As we close the chapter on my Park Slope existence, it’s time to reflect on all the food that I’d eat there, day in, day out. The food in Park Slope is very good, sometimes great, sometimes not-so-great, but almost always consistent. It’s best divided into two categories: the food you should eat if you live there and the food you should eat if you visit.
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Jon Robin Baitz is the Pulitzer-prize nominated playwright of such plays as “The Substance of Fire (which starred a young Sarah Jessica Parker), “The Film Society” (which starred a young Nathan Lane), “Three Hotels,” “A Fair Country,” and, most recently, “The Paris Letter.” You may know him better, though, as the creator of the hit ABC show, “Brothers and Sisters.” My grandmother watches that show religiously and, to her, Jon Robin Baitz is something of a god.
Which is why, a few weeks ago, I was a bit startled to see that a god subscribed to my blog. Well, actually, I wasn’t sure. You see the form above where you enter your e-mail address? To make that work, I use a program called Feedblitz. And every so often I visit Feedblitz to see who’s signed up: I’m often surprsied by the names I find–hey, didn’t I go to school with him? Didn’t he beat me up?–and I was doubly surprised to see the name Jon Robin Baitz right there as the most recently subscribed.
Here’s where I took a risk: I decided to e-mail this Jon Robin Baitz to see if he was the famous writer Jon Robin Baitz. Who knows, maybe there are thousands of Jon Robin Baitzes in this world, all from the same unoriginal parents? I wrote a simple message: “Are you the writer and did you just subscribe to my blog? If so, I’m incredibly flattered!” A few minutes later a response came: “I am the writer, yep, but more than that; I love your blog, so much, and your book, and I am a Brooklynite, and you are a tonic.”
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Brooklyn Fish Camp is a restaurant built for summer. And yesterday, before it got gray and cloudy (though not quite rainy), Craig and I adopted the summer spirit and sat outside on the Fish Camp benches, benches that reminded me of summer camp (minus the bullies). The sun beat down on half our table, and I angled my body to stay in the shady half. I was pretty sure I wanted mussels, a nice light lunch because I knew I was having a big dinner, and Craig wanted his usual trout BLT on focaccia bread. But then the waitress went and told us the specials and one of the specials was a side of hush puppies served with a lemon aioli. How could we say no to that? So we ordered those too.
The picture you see above is what she brought out. Hush puppies are basically corn meal fritters; a dough made from corn meal, eggs and milk. The lemon aioli was a nice touch, but the hush puppies were terrific on their own. I can’t think of a better beacon for summer: these should be an obligatory treat on Memorial Day. If you have a recipe, please share it in the comments!
