming out soon…

M: Pumpkin Spice
T: German Chocolate
W: Apple Rosemary
Th: Pancake
F: Chocolate Candy Corn
S: Cinnamon Roasted Fig
S: Shiraz Poached Pear

Walk like a Drusian (or at least, eat like one).

I had actually already eaten dinner when I passed Gazala Place on Ninth Ave. I was actually strolling along with my vegan tofu soft serve from Kyotofu, ambling slowly enough to eat and walk at the same time. So the New York Times article posted in the window was the perfect reason to stop, and then convince me that I needed a snack.

And I’m glad I did. Gazala Place specializes in Drusian food, the cuisine of a religious tribe in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. The regional influence is there (hummus, grape leaves, etc.) but there are also some dishes I’ve never tried, like burekas, big fluffy phyllo pastries stuffed with goat cheese and roasted peppers. I picked two up, along with some hummus. They were good enough that I had to introduce Tammy to Drusian food the very next night.

Go Drusian. It’s just enough off the Mediterranean beaten path that you’ll feel cool, while still being familiar enough for cautious eaters. And you can add a new ‘Have you ever…’ to your ethnic food list. Betcha no one else you know has gone Drusian.

unidentifiable but delicious Drusian food

Why We Love Wanderlust

Eric Anthamatten, we couldn’t have written it better ourselves:

EMERGING from the bowels of the city in an unfamiliar neighborhood, you climb the subway steps, your pupils dilating as the sunlight strikes them, your ears adjusting to unfamiliar sounds.

Once you reach the street, you survey the intersection, squinting as you peer down each block in turn, trying to make out the name on the street signs. Your eyes scan the skyline for some recognizable tower.

Finally, you decide to walk: “This way?” You go for a few blocks, unsure, your senses on the alert. In this fog of momentary disorientation, you are nonetheless aware of various clues: a whiff of halal spices, both foreign and familiar; a heated conversation in Polish in your left ear; a taxi driver cursing in Caribbean Spanish in your right.

You’ve got to read the rest of this essay by Anthamatten, a New School grad student, in Sunday’s New York Times. He argues how GPS systems in cabs and handheld devices defeat wanderlust, which is what our blog is all about — the culture and hidden gems you discover when you’re on no particular course or make a wrong turn. Read it and be inspired to get lost, because as the deck for the article says: “If you always know where you are, you may never discover who you are.”

Welcome to Doodletown

Last weekend, Rachel, five friends, and I went “glamping” in Bear Mountain, NY, about an hour outside of Manhattan. “Glamping,” a term I first saw in The New York Times, is what we call “glamorous camping” — i.e. there are public restrooms with toilet paper nearby, you can park a car near the campsite, and the boys do the hard labor, like pitching the tent. Of course, we went glamping in the rain, which is sort of an oxymoron, but we had a fabulous time and coined our own term, “damping,” for camping in the rain. It’s totally underrated.

On Saturday, we hiked the Doodletown trail. Rachel told us it was a ghost town and I envisioned dilapidated homes and buildings, wild, wild, West-style. (What was I to expect? Did I mention this was my first camping trip ever?) Well, Doodletown literally is a ghost town — the former buildings are invisible, long demolished in the 1960s. As we walked the trail, there would be signs indicating that we stood before the former Doodletown church, or school, or cemetery. It did feel a little haunted, but there were no ghosts — only a BIG BLACK BEAR. Meriko was the first to spot this creature, which would have potentially mauled us all (would the boys have sacrificed themselves first? Is that part of the glamping chivalry?) but we coolly and casually walked on and tossed a few apples behind us, to distract the bear from the smell of our juicy flesh. It worked.

A week later, the journalist inside me is still mystified by Doodletown. What was the real story on this funky town? I searched — where else? — nytimes.com and found all sorts of trivia:

- the last remaining residents left Doodletown in 1965, because of plans to build a ski slope in the area – never happened

- the land became known as Doodletown in 1762

- 5,000-10,000 years ago, Munsee Indians inhabited the area

- the people quoted in the NY Times article say to beware of snakes but don’t even mention bears…huh

- the British used the Doodletown trail during the Revolutionary War to attack the Americans, and they won that battle

- the town’s anthem went something like, “Arkansas, Arkansas, I lust love ole Arkansas, Love my ma, love my pa, But I just love ole Arkansas”…oh wait, that was our inside joke, not the NY Times. Trust me, you had to be there.

Bear Mountain truly does feel a world away from Manhattan, so do as we did — print out backpacker.com’s guide, hop on the train at Grand Central, find friends with a car, and show the rain who’s boss.