Cafe Pedlar

Saturday now means Saturday School, children arriving in their uniforms but with the Saturday addition of sneakers, some with tea in their hands, some still with sleep in their eyes even though we start more than two hours later than a regular school day.

Saturday meant brunch with another principal to compare notes, a plate of jalapeno cheese grits with eggs and tortillas and black tea to cut the chill of the suddenly-fall day. We went separate ways and I remembered a foodie email about Cafe Pedlar.

I looked at my phone. I searched on my map. I realized I was standing right next to it.

Because I had no camera on me, just a bag with a computer, calendar and another full of reading assessments, I took the picture from the foodie email. Olive oil cake soaked in such grassy sweetness. A decaf cappuccino with milk rendered so artistically on top I felt twice as badly adding a dollop of turbinado sugar.

I left with a pretzel roll placed across the reading tests. Highly recommended in aforementioned email I was curious - my choices were sesame or poppy (I chose the former) and the whole thing was so slender I wondered about paying 2.50.

I bit into it last night and loved the absence of salt that takes over your mouth with an actual pretzel, although I yearned for a touch of it with the sweet roll and sweet cream butter, I almost wished I ate it with the smoky roasted cappuccino. It was taking the place of a lazy Saturday dinner though, so I ate it up and just drank water instead.

So good I'm almost tempted to hop back on the F train today to try it again, lest my weekends become a bit too predictable.

Brazil, Part 1

We arrived in Sao Paolo early morning, traffic creeping around us everywhere as we snaked through slow-moving mid-day streets. We had decided to stay at Fasano, in the Jardins, thinking that the chicest part of SP would decrease our chance of being robbed.

Sao Paolo had several food adventures. We started with Arabia, where we noticed that Brazilians wear jeans and button downs, men patting each other on the back as we dug into labne, fatoosh, and several kinds of breads. A woman next to us ordered watermelon juice and we drank cold mint tea. Dessert was a platter that allowed us to order by baklava and halva before we closed the meal with Arabic coffee.

While we ate our dinner at Fasano, which was incredibly expensive and not that good, we were much happier with our quiet morning at the Mercado Municipal (pictured), where at a chain food stand we had our first pao de queijo and cafe com leites as people around us shopped for Good Friday dinners of kilos of salt cod and olives and fruits.

Before we left for Rio, we visited a cafe across the street from the other swankiest hotel in SP - Emiliano - and had baguettes with cheese, fried eggs, and our first sucos (juices) - Liam's was lemon verbena and mint and pineapple, mine was apple and ginger and cayenne with not nearly enough of the latter two before we grabbed our second pao de queijo for the day. At the airport.

New Orleans

One thing I miss about our Paris apartment was the light. And my camera. My pictures always came out great. Now I'm often using a phone, and they're not as clear or crisp or macro'd, but in the moment when I'm dipping beignets into au lait, something about it just feels necessary.

I had never been to New Orleans, yet I'd created this culinary wish - I just want beignets and coffee. Maya made it come true, walking us to Cafe du Monde, just a few blocks from our hotel, just an hour before our sessions were starting on Sunday.

I enjoyed the previous day's hotel breakfast. Smaller beignets, grits with cheese, hunks of potato, hotel eggs, Oprah's favorite tea. I chewed through each piece of fried dough at the hotel channeling other memories - soapapillas, carnival friend dough, zeppoles. It got me through.

Sunday morning was something else - a dirty table outside with tourists like us all around, and piles of powdered sugar between here and there. Our dough arrived swimming in the stuff and while I'm not usually a dipper, I plopped each one eagerly into my tiny cup of coffee.

3.00 each. 4.00 with tip. We left our cash on the table, bloated bellies ready for our day, and re-lived our other meals - I had had puppy drum for the first time (Lauren used to catch it in the summers so she knew what it was), a lot of praline, and a mediocre po'boy, but the beignets were truly the best.