Thanks to Amy, I heard about a new food blog "This Little Piglet". Lia's a relatively new blogger, since June of 2006, but her blog has some great recipes on it, including this excellent looking Pink Grapefruit Margarita. Rumor has it that she works for the Food Network, but I don't know for sure...
As I read her blog, she was mentioning all the favorite grocery stops around my old neighborhood in Cobble Hill (Brooklyn) and then I almost had a heart attack when she mentioned that of course, she went to the new Fairway in Red Hook.
Now when I moved onto the bad side of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in 1981, also known as Red Hook, this is where the mob used to set cars on fire to get rid of evidence! I was only a couple blocks off the better neighborhood of Cobble Hill and I worked the Gourmet stores of the area, La Violette (later known as Monkey's Wedding), and Cranberry's. Back in the day, these were the only places you could buy decent mustards and vinegars, good cheese, Schaller and Weber's meat, etc.
At the time, Fairway was the ultimate neighborhood shop, on Broadway and 74th in Manhattan, and it had great meat, fish, veg, treats, sauces, cheese --everything you needed for a great dinner. It was up there with the bastions of gourmet in NYC, Balducci's and Zabars. We Brooklynites were jealous.
Did Hell freeze over? Has Red Hook gone so upscale that they have their own Fairway? I can't wait to get back to New York and check it out...
